Child's Play still holds up after 40 years, and is a film that is most likely still scaring children into avoiding their dolls
This movie was the one. The one that caused me to forever fear dolls. Now, is it happenstance that I was also a tomboy in the late 1980s and didn't really like them anyway? We'll never know. But I can say that this movie personally traumatized me, and it's perhaps the scariest Deja Boo I'll personally revisit this month.
Since its release in 1988, Child's Play—or less formally known as "Chucky"—has spawned a franchise of six sequels, a TV show, and a reboot. I think it's easy to forget how chilling the first movie was back when it was just a standalone film. The intervening years have sort of Flanderized the demonic doll into a evil, sardonic toy version of Deadpool. That's okay, there's clearly an audience for this sort of thing.
But when you rewatch this first film that launched everything, it's an incredibly frightening supernatural slasher that sticks with you. Like with Killer Klowns from Outer Space, I don't recall ever sitting down and watching Child's Play from beginning to end when I was a kid. It was whispered about in playgrounds, featured in the lineup in the papery-thin HBO viewing guide that came in the mail, and stacked three deep in the horror section of my local video stores. That was plenty exposure for a young Haley to say absolutely not and bid adieu to even the innocuous Teddy Ruxpin that had previously been living in my room.
There's an easy explanation to why the idea of a haunted doll terrorizes children. They're things of comfort, given to you by a loving adult. They possess an emotional safety that binds you to them. If they suddenly turn on you and at the very least cause trouble—and at the very worst threaten you—you're liable to not be believed. It's only a doll, they'd say. Stop playing, Mom would counter.
Therein lies their fear.
The plot
Chucky is a possessed doll that comes to life in Child's Play, and finds his way via happenstance to the home of young Andy and his single Mom in Chicago. Chucky is the cartoon star of a popular kid's cartoon, and Andy is obsessed—he even has Chucky's trademark blue overalls in the form of pajamas (another terrifying thing to watch given the ubiquity of Chucky in pop culture now). His mom is struggling to stay afloat, but manages to buy a stolen Chucky doll for a song from a back-alley peddler.
Chucky eventually comes to life, and begins tormenting Andy and his family. We find out that Chucky is actually possessed by the soul of a local serial killer who, upon being shot up by a cop played by Christopher Sarandon, utters a magical voodoo incantation and sends his essence into a 2-foot doll.
As a possessed doll, he's not just there for a good time. He has Andy take him via the L train to a sketchy part of town where he can take vengeance on his former accomplice. He then goes and visits his voodoo master, who tells him that he can only come back to corporeal form if he says the incantation again in front of the first human to whom he revealed he was alive. In other words, he now has to kill Andy.
Andy, his mom, and Chris Sarandon eventually figure this all out, and manage to take him out—but not until after he's been kicked, stabbed, shot, and burnt (very Rasputin of him).
What scared me then
Honestly, it was more the idea and image of Chucky that got me more than any specific scene. Seeing a red-headed doll—even if only in brief swatches—was terrifying. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. There's a reason Chucky is up there in the mononym club like Michael, Jason, and Freddie. He's mean-spirited, vulgar, and has zero problem killing men, women, and children.
I think more than the idea of him, though, was his visage. All dolls to me are unsettling, really, but Chucky is beyond the pale. He's creepy when he's the happy, harmless, smiling version of the real-life doll. But when the serial killer's soul wakes up, he contorts the doll's face into an angry, twisted sneer, and the eyes glisten with hate.
It was scary then, and it's scary now.
What scares me now
First, I want to explore what's more disturbing: If Chucky's deranged-supernatural-serial-killer-possession origin was never discussed, or the fact that it is. I think the not knowing would be more disturbing actually, because it would be more like a random act of terror. Him having the backstory somehow makes him more human, I think, so for me it's a little less scary. Now, I still wouldn't want to confront either one, of course, don't get me wrong. But random acts of violence are inherently less upsetting than a situation (no matter how far-fetched) that can be explained at least a little.
The scene where Andy's mom realizes that this stolen doll she bought for her son is truly, evilly alive, is so stark and horrifying. She's looking over the box he came in, and then—the included batteries fall out. This thing has been talking and moving by itself. All of a sudden, all the things Andy's said Chucky's been saying and doing make a lot more sense. It's alive.
Seeing Chucky amble out in the wild, even at a distance, is discomfiting. There's a scene where Andy is watching Chucky run up some outdoor stairs towards him, knowing that Chucky will try to kill him. It's a brief scene, and some may call it a throwaway, but I found it oddly scary. You see this little bright red and blue doll scurrying up steps, moving on its own volition. It's scarier, to me, than any close-up special effect, because it just seems… real. There's an urgency to it that can't be shaken.
Towards the end of the movie, after they've tried repeatedly to kill Chucky, he gets burnt to crisp, all blackened wax and sooty skin. He's alive still, and at this point, at his most physically disgusting. I think this part is especially scary because not only is he a haunted doll, which is frightening because he resembles a real child, but he's also burnt beyond recognition. No one wants to imagine a badly burnt child, but that's exactly what he resembles. It's horrific, and it compounds the fear you've been facing all movie-long to this point.
Child's Play is an upsetting movie, and I feel a little justified in being such a scaredy cat about it in my youth. I dare any parent to let their child even know this movie exists—you'd have the same situation.
POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.
