CHILD’S PLAY

Here’s a question I’d love to get to the bottom of – who is responsible for that weird 80s/90s trend of short gross smart-ass horror movie villains? It’s got to be Gremlins, right? Gremlins is certainly responsible for that mid-80s run of Ghoulies, Critters, Munchies and Troll. But I’ve always placed the blame for movies like the Leprechaun series and that weird Rumpelstiltskin movie at the tiny feet of Chucky from Child’s Play. In this essay I discuss the origins of the snarky-homicidal-short-puppet-thing…

There are so many Chucky films. The first one from 1988 follows an annoying boy child named Andy and his mum, Karen, who just wants to get him the perfect gift for his birthday. Andy loves a cartoon called Good Guys, and Karen tries so hard to get the doll – but it’s super popular you see, and she has to buy one of the dolls from a peddler in an alley. Only problem is this particular version of the doll has been possessed by a murderer named Charles Ray, who transferred his soul into the body of the doll thanks to a voodoo spell.

Magic and murder and a lot of kid yelling “BUT HE IS REAL MUM! HE MOVES! I SAW IT!” sort of stuff. The Child’s Play sequels get increasingly goofy, and then before the millenium is over the doll’s getting married and eventually he starts having children. This franchise doesn’t really do anything for me, I feel like the sort of people who are into them would really love their Pop! Vinyl figure of Chucky they have on their desk. I’ve never really understood the love of Chucky; people like a bad boy I guess.

How would I fit into Child’s Play? I wouldn’t have had a Good Guys doll of my own. I was too busy trying to figure out how you were supposed to enjoy playing with Mighty Max beyond marveling at how small Max was to have time for a weird looking doll. I think a young Peter Jones might have had a sleepover with Andy though, and that’s where he would have first encountered this Chucky character.

IF I WERE IN 'CHILD’S PLAY' I WOULD: GET LOST ON THE WAY HOME, PROBABLY