“Child’s Play” DVD Review

Happy 20th birthday, Chucky! It seems like only yesterday I was too much of a sissy to watch the first “Child’s Play.” It’s pretty amazing that a possessed Good Guy doll is almost old enough to drink. That the first film still holds up, probably better than the latter two sequels, is even more amazing.

I think I’d seen the first “Child’s Play” only once before when I was about 12 or 13. It’s a fairly straightforward horror film, not like the sequels which are basically send-ups of the killer doll horror subgenre. But the original “Child’s Play” actually taps into every parent’s fear that they’re son or daughter is really a budding psychopath.

In the film, Catherine Hicks — most famous for being in the “Star Trek” movie that non-fans describe as “the one with the whales” — plays a single mother who buys her son Andy (Alex Vincent) a Good Guy doll for his birthday. Unfortunately, the doll, who calls himself Chucky, is actually possessed with the spirit of a serial killer (Academy Award winner Brad Dourif) named Charles Lee Ray. Ray, it seems, knows a thing or two about voodoo and when he became mortally wounded during a toy store shootout with grizzled cop Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon), he passed his soul into a doll until a more suitable host body can be found.

I love this kind of stuff.

It should be pointed out that the magic spell Ray casts on the doll for soul transference doesn’t work in real life. I tried it on my cat, and we did not swap bodies.

At any rate, “Child’s Play” is one of those rare gems of the slasher genre, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Audiences were tired of the endless “Friday the 13th” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Halloween” sequels by the late-’80s. But “Child’s Play” brought something new to the table. What if your favorite childhood toy was also a mass murderer? It’s like recasting E.T. with the Xenomorph from “Alien.” I think it’s a brilliant approach. Four sequels have since been made, and the inevitable remake has recently been announced.

It seems like you can’t keep a Good Guy down.

-Brad Lohan

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