Child's Play (

1988

) ½

On the surface, there are few things less intimidating that you could use as an antagonist for a horror film than a doll. These things are so small that they are regularly carried around by toddlers, and so fragile that they are often broken accidentally by a fall from the counter. Yet, not only are there a surprising number of films about evil dolls, there are a surprising number of film franchises about evil dolls. It's a cinematic tradition that dates back at least to the 1960s with movies like Devil Doll (1964) and still fills up theaters with movies like Annabelle (2014) and its steady stream of sequels and knock-offs. The reason for the enduring appeal is obvious, as dolls are just human enough to fall into the uncanny valley and access the underlying fear we all have for something that looks kinda human but isn't. Though evil doll films have been a topic of cinematic exploration for the better part of a cenmtury, it was the late 1980s and early 1990s where the trend really exploded with offerings as diverse as Dolls (1986), Dolly Dearest (1991), Demonic Toys (1992), Puppetmaster (1989), and of course today's film and the most successful and enduring of them all: Child's Play.

The reason for this sudden influx of evil doll movies is a combination of factors, a general trend back towards supernatural horror after many years of more-mundane slashers, a push for more comic horror villains after the success of jokey slashers like the sequels to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and then good-old-fashioned copying the homework of other successful films in the period. Though in the case of Child's Play, there was an additional catalyst: The horrifying My Buddy doll that had hit the market a few years earlier, promising to teach young boys about kindness and friendship and instead filling them with gnawing dread whenever it stared at them with its unblinking eyes. Child's Play is not even especially subtle in its inspiration, choosing to dress their fictional “Good Guy” dolls in the same rainbow sweater and overalls combo of the real-world My Buddy doll.

It's pretty clear that the filmmakers started with the idea of an evil killer doll modeled after My Buddy first and then hastily worked backwards on how to make said doll a monster, as the way Chucky the killer doll comes about is beyond contrived. Seriously, a serial killer getting cornered by the cops in a toy-store shoot-out and then using his hitherto unmentioned voodoo magic to transfer his soul into a nearby doll sounds like some real first-draft bullshit. It also seems a bit absurd because the foul-mouthed, tough-talking Chucky (or Charles Lee Ray as he goes by while still human) does not seem like the kind of guy who would fervently study the occult, being more the type of character to hear talk of magic and resurrection and just roll his eyes. Moreover, he doesn't really use this magic to carry out any of his other murders once he becomes a doll, aside from one scene where his victim has already helpfully created a voodoo doll for him to use. You would think that magic would be a great equalizer when you have to fight opponents who are five times your size. Still, as silly as this premise is, it gets the job done expeditiously enough, and that must have been a concern for the filmmakers because why else would they combine the opening credits with the tense shootout between Charles Lee Ray and detective Mike Norris?

As a side effect of casting his voodoo magic, lightning strikes the toy store and causes it to explode in a massive fireball that should probably have left Detective Norris with more than a few serious injuries. I guess the ruins of the toy store were considered nothing more than a write-off after the explosion, because hobos prowl through the remains and gather up toys that they can sell secondhand for a bit of drinking money. That is how the Chucky the doll possessed by Charles Lee Ray passes into the hands of struggling single mother Karen Barclay and from there into the hands of her six-year-old son Andy.

Andy is thrilled at his new companion and immediately begins conversing with him and acting as if the doll is real, as you would expect from a six-year-old with an active imagination. Though it's a little odd when Andy insists to his babysitter that Chucky wants to watch the 9:00 news, I would believe that a six year old would try to trick his babysitter into letting him stay up to watch some juicy bit of prime time TV, but even in 1988 when the late night TV pickings were slim, what kinder-gardener is trying to tune into the nightly news? The babysitter sends Andy and Chucky off to bed, but Chucky, incensed at not being allowed to watch TV, clonks her on the head with a baseball bat and then pushes out of the apartment window.

Of course, we don't know that Chucky is the one doing the killing, because for some bizarre reason, Child's Play is going to pretend that it's a mystery for a little while, and throw out Andy as a red herring. So in this first scene, we do not see Chucky attack and kill the babysitter; we only see him scampering around in the background, and coincidentally, he is dressed in the same outfit as Andy. This doesn't make much sense from the audience's perspective. We saw Charles Lee Ray use voodoo to possess the doll in the film's opening. We know that he actually has magical powers, too, because he was able to call down a lightning bolt and destroy the toy store. It's not a surprise to us that Chucky is running around murdering people; indeed, if you watched any trailer for this movie before going to the theater, you almost certainly saw just that. We know that Andy didn't just snap and decide to go on a killing spree, though it's pretty understandable that the police and shrinks in the movie treat him as the prime suspect.

However, in service of this rather silly mystery plot, the film is forced to add a small but ridiculous detail. The police discover some evidence about the murder in the form of shoe prints on the kitchen counters. Andy couldn't have left those naturally, since he was already tucked into bed, and who wears shoes to bed? As it turns out, Andy has on Good Guy-branded “PJ Sneakers.” I know that kids will ask their parents to buy them a lot of junk just because it has the right brand on it or a catchy TV jingle, but no kid is voluntarily wearing shoes to bed, and even the most hair-brained marketing department is going to hesitate on approving such a bizarre product.

Still, if the mystery about the murdered babysitter is a little thin, it gets downright anorexic the next day when Andy, following the advice of Chucky, skips school and takes the subway to a bad neighborhood in Chicago to give Chucky a chance to kill his old associate Eddie Caputo. Chucky accomplishes this by turning on the gas stove and then baiting Eddie into shooting it, creating a massive fireball that destroys the entire building Eddie was hiding out in. All the money in this film's budget that didn't go into the, admittedly quite impressive, robotic doll must have gone to pyrotechnics because this is our second gratuitous explosion. The police discover Andy and his doll at the scene and take him in to be evaluated by a shrink, never asking how this boy knew where a wanted fugitive was hiding or why he would want to kill him.

In any event, it's up to Karen to prove her son's innocence, but unfortunately, she doesn't have a lot of leads to go on. Indeed, it's so bad that her only option is to believe the little boy when he says that Chucky was the one who killed his babysitter and Eddie Caputo. In short order, she finds herself in the ridiculous position of interrogating the doll, but when she threatens to set it on fire if it doesn't fess up, Chucky springs to life and attacks her before fleeing into the city. Now Karen will have to catch the doll and somehow get somebody to believe her absolutely insane story.

Chucky, for his part, discovers that his doll body is slowly becoming human, and after seeking out his old voodoo master, discovers that the only way he can stop the processes is to possess the body of the first person he revealed his true nature to: Andy. Chucky is elated at the possibility of becoming a kid again, and cheerfully departs, telling the voodoo master that he has a “date with a six-year-old boy,” which is probably the most horrific line in an otherwise rather tame and silly horror movie.

The main appeal here is going to be comedic, as it's always funny to see a silly little doll running around killing people in a variety of absurd ways while shouting out misogynistic slurs (indeed, when we finally see Chucky in action, the first thing he does is call Karen a “bitch” and a “slut” in quick succession). Chucky is too small and too absurd a monster to be genuinely frightening for all but the smallest and most impressionable audience members. Indeed, anyone who watches this movie after hitting puberty will probably spend most of the run-time imagining how they would toss Chucky around like a football if he ever tried to come after them. It's implied that the voodoo magic has given him greater strength, but it hasn't augmented his weight at all, so at the end of the day, he's just a 20-pound dolly that is sent flying by a solid kick. Indeed, the only times that Chucky presents an actual menace to the audience, despite his respectable kill count, are when he is going after Andy, as the 6-year-old boy is a comparable match for Chucky in terms of size. There is probably a pretty terrifying movie that could be made about a Chucky-like monster terrorizing an understaffed orphanage or daycare center.

That said, Chucky is a lot scarier at the film's end, after the doll is set on fire and turned into a grotesque, molten wreck with one eye gouged out. Chucky no longer has the bizarre, uncanny valley look he had earlier, but the new form is lurid and monstrous enough to compensate. It is unpleasant to imagine that such a creature is living and feeling. It also highlights one of the fun possibilities when your movie monster is an evil doll powered by voodoo magic; the doll can be torn apart, burned, dismembered, or otherwise mutilated and still keep coming back to harass your protagonists. You can inflict all manner of violence on an evil doll that would be impractical or absurd to do to a human, animal, or even a monster. This plays out to great effect in the finale when Chucky is set on fire, has half his limbs blown off by a gun, and is finally decapitated. Even then, the headless body continues to go after Karen, Michael, and Andy, while Chucky's head shouts out encouragement from the sidelines.