Child’s Play (1988)
Toys ‘R MurderoUS in this creepy movie.
Brief Backstory
Thanks to the popularity of Halloween (1978) and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, horror movies involving serial killers became a common thing for a long time. During the 1980s, other famous slashers like Jason and Freddy became popular among the horror fanbase. Obviously there were other famous ones, such as Chucky, who got his debut in 1988 in Child’s Play.
Story
Karen buys her son Andy a talking toy possessed by a criminal. After Maggie is murdered, Andy is implied to be insane yet in the end he’s not joking.
Random Facts
According to a Hollywood Reporter page, Chucky had too much on-screen time during a test screening so nearly a half an hour of film footage was removed to make the film scarier (Weiner, 2018). This made Child’s Play a little more on the same level of disturbing nature as a lot of older horror movies.
You think Twilight Zone inspired this movie? I remember watching that episode with the gremlin on a plane and a man kept saying he saw one. No one believed him and he ended up in the funny house. Another episode involving a live doll, which probably backs up my claim (Weiner, 2018).
Random Opinions
I don’t think this movie’s funny. But that’s not a bad thing.
Fully agreed with the response to reduce the amount of time of Chucky being on-screen. I like seeing monsters on screen, but unless it’s not a horror movie then keep it off screen as much as possible and only show it when necessary. I haven’t seen a lot of horror movies past the early 1990s but given the more negative reviews of newer horror movies it’s likely that if a monster’s shown way too much or too early it can cripple the movie’s reception. Why do you think the Bumble from Rudolph was nightmarish to viewers for years? You only saw his legs when Donner was with Rudolph, then a very short small glimmer of him as Rudolph and Hermey were out in the tundra, THEN he shows up in the fur out of nowhere after Yukon Cornelius gave them both a ride for stocking up on some items. This is the same reason why Child’s Play got a far better reception after the test screening.
Even if Chucky wasn’t evil I’d still think he was creepy.
Pros
- Animatronic for Chucky holds up well after so many years.
- Several funny lines.
- Chucky is a tiny nightmare.
- This movie doesn’t drag on too long.
Cons
- Exactly how did Andy’s place not have an out of control fire? There were parts where at the end Chucky was on top of sofa, and I’m pretty sure that’s flammable. This isn’t really a big deal but just something I found a little off.
Rating: 9/10 – Amazing
Child’s Play is one of the best horror movies of the 1980s and belongs up there with Nightmare on Elm Street and They Live.
References
Weiner, D. (2018, November 5). How “child’s play” survived bad test screenings to become a horror classic. The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/first-childs-play-test-screenings-were-terrible-1156071/
One response to “Child’s Play”
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Child’s Play is an 8/10 for me. I also wrote every single movie up to Chucky’s second season streaming on Peacock. Child’s Play 2-Seed of Chucky weren’t good. I liked Curse of Chucky & Cult of Chucky. They’re both huge improvements. You’ll like Chucky’s girlfriend, Tiffany. She’s kinda like Harley Quinn. As of early May, I’m currently working on an article on Chucky’s third season. I got a lot of TV reviews on my plate.
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