In focus… Child’s Play (1988)

Cast your mind back to when you were younger and to a point in time when you had a favourite toy. You would take this toy with you wherever you go, you would hold it tight, and for a brief moment this toy would become your best friend in the whole wide world.

Now imagine if that toy could talk and he told you strange things. Things that no toy should speak of, and at your young age, you certainly shouldn’t hear.

Well, this is part of the premise of 1988’s Child’s Play – a devilish horror movie about a talking doll who befriends his owner, Andy Barclay. Only, this is no ordinary doll, it is a plastic plaything that has become possessed by the soul of a serial killer named Charles Lee Ray.

Ray – renamed Chucky – is trapped in the body of the doll until he can find a way out. And that way out is to eventually transfer his soul into Andy’s body, giving him a new lease of life.

Can he achieve his goal? Well, you have to watch all 87 minutes of Child’s Play to find out, but whether Chucky is successful or not, he provides plenty of horror along the way, and also kick-starts a very popular horror franchise in the process.

Is this mere child’s play? No, it is something that can only happen when you have a great script, superb direction, and a fantastic horror character who becomes an instant icon in his screen debut.

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Classic quote

Chucky – “Hi, I’m Chucky. Wanna play?”

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Cast and crew

Child’s Play is directed by Tom Holland, with David Kirschner as producer. The movie is based on a story by Don Mancini, with Mancini also penning the screenplay alongside John Lafia, and Tom Holland.

The music to Child’s Play is the work of Joe Renzetti, while the cast includes Brad Dourif, Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Alex Vincent, Dinah Manoff, Jack Colvin, and John Franklin.

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Thank you for stopping by It’s A Stampede! to read this spotlight post focusing on a must-see horror movie. This ‘spotlight’ on Child’s Play is part of a series of eight posts looking at superb horror movies and docu-films which you may or may not have seen.

Other posts in this series include: Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Babysitter (2017), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Best Worst Movie (2010), Final Destination (2000), Drag Me To Hell (2009) and Scrooged (1988).

The aim of these posts is to spread some horror love around the internet, and possibly introduce you to a slice of horror that you may have overlooked. So, make sure to add this film to your next horror movie marathon.

And for more horror-related content, be sure to check out the recommended reads below.

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