CHILD'S PLAY

Child's Play is a rather entertaining little horror flick released back in 1988 about a demonically-possessed murderous doll named Chucky. The film begins with a cop chasing after a notorious serial killer who's been dubbed the Lakeshore Strangler. After The Strangler's partner-in-crime flees, the cop corners The Strangler in a toy store (of course!) where he gets shot by the cop. Before he dies, he transfers his soul to a doll called a Good Guy doll by chanting this voodoo spell. Suddenly the store is struck by lightning and explodes, making the cop believe that The Strangler is dead & buried. The possessed Good Guy doll is bought by this single mom from this homeless man who found the doll in the wreckage of the toy store for her young son for his birthday. Having to stay and work late at her job, she has her friend and coworker pick up her son at school and babysit him at their apartment where she gives him the doll. The doll introduces himself to the kid with his infamous tagline: "Hi, I'm Chucky. Wanna play?" Of course, when the babysitter puts the kid--and Chucky--to bed, Chucky ends up hitting said babysitter with a hammer and throws her out the kitchen window where she plunges to her death. And, of course, the cop who "killed" the Lakeshore Strangler believes that it may have been the mother's son who did the evil deed and doesn't believe the kid when he says that Chucky did it. Afterwards, Chucky "convinces" the kid to skip school one day and take him by bus to his former partner's place so he can seek revenge for his ditching him the night he got shot by the cop. He ends up blowing up his house and, again, the cop believes the kid had something to do with it and ends up taking him away from his mother and putting him in a psych ward. The mother finally sees that her son is telling the truth when Chucky tries to kill her when she sees that he's "operating" without batteries. However, she still has no luck convincing the cop of that. That is, until Chucky tries to stab the cop while he's driving in his car in what's got to be the most memorable--and hilarious--scene in the flick. Chucky manages to escape and the cop and the boy's mother work together to defeat Chucky once and for all (or at least until the sequel!). Actor Brad Dourif, of course, did the voice of Chucky and, in my opinion, did for the Chucky character what actor Robert Englund did for the Freddy Kruger character in the Nightmare On Elm Street horror franchise. The film spawned a number of sequels, including the horrifically bad Seed Of Chucky. However, unlike some of the sequels (especially the later ones), the first Child's Play was more of a straight-up horror flick. Made on what would today be regarded as a "shoestring" budget, I think one of the reasons why the film works as a horror flick because it plays upon the childhood--and even adult--fear of the "creepy" doll. I think a lot of people can remember seeing that one doll when they were a kid that not only looked creepy-as-hell but looked like it could come alive at any moment and just strangle the life out of you. I mean, let's face it, Chucky just as a doll alone would probably scare the living hell out of most kids AND adults even without the serial killer's soul inside of it, you know what I mean? Even this blog's namesake Roger Ebert gave this film a positive review even though he was known to not be a major fan of horror flicks. Actually, I thought the kid--who appeared in subsequent Child's Play sequels--was about as creepy as Chucky in this film, especially towards the end when he (spoiler alert!) sets Chucky on fire in the fireplace while he's trying to choke his mom (but then, kids in horror flicks tend to creep me out anyway, but I digress!).

Here's a clip of the car scene from Child's Play (from YouTube):