Child’s Play (R)

Ask anyone to make a list identifying the things that freak them out the most. Almost certainly, dolls/mannequins/puppets will be on everyone’s list. Why? The term is pediophobia (a sect of automatonophobia), and psychologists advise it stems from the afflicted having the intellectual uncertainty about whether or not an object is alive. The more lifelike the doll, the greater the fear. This explains why a teddy bear or stuffed tiger is fun and a ventriloquist dummy is downright terrifying.

Medical terminology aside, dolls scare the crap out of me, and have long been the source of horror movies (Dead Silence, Dolls, Puppetmaster to name just a few). Even the most kindhearted and benevolent of lifelike creepies scare the hell out of me (see Wendy, the red haired terror from the fast food chain), but that’s another story.

The original “Child’s Play,” released in 1988, was one of my first forays into terror as a kid – and the film is downright scary. Never mind the complete foolishness that transpires with the sequels (“Child’s Play” 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Chucky Gets Married, Chucky Buys a Yacht, Chucky Runs for Congress, etc) and the original goes down as an all time Halloween classic. I remember closing my eyes when the commercials advertising its release in the theatres and on video were on TV. This movie created a legion of Generation X’ers (like me) scared to death of dolls.

When serial killer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) is shot by Chicago Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon) he takes refuge in a toy store. A voodoo ritual, lightning strike, and huge fire erupt through the store and in the aftermath, Ray is dead, his body found next to a toy doll (from a series of toys called Good Guy Dolls).

Six-year-old Andy (Alex Vincent) is requesting his single mother (7 th Heaven’s Catherine Hicks) get him a Good Guy Doll for his birthday after he sees the talking doll on a TV commercial. Unable to afford a new one, Karen purchases a Good Guy Doll from a street vendor and surprises her son that evening.

Bad things transpire. Andy is blamed. He protests that the doll, nicknamed Chucky, is really the culprit.

I think you all know what happens next.

Child’s Play can be described as a tale of two movies. The first half of the film is a perfectly blended and terrifying presence of a truly sinister looking doll. And at this point, it is really just a creepy toy (picture My Buddy morphed with a Cabbage Patch Kid). You watch with bated breath as Andy takes the doll to bed, watches TV with it, and converses with it in a truly horrifying way. As far as horror movies go the first half of the film scores an A.

And then? Chucky comes to life, his spooky doll sounds replaced by Dourif’s obtuse and foul voice-over, and his ominous motionless presence substituted with the agility of a chimp wearing Nikes.

The pivotal scene begins as one of horror’s most notorious. Alone in the apartment with the doll, Karen begins to ponder what Andy has been telling her since the beginning – that Chucky is alive. With sinister music and slow built anticipation, Karen proceeds to analyze the doll. You will be utterly terrified as the scene progresses. She continues to watch the doll. You expect it to come to life. But it doesn’t. She picks it up. She drops it in terror when she realizes no batteries – the point where Chucky shows her what the audience has long suspected – that he is in fact alive – as he attempts to kill Karen.

And with that, the complete ruination of the film is on. For the next 40 minutes the once chilling doll becomes Charles Lee Ray again, a cartoonish potty-mouthed trucker with crude manners, seizing the reins as the star of the film in a vulgar potty-mouthed rage.

The story is crippled after that scene, and all of the fear from the first half of the film is shattered. All of the mystery is gone. All of the excitement and the buildup of terror is gone, with Chucky, who was once a super villain, now reduced to just a midget with a knife, and you’ll ask yourself over and over again…can’t anyone stop him with a good swift kick?

The terror of “Child’s Play” resides in the thought that the lifeless best friend of a young boy could be capable of horrible things. Make no mistake, the movie is scary, and a great horror flick. I feel it could have been much better but c’mon, I’m also the guy that to this day is afraid of a porcelain, red-haired doll in my mom’s bedroom that as a boy I referred to as Chucky.

– by Matt Christopher