Review: Child's Play (1988)

Child's Play (1988)

Rated R

Score: 4 out of 5

One of the few solid original, non-sequel hits to emerge from the late period of '80s slashers, Child's Play is a slasher movie with a simple, ingenious, seemingly comical twist on the usual slasher movie plot: what if the killer was a living, two-foot-tall children's doll? It's clear that everybody involved was angling to make an "iconic" slasher villain, and given how so many people are afraid of dolls, especially the kind of "lifelike" dolls that this film's antagonist is based on, the only surprise wasn't that this movie was a franchise-spawning hit even for an audience that was burned out on slashers, but that it took until 1988 for a hit movie to run with the idea. Because Child's Play is still a treat after all these years. While tamer than most slashers when it comes to its kills, it's elevated by a pair of excellent performances from its heroine and villain, outstanding special effects work for the doll itself, creative use of that doll, and a unique setting unlike most '80s slashers. It's a very enjoyable movie with just enough of a dark sense of humor to acknowledge the fundamental silliness at the core of its story, but one that doesn't distract from its very real scares.

Set on the mean streets of Chicago, the film starts with the wanted serial killer Charles Lee Ray being hunted down by police. After he flees into a toy store and gets mortally wounded, Ray, in a last-ditch effort to survive, turns to a voodoo spell that an old Haitian friend of his taught him to transfer his soul into another being. There aren't any humans nearby he can use the spell on, so he'll have to make do with one of the Good Guy dolls lining the store's shelves. The next day, Karen Barclay, a single mother and department store clerk, is desperate to scrounge up the cash to get her six-year-old son Andy one of those Good Guy dolls he wants so badly, at least until her co-worker Maggie gets her in touch with a homeless street vendor who recovered just such a doll from a toy store that got struck by lightning last night and is willing to sell it for dirt-cheap. Turns out that there's a good reason why that "lightning strike" left this doll suspiciously intact: it's now inhabited by Ray's soul, introducing himself to Andy as "Chucky", and getting back to his old ways, targeting both those who crossed him in life and anyone unlucky enough to get in his way while seeking a way to become human again. And thanks to some complicated voodoo rules, the only way to do so is to put his soul into Andy's body. As Chucky targets Andy, Karen teams up with Mike Norris, the detective who (thought he) took down Chucky the first time and is naturally skeptical of her claims at first, and must race to save her son before it's too late.

At the center of this film is, of course, its unique killer. Chucky is more than a gimmick here; he's not just a brute like Jason Voorhees crammed into a pint-sized package. Rather, he uses his small size to his advantage and makes stealth his main weapon, ruthlessly exploiting the fact that he can hide in and access places that human beings are too small to reach. Many people love to joke about how they can probably take Chucky without a problem in a mano-a-mano fight, and while they may be right, the thing about Chucky is that he won't give you that chance. No, he'll quietly swoop in and slash at your ankles to cut you down to size first, making sure that you can't bring your size advantage to bear when he goes for the kill; that, or he'll just rig a gas explosion in your house. Chucky fights dirty in ways that most slashers are depicted as too simple-minded and straightforward to do, and that's reflected in his personality. The slasher icon who Chucky has the most in common with is, without a doubt, Freddy Krueger, most expressly in the fact that he speaks and has a recognizably human and often quite humorous personality. Specifically, he felt like he stood halfway between the Freddy from the original Nightmare on Elm Street and the Freddy from Dream Warriors and the later sequels in his sense of humor, being a bit more lighthearted than the cold-blooded murderer Freddy started out as but also more serious than the jokester he became. Brad Dourif played Chucky here as an angry, cynical, misanthropic thug who got dumped into the body of a doll, the film recognizing the humor of the situation but feeling little need to spotlight it, not when Dourif himself was plenty capable of giving Chucky a sick sense of humor of his own, expressed less through witty one-liners and more in the form of creative ways of telling people to go fuck themselves. He felt like an evil, murderous version of Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad, and not just with his love of the word "bitch".

The film's setting in the grungy streets of Chicago also lends it a unique atmosphere unlike many '80s slashers, especially with its protagonists being a working mother, a detective, and a young boy rather than teenagers. Most of the action takes place in back alleys, abandoned buildings, dingy apartments, and other relics of urban decay where Chucky is made to feel right at home even with his ridiculous new body, and if anything, seems to be relishing the freedom that going under suspicion gives him. This setting does a lot to frame the heroine Karen, who's struggling to support her son and putting in long hours at work in order to make ends meet. Catherine Hicks did good work as Karen, a tough cookie of a mom who, upon finding out that Chucky is evil, spends much of the film as the lone voice trying to warn people, not least of all the police, about her son's new doll, and growing increasingly frustrated as nobody believes a story that, on the surface, makes her sound crazy. I also liked Chris Sarandon as Norris, the detective who thought he'd seen it all in his years on the force but, as it turns out, can still be surprised by the shit he has to deal with. Even Alex Vincent was good as young Andy, particularly a scene late in the film where he absolutely breaks down in fear as Chucky confronts him, as well as an earlier scene where he nonchalantly repeats to his mother some of the awful things Chucky told him.

As for its merits as a slasher, it felt remarkably old-fashioned in its scares given how it came out so late in the game, when slashers had become infamous for gore and brutality. Chucky's body count is fairly low, and while the kills are creative, they're mostly light on blood. No, the effects here mostly went into the killer himself, and for a low-mid-budget horror film from the '80s, Chucky looks spectacular. The special effects team did outstanding work bringing the little bastard to life, using a mix of animatronics for the close-ups, a 3'6" stunt performer for the action scenes, and a solid game of keeping him in the shadows or shooting from his perspective to stretch their budget as far as they could. This isn't cheesy, obvious puppet work out of a cheesy B-movie; I was often wondering how they managed to shoot certain scenes without being able to digitally erase the wires controlling the robotic puppet. Between the effects and Dourif's voice performance, Chucky felt real enough to have a presence far in excess of his small stature, making his threat to the characters around him feel a lot more real and immediate.

The Bottom Line

There's a reason why Child's Play spawned a long-lasting franchise that continues to this day. At its core, it's a rock-solid, old-school slasher flick with a creative twist and enough of a sense of humor about itself and that twist to make it a genuinely fun thrill ride.