Been in a Chucky mood lately, so I rewatched the original
Child's Play (1988). Chucky has always been one of my favorites.
This film still holds up really well! Has a great premise, is well paced, and has some impressive special effects for the time it came out.
Tension is built up extremely well, and when it gets to that reveal, where you see his voice come out of the doll as it starts moving and making facial expressions, it still has a sense of shock and terror to it. The combination of many of the practical effects, with Dourif's voice as the soul of a killer possessing it makes for some great horror moments. Brad Dourif's voice performance is amazing, and a major key to making Chucky as iconic and scary as he is.
My only major gripe with the film is that I feel that the opening scene, showing Charles Lee Ray putting his soul into the Good Guy doll, feels really unnecessary. It seems like my first time (and most of the subsequent times) I watched this, I somehow missed this opening scene altogether. Without that scene, it felt like the film was trying to build a mystery around what's going on with the doll. I knew something bad is going on with it, but I didn't know exactly what. Which helped add to the tension and horror that the film builds. The story felt more compelling as I learned about what happened, and about Chucky, as the characters did. When I finally saw the opening scene many years later, it kinda felt like they let the cat out of the bag in the beginning. Without that scene, you still learn pretty much everything you need to know from it later in the film. And it has more impact because it feels like a development in a unraveling horror mystery. At least in my opinion.
So I truly feel that watching the film without that beginning scene is the best way to watch it. Or at least maybe some kind of alternate cut that adds it in as a flashback later in the film. Maybe at the point where the cop tells Karen about what happened in the toy store.
Anyway, I love this film, and it's still an extremely solid horror/slasher film, and established a horror icon that deserves as much love and respect as his peers.
I've been meaning to rewatch the films I've seen, as well as check out
Curse and
Cult for the first time, so that I can finally check out the tv series that I've heard so many good things about!
