Child’s Play

The first chapter of the long-running saga of the murderous Chucky doll is a no-frills horror flick directed with an appropriate sense of pacing by Tom Holland of “Fright Night” (1985) fame.

Deft and extremely effective as it alternates between pulsating action and calculated suspense, the film confidently focuses on the entertainment aspect while the social critique in Don Mancini’s original screenplay (subsequently re-written by a dissatisfied Holland) is largely relegated to the back burner. Mancini’s original draft sought to draw more attention to themes such as the influence of mass marketing on young minds and the progressive decline of the nuclear family in contemporary America (themes that will take on greater prominence in some of the later films in the franchise, and especially in the novelizations penned by Matthew J. Costello).

The fact remains that this first “Chucky” film is a high-quality product, and its immediate success – it opened at #1 in the US and raked in over 44 million dollars worldwide with a budget of 9 million – is in part due to the Chucky animatronics by special effects wizard Kevin Yagher (“A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge“, 1985; “Retribution”, 1987).

Perfectly cast, with Brad Dourif in the role of a lifetime and the tried-and-true Chris Sarandon pitch-perfect as the detective up against a case that’s out of the ordinary, to say the least.

Accused of being a negative influence and inciting violence in children, the film faced some distribution problems in the UK, probably due in part to the doll’s foul language (he’s wont to spout non-child-friendly lines like: “You stupid bitch! You filthy slut! I’ll teach you to f*** with me!“).