Director: Tom Holland
Writers: Don Mancini, John Lafia, and Tom Holland (story by Mancini)
Starring: Catherine Hicks, Brad Dourif, and Chris Sarandon
Body Count: 4
Review: Getting its start at the tail end of the original slasher surge (circa 1978-1989), the Child's Play series has managed to survive from the 80s to the 90s with fair success. The series began strong with this entry, dwindled a bit with parts 2 and 3, then came back stronger than ever after a six-year withdrawl period with Bride of Chucky in 1998.
Still, though many people (myself included, probably) feel that Bride of Chucky is the best, it's hard to argue that the original Child's Play isn't the most important film in the series.
The absolutely awesome actor Brad Dourif plays Charles Lee Ray, a serial killer being chased by a cop (Sarandon) as the movie opens. To avoid certain death or imprisionment, Ray uses a voodoo ritual to place his soul into the body of a nearby Good-Guy doll. The same doll winds up in the hands of a young boy named Andy, and his doll soon starts acting much more life-like than the Good-Guys are supposed to.
"Chucky" became a household name, and is actually, despite how corny the premise might sound, pretty scary. Dourif does an awesome job of making an inanimate object seem totally, without-a-doubt possessed by a vicious serial murderer.
