Child's Play 1 Synopsis and Review

 

Child's Play is one of the more intelligent horror movie franchises, that has lived since the '80s to the '00s. Now, there is news that the entire franchise is being remade/rebooted, a news that will only be greeted with happiness from the cult fans that have been hiding somewhere all these years. I was not much of a Child's Play fan when i first saw the movie, or the movie series, and did have a good laugh when they made a Bollywood movie based on the same concept, information for which you can find here.

Watching Child's Play now makes me wonder what kind of genuises existed in the '80s and '90s and it also makes me sad to think that these guys made history with such trivial resources back in their day. I only hope that the revived Child's Play movie or franchise meets the same success that the original franchise met with. Also, this is one of the few horror/slasher movies that actually were mostly a whodunnit in the first part, but later on became a full fledged horror movie.

Plot Synopsis:

Charles Lee Ray,  aka The Lakeshore Strangler is a serial killer who has the law on his heels. While running away from a cop, Mike Norris, he enters a warehouse housing the most popular kid's toy - Good guys. Using his voodoo, he transfers his soul into the doll, as the entire warehouse then burns down due to to Mike's self defense tactics. 

You can be so angry when you are shot you know!

Charles Lee Ray, also known as Chucky is now entrapped inside the doll's body. We are then introduced to Andy, who is celebrating quite a lonely birthday in his house, watching a cartoon showing Play Pal's Good Guy's cartoon.  He is around making some breakfast for his mom, who still has her lazy hiney in bed. It is upto the poor guy to make toast, make juice as she does whatever women do sleeping late.

Picture of a obedient child

When he thinks the toast and juice is done, he runs up to his mother, who gives him a warm hug and then it's presents time! Apparently, the doll that he wanted is very expensive, and she gets him one of those half assed accessories which are never sold anyway, such a jerk I tell you.

Hey, Beyonce's expensive, can we hire Destiny's Child?

Fortunately, for every foolish woman like this who there is a smart woman, and the smart woman in this movie is Maggie, a friend of Karen, who knows just the place where they can get the Good Guy doll at a half assed price.

Would you buy anything from this guy?

Life is not a bed of roses for Karen, as her supervisor tells her that she has to spend more time in the departmental store, because they are short handed or something. The good hearted Maggie says that she will take care of Andy till the time Karen comes home. 

That's Feminine Bonding Right There

Well, its that time of the movie when the protagonist meets the antagonist, and we were right there to capture the moment for all of our one and a half fans!

Yippity Yippity Yay!

This brings us to the sequences where Andy and Chucky are having a good time together, with Maggie having some chocolate pie, until Chucky finds out that his accomplice who basically turned tail on him has escaped from prison.

As soon as he finds this out, Maggie plays spoilsport and like the typical nagpot that she is, she tells Andy that its bed time. Andy is not someone to take things lying down and tells her that Chucky wants to watch the nine o clock news. Not understanding the greater aspect of such things, Maggie drives both Andy and his doll into bed, leaving Andy to brush his teeth. It is here that we Chucky in his first movement, as he sits on the couch and watches the news, all by himself. 

Now, there have been several horror scenes that revolve around the television, hell, there have been even movies about it. But when you see the Chucky scene for the first time, this scene is still as intriguing.

The Family Scene

Things go pretty interesting after this, with the real Chucky standing up for what he is really supposed to do, kill and maim, yeah! Being the degenerate that he is, he first kills the woman who actually gave him a cosy little home, Maggie. This he does by hitting her forehead with a toy hammer, which accidentally launches her into orbit and finally down on the pavement.

The stupidity of police officials that we hear in real life is actually mirrored in reel life too. Once the woman dies, the six year old obedient and normally silent Andy automatically becomes the number of suspect of the death. I do not know if psychiatric tests were allowed back then, but it seems stupid for a police officer to blame the child for the death directly at the scene of crime.

Basically, he is saying her son is a killer.

Now, I do not know about that time, but I guess we lived in times where we could believe that a bare chested man could save a entire country, but it was not possible for someone to transfer their soul into a doll.  If a child told his mother today that his toy is a soul, it would  be the beginning of a media circus, a book, a movie, a tv series, even coming on Oprah, but back then, such kids were just shut down in their rooms. Sad situation, I say.

Reason of a Media Circus

Anyway, the next day when his mother is out working, Andy is told by Chucky to go to a place where his pardner is basically sleeping peacefully. While Andy begins looking for Chucky, Chucky looks for his friend and leaves a stove on, only to have his friend come in with guns blazing. Do you know what happens when a person comes in with guns blazing into a room with the stove on?

Bada Boom!

The authorities now take Andy into custody, and it is up to the detective to tell his mother that she might have spawned a serial killer. There is a big argument about this, which I do not think should have happened. I'd consider the woman just showing the officer her finger, take her son for a psychiatric test, and then let the law run its own course, and her son would be home within two weeks. But women seldom take the logical way out, and has a slanging match with the officer, and then returns home, trying to have a conversation with Chucky!

While the conversation does not have much success, our inhourse Hercule Poirot sees the box in which Chucky came, and the batteries fall out. Now, this woman has much more brains than a common departmental store helper and it does not take much time for her to reach the defining moment in her life:

Look Ma! No Batteries!

Not content with just one heroic job for the day, our departmental store heroine decides to take matters into her own hands, and threatens Chucky with a life in the hot and melting home fireplace, and this is where Chucky understand that his game is really up, gives her a love mark and runs away! It's Chucky on the loose!

Karen does not know whom to turn to, so she rushes to the police station and meets the police officer who basically is the root of all happenings. Obviously the police officer finds it easier to believe that a six year old kid has killed two people with no remorse of motive, than to believe that a soul has taken control of a doll that was bought by his mother on half price. Come on, people, a simple investigation would have had the police inspector find out that the doll was bought from a cheapskate who looted the doll from the burnt house where a serial killer with a voodoo background had been shot and killed by the authorities!

Well, a person can be dense in the mental department, but he does not believe Karen even when she shows him the love mark. Gawd, where did we get the people in the police force back then?

A week in Vega doesn't do this to a smexy woman.

 But this woman believes in women empowerment, and scurries away to find the person who had actually sold her the doll. This brings us to a scene where we are reminded that it is not a good idea for a curvaceous blonde walking through the scum of the city in the dark of the night - however thick coats she wears. Of course, the knight in shining armor arrives just in time, and the two part ways once more.

Well, maybe Chucky is mad that the police officer does not think it possible that he can infuse his soul into a doll and that's why he decides to slash the police officer! While the police officer is busy saving his ass (literally) Karen does some research on her own, and finds out that The Lakeshore Strangler actually exists, and that  there might be a answer to all these questions in the form of this person:

The Neighborhood Wiccan

Of course, Chucky reaches this guy before everyone, and the guy basically tells Chucky that he is becoming human, and will become completely human unless he doesn't transfer his soul into the first person who exposed himself to. And we guessed who that is, right. It's this guy!

There go my prospects of a normal life. Why was mom such a skinflint!

With this done, the movie basically has a long sequence where Chucky tries to transfer his soul into Andy's body, which is thwarted by his mother and the police officer time and again. I think they save him something like three times. And this happens because Chucky is a real badass who survives a complete burn, some six bullet shots in all types of organs of his body, and finally, he dies when his head is blown off with a bullet, with another shutting out his heart forever!