Review: Child's Play (1988)

Stars: Brad Dourif, Chris Sarandon

Budget: $9 Million

Directed By: Tom Holland

Oh child's play you know I looooove horror franchises, especially if they star some kind of weird homicidal killer. Be that a drowned retarded boy, a Shatner masked mentally disturbed brother or a guy who kills you in your sleep.
I am just a massive sucker for a series I can just stick on and watch start to finish for a good few hours of my life.

Running from the police Charles Lee Ray a serial killer escapes to a department store. When he is shot by detective Norris his partner escapes leaving him to bleed out. Before he dies however Charles manages to transfer his soul into a good guy doll.
As the spell completes a bolt of lightening levels the shop. Norris then discovers the corpse of Charles believing the killer has just bled out from his wound.

The next day we meet Andy Barclays mum who seems like a very hard worker just to keep her and her son with a home and fed. Andy has wanted a Good Guy doll, Karen manages to find one from a homeless guy for Andy.
The next night While Andy is being babysat once he goes to bed the sitter is attacked by the doll, proclaiming he's called Chucky now. After she is hit in the face by a hammer then falls from the window to her death. Detective Norris comes on the case and seems to think Andy may have had something to do with her death. His mother Karen balks at this idea and puts Andy to bed.

The next day Chucky forces Andy to take a train downtown so he can sort out one of his old friends, very same guy that left him to die in the store. Chucky sabotages his his cooker which causes it to explode and kill his ex-partner. Despite her misgivings as it's her son, Karen is powerless when the police section Andy in a mental hospital.
Karen very soon realises that the doll never had it's batteries put in from the get go, quickly she believes Andy's story. She goes to check out Chucky who comes to life in her hands and begins to fight her, biting kicking and kicking her.

Though he just escapes from Karen, going to the police she tries to make detective Norris believe the story, even showing him the bite mark. He doesn't believe her until he's attacked and nearly killed a number of times in his car by Chucky himself.
Chucky goes to his old voodoo friend who taught him the tricks of the trade, since he was able to bleed in doll form he's worried. Rightly so too as he's told being inside the doll for to long it will become more and more human until his soul becomes totally trapped inside it.
It is revealed he must transfer his soul to the first person he told his secret too or he will never be human again. Chucky kills his teacher when he refuses to help him, Karen and Norris show up just in time for the man to tell them he can be killed by his heart which is now totally human.

Chucky shows up at the mental hospital to try and get to Andy, the kid manages to trick the doll long enough to escape. He's unfortunately caught by Dr Ardmore he tries to sedate Andy unsuccessfully, he's then killed by Chucky with the electroshock gear.
Andy somehow makes it home only to be knocked out by Chucky with a baseball bat suddenly. He begins to cast the spell to transfer his soul and nearly completes it too before Karen and Norris get back to stop him. They manage to set fire to Chucky and think he's dead once he ends up an almost charred lump of plastic. Karen manages to shoot off Chucky's head, leg and arm, the rest of the police up to help then. Chucky's body is no where to be found proving he's still not dead, only for the burnt crazily mutilated doll to attack again.

As always i'll leave it there as THN doesn't spoil endings so we'll leave it there, this film was and still is a masterpiece of suspense. you hardly see the doll for a good portion of the film and just see from his perspective, this was a brilliant way to make the film more eerie back then. The films did lose that flair in the sequels which quickly devolved into more comedy horror as time went by, those reviews are for another day though. THN proudly awards Child's Play a maximum score of 5 out of 5!