Child's Play

Scariest Moment (thrill spoiler): Catherine Hicks picks up the doll and looks in it's back only to reveal it never had batteries in it. Then Chucky's head spins around and screams, "I'm CHUCKY WANNA PLAY?" That scene made me turn off the movie for a while so i could relax.


Chucky is still the King of killer dolls   August 7, 2000
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Note: does contain spoilers.

Child's Play is an excellent slasher movie that introduced Earth to the world of killer dolls.It also introduced us to Chucky,the king of murderous play things.CP has a lot going for it.The story for it's time was highly original and added a very refreshing twist to the slasher genre.It isn't very original anymore due to countless imatations that have followed (Puppet Master,Small Soldiers,etc).The special F/X,though a bit corny compared to some of the advanced F/X these days,are still great.The Chucky F/X are terrific,and to this day I still wonder how he did all those crazy things (imploding house,returning as a burnt zombie doll,etc).The music is also wonderful.It's very suspensful,and adds an additional element of fear.The acting is brilliant. Brad Dourif is devilishly good as the voice of Chucky.The human actors are very convincing as well.And although many people say CP is very funny,beware.Unlike the three sequels that followed, the original CP has plenty of thrills and chills.The beginning and ending sequences really freaked me out when I first saw this. It still does oftentimes.The photography is also slightly "filthy",adding some more suspense.The three following sequels did not have a "filthy" picture.There are some pretty humorous moments too,but CP relies more on scares than humor.Overall, Child's Play is a brilliant slasher movie that's a very welcome addition to a horror fan's library.It may be a bit childish for some considering that the star of the show is a doll,and gore hounds may be a bit disappointed as the level of gore isn't very high (though some killing scenes are gross,like the voodoo doll sequence and Chucky's demise).Also,Chucky has hardly any one-liners,which in Child's Play 2-4 are absolutely loveable. Still,this is a slasher flick well worth your time and cash. Buy it.

Rated R for some gory slasher violence and language.


A Scary Movie Without Much Gore.   February 21, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Most horror movies are filled with gore. For some bizarre reason movie makers seem to think that the bloodier a picture is, the larger the audience will be. However, this really isn't the case. The best horror movies are the ones that don't show much blood and guts; the human imagination can conjure images much more frightening than anything special effects people can come up with. The best horror movies understand this (see the grandmaster of horror and suspense Alfred Hitchcock). CHILD'S PLAY is such a movie.

CHILD'S PLAY revolves around a popular child's toy that becomes possessed by the soul of a convicted murderer and thief. In the film's opening sequence, the killer dies in a toy store after being struck by lightening while chanting voodoo over a toy doll that looks remarkably similar to the popular "My Buddy" dolls of the late 1980's. The doll is bought by a desperate single mother from a bum behind the department store where she works. The mother takes the child home to her son and from there the real terror begins.

The premise of the movie is fairly believable, after all who hasn't been afraid of some doll or other when they were a kid? However, it suspensefully builds upon that premise from one scene to the next. A show of a toy's hand here and a burst of childlike laughter there is all that is needed to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

However, not only that, but CHILD'S PLAY is a horror film filled with wit and humor. Long before SCREAM "heralded" a new way to make scary movies, there was CHILD'S PLAY. To begin with, there's the previous mention of the obvious play on the once popular My Buddy dolls. However, the film is filled with pop culture references and a play on the horror formula (they always come back at the end). Sometimes these moments are cheesy. However, even the cheesy moments are done in such a way that they are humorous, rather than corny.

Overall, a clever scary movie worth watching.


Chucky's first rampage   May 18, 2003
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

In the south side of Chicago, a detective, Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon), chases a serial killer, Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), dubbed "The Lakeshore Strangler". Ray's accomplice, Eddie Caputo, ditches him to save his own hide. Ray and Norris shoot it out in a toy store. Ray is injuried and threatends to get revenge. He then transfers his soul into a popular toy, A Good Guy.
Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent)is celebrating his sixth birthday and his widowed mother, Karen (Catherine Hicks), is saddend at the fact she couldn't get him a Good Guy for his birthday.
Karen and her best friend, Maggie Peterson (Dinah Manoff)find a Good Guy doll in the alley in the back of the depatment store.
Karen brings the doll back home to her son. Maggie has to baby-sit Andy that night and immeadiatley, strange things begin to happen. Television sets turn on, strange noises, etc. Maggie is then struck with a Good Guy hammer in the eye and is forced out of the window.
Director Tom Holland (Fright Night) made a masterpiece of a film with this. It looks so real for it's time without all that corny clay-mation stuff of the 80's. Y'all know what I'm talking about. This is a truely compelling and scurry movie. I saw this movie when I was nine and it scurred me. The acting is terrific and well done. The movie becomes even more terrifying when Chucky wants to transfer his soul into young Andy's body. Holland did a very well job with a thriller about an innocent looking doll harboring the soul of a killer who wasn't ready to die.
The music is also great. The ending credits score was the best and mesmirizing music of the 'Child's Play' series.
The ending was great, too. With the door closing on the broken, burned remninents of Chucky.