Child’s Play

The Child’s Play series kicks off with this alternatingly silly and frightening installment that details Charles Lee Ray’s (Brad Dourif) transformation into killer doll Chucky and his eventual efforts at possessing the body of a little boy (Alex Vincent’s Andy), with the narrative also following grizzled cop Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon) as he teams up with the boy’s mother (Catherine Hicks’ Karen) to put a stop to Chucky’s reign of terror once and for all. There’s little doubt that one of Child’s Play’s strongest attributes is director Tom Holland’s slow-burn approach, as the filmmaker’s decision to slowly parcel out Chucky’s reveal paves the way for a first half that’s far more suspenseful than one might’ve anticipated. (And when that reveal does come, at around the 45 minute mark, it makes one hell of a visceral impact.) From there, Child’s Play segues into an entertainingly episodic midsection revolving around Chucky’s murderous exploits (eg Chucky kills Karen’s friend, Chucky seeks revenge against an old cohort, etc) – with the effectiveness of such sequences heightened by Dourif’s gleefully over-the-top vocal performance. And although the movie does run out of steam in its paint-by-numbers final stretch, Child’s Play nevertheless remains a creative, engaging little shocker that holds up impressively well all these years later.

*** out of ****