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Child’s Play is an upbeat horror movie that places itself between the murder subgenre and the more intelligent scary features. It tells the story of Charles Lee Ray also known as Chucky, a serial killer who now takes the form of a doll. Chucky is the puppet of the Lake Shore Strangler, a Chicago mass murderer and black magician renowned for his voodoo skills. After the strangler gets shot by a police officer, he is left for dead in a toy store. Once there, he is able to retrieve enough strength to recite a voodoo spell resulting in clouds churning ominously in the sky accompanied by magic lightning. One of the many other immense explosions this movie has in store comes after this scene.
Now focusing on Karen Barclay, a widow with a son, who in addition to grieving the death of her husband now works as a sales representative at Carson Pirie Scott. To her dismay, her son becomes fixated on a lifelike doll he has seen advertised on TV. Unfortunately, Karen is not in the financial position to buy it so instead she purchases a cheap doll from a vendor in an alleyway. I’ll give you three guesses as to which Lake Shore Strangler has haunted this doll.
When Chucky the doll comes home, he plays nice with the adults but hits it off with Karen’s son, Andy (Alex Vincent). Chucky convinces Andy to do some things for him, like carrying him into the living room so he can watch the news of the toy store explosion. After some time, when the babysitter becomes too curious, Chucky slams a claw thrown at her head, sending her crashing through a window to the concrete floor miles beneath her.
The claw hammer scene is a textbook example of False Alarm, one of the basic horror devices all slasher films use. Whenever there’s a fright and the fright turns out not to amount to anything, the film takes a pause to catch its breath and then whacks the audience with the real fright.
Although Child’s Play is rated as a false alarm, it certainly qualifies as one of the better movies. This is because it is well produced, has good performances, and most importantly, it pulls off creating an evil doll to perfection. Chucky is truly scary.
This movie also has a good plot wrinkle that no one will believe a doll is alive. Andy tells everyone, but no one believes him. Then his mom starts realizing the doll Chucky is moving and speaking, and the best part, is his batteries are not included. No one will believe her.
Once the demon child practically strangles the police detective (Chris Sarandon) and damages his squad vehicle, the officer is now convinced that Chucky is more than just a myth. (Interestingly, in the following scene, the officer meets the mother but does not bother to speak about what has just occurred to him. In a film like this one, there is a great deal that is needed to capture your focus which is also dispersed in the rest parts) Second Film Note: The movie wraps up with exemplary showcases of two other conventions present in all Mad Slasher films. One of these is the fact that, after the monster has been slain, he is not truly dead. He appears dead, burned beyond recognition, and filled with bullets, but then at some peaceful and tranquil moment,t we have yet another Whammo! Moment and the wretched thing is still functional. The second of these conventions is that the movies always leave the door open for a sequel and “Child’s Play” manages that in a very sarcastic way. The last shot of the movie is of a slightly open door.
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