CHILD'S PLAY

I have a strong feeling that I would have torn Chucky limb from limb, buried the pieces all over the school yard, and told my mom he got stolen. But not Andy!

I was eleven years old when Child's Play first hit theaters, so my classmates and I were exactly the right age to be terrified by a murderous talking doll named Chucky. I imagined the movie being horrifying beyond my wildest dreams, but when I finally saw it three years later, it only made me smile. Oh, I enjoyed it very much, but somehow it just struck me as funny. Whether Child's Play leaves you biting your nails or making wisecracks at the screen, it's just as much fun now as it was twenty years ago.

When little Andy Barclay's birthday rolls around, he's so excited to open his presents that he's just about ready to pop. He just knows that the great big box by the window is going to contain a coveted Good Guy doll. He's already got all the accessories, including a Good Guy outfit, and he loves nothing more than watching the Good Guy television show. Now, if you're already balking at the notion of a little boy pining after a giant baby doll, let me remind you of the My Buddy phenomenon of the mid-80s. I never met a kid who actually had one, but we were inundated with ads for them during Saturday morning cartoons to the point where we actually believed that somewhere out there kids were having crazy fun with their new stuffed friends. Even as I type this, the My Buddy song is running through my head, so don't be laughing at Andy and his doll. He was a victim of the times... in more ways than one.

Sadly, the big box by the window does not contain a Good Guy doll, but rather a whole heap of new school clothes. Yay! Thanks, Mom! Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) senses her son's disappointment, but as a recently widowed single mom, how can she possibly afford a hundred dollar doll? She heads to work with a heavy heart, but things look up when her best friend Maggie (Dinah Manoff) discovers a hobo selling a Good Guy doll out of a shopping cart in the back alley. They race outside to check things out, and upon confirming that the doll is authentic, Karen purchases her Good Guy for the rock-bottom price of $30. Andy, of course, is over the moon, and barely even minds that his mom has to head back to work for a second shift and he has to spend his birthday evening with Maggie. Who cares about any of that when you've got a Good Guy named Chucky who has just turned his gargantuan head in your direction, stared you right in the eye and promised, "I'll be your friend til the end"?

Everything is rosy until Maggie tells Andy to get ready for bed. Chucky supposedly wants to stay up and watch the 9:00 news, and Maggie appropriately rolls her eyes and tells Andy to shape up and simmer down. She picks up Chucky by the arm, visibly pulling it out of the socket, and hauls them both back to the bedroom. It's a little freaky when she finds Chucky back in the living room watching the TV, but again Andy takes the fall for being naughty, and Maggie goes about her business. And then she gets the creeps. And then Chucky smacks her in the head with a hammer and she falls out the window and lands on the roof of a car. It's the ultimate movie death trifecta!

Karen returns home to find her apartment filled with cops and her best friend dead. Making matters worse, Andy keeps telling stories about Chucky, and a footprint at the murder scene matches Andy's. Could this sweet little boy actually be involved in Maggie's death? After he and Chucky take the train out of the city and blow up a house, the authorities seem to think so.

Here I just have to pause and ask all of you what you would have done if, at age six, your brand new talking doll asked you to leave school and take a train to a strange part of town. Would you actually have done it? Even if the doll sweetened the deal by threatening to kill you? I have a strong feeling that I would have torn Chucky limb from limb, buried the pieces all over the school yard, and told my mom he got stolen. But not Andy!

Our poor little hero winds up in a psychiatric hospital, and Karen is left to clear her son's name. She quickly discovers that Chucky has been doing a lot of talking without the benefit of batteries, and soon this Good Guy is trying to kill her too. She reports her findings to Officer Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon), and after awhile even he catches on that Chucky is bad news. It seems that a career criminal by the name of Charles Lee Ray was able to invoke some sort of weird voo-doo at the time of his death, and is now living on inside the Chucky doll. That'll teach you to buy things from hobos in dark alleys!

As the rest of the movie unfolds, we watch as Chucky tries to kill Andy, and then Karen and Mike try to kill Chucky, and then Chucky tries to kill Karen and Mike, and so on. This goes on and on for quite awhile, mainly because Chucky refuses to die. They're supposed to shoot him in the heart, but no one ever bothers to make sure he's dead. I guess this is fairly typical of characters in movies, and it is pretty entertaining when a charred, disembodied, one-legged Chucky comes wobbling in the room to continue his rampage.

Though Andy is exonerated, you can bet that Chucky will be back, as evidenced by the string of sequels that followed. (I knew they should have buried the parts in different places!) The movie lacks the depth and character development that could have lifted it above typical horror fare, but it's still an enjoyable, if sometimes silly, movie.

DVD NOTES

The Chucky's 20th Birthday Edition is chock-full of extras, including audio commentary with Alex Vincent (who played Andy), Catherine Hicks, and Chucky designer Kevin Yagher or Producer David Kirschner and Screenwriter Don Mancini. Our main man Chucky even offers scene specific commentary if you're wondering what was running through his evil mind as the cameras were rolling. A smattering of making-of featurettes delve into the creation of Chucky and Child's Play and include interviews with the cast and crew. A still photo gallery rounds out the bonus features.