What do you get for a killer doll who has everything - fame, fortune and the love of Jennifer Tilly?
“Child’s Play: Chucky’s 20th Birthday Edition” resurrects the 1988 hit along with some archaic features shot around the time it first hit theaters. The new DVD, out Sept. 9, reminds us why Chucky caught our attention in the first place. It’s also another example that ’80s horror films age worse than ’70s thrillers.
“Child’s Play” follows an adorable child (Alex Vincent) who gets the doll of his dreams from his widowed mom (Catherine Hicks). But the doll is inhabited by the spirit of a killer (Brad Dourif) who transfered his soul into the toy on his death bed.
It doesn’t take long for Chucky to start misbehaving.
He offs the family babysitter than seeks revenge against the cop (Chris Sarandon) who killed him in human form.
“Child’s Play” plays out sillier than I remembered, but director Tom Holland (”Fright Night”) maximizes the inherent creepiness of a simple child’s toy. The story’s supernatural underpinnings are clunky at best, and the special effects which bring Chucky to life could surely use a CGI facelift. And it’s hard to figure out who’s more wooden, Chucky the plastic toy or Sarandon’s deadly dull cop. The actor showed far more life as the undead neighbor in “Fright Night.”
“Child’s Play” could have been a far different film if the screenwriter’s vision was upheld. The DVD extras tell how the initial “Child’s Play” script had Chucky coming to life not due to some mumbo jumbo but as a manifestation of the boy’s rampaging id. Now that would be a fascinating movie. The extras also include some Chucky commentary bits, the kind of wisecracking which came to define the “Child’s Play” sequels.
(Photo: Chucky the doll makes a bloody mess in the 1988 film “Child’s Play.”)
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