Review Tuesday: Child's Play 1, 2, 3

For Halloween Mrs Baxojayz and O went to New Orleans. One of her costumes was Chucky from the Child's Play franchise. As a result she wanted to become reacquainted with that franchise, so we recently saw parts one, two, and three. How did it hold up???

CHILD'S PLAY

1988

When a serial killer who is well acquainted with voodoo transfers his soul into a Good Guy doll, violence ensues.

This is the movie that kicked this entire thing off. Violent, possessed, evil dolls are nothing new so they used the voodoo angle. A mortally wounded serial killer ran into a toy store and transferred his soul into a doll so that he can live on. The only trouble was that the first person he revealed his true identity to would be the only person he could use to jump into their body. In this case, it's six year old Andy. 

 

The movie was about the unlikely and violent path of how a serial killer trapped in doll tried to take a human form again. 

 

Personally, I HATE movies with children as stars. To compound that fact the kid playing Andy is annoying to watch as he not a good actor at all. Plus, the idea that a boy that age would want a hideously creepy doll defies logic. The doll looked awful and isn't consistent from scene to scene. Occasionally he looked like a stuffed teddy bear, other times he seemed like some heavy and rigid machine of sorts. I didn't care for this movie years ago, and it hasn't increased in value in my mind at all. If nostalgia horror is your thing, you might actually like seeing how crude special effects were back in the day and how the franchise got started.

 

 

CHILD'S PLAY 2

1990

After the events of the first movie, Chucky comes after Andy again! 

Movie studios never let a money maker go away. So this story went like this, the company goes out of its way to retrieve the remains of the Chucky doll from the first film and rebuild it by hand to see what was going on with it. This was causing them reduced profits and they wanted to close the door on this "Chucky" story. Upon reassembly, the serial killer was re-awakened to bring more violence to the world. 

 

The fun part about horror is that you need to suspend some belief in order to get into the story. Immortal demonic murderers bent on revenge. Okay. The original movie had all sorts of issues that went way beyond suspending belief but this one just prayed you put zero brain energy into watching. Andy was taken away from his mother and put into foster care. Luckily it was only a short distance from the Good Guys manufacturing plant in Chicago! And Chucky was able to trick the authorities into telling a stranger, over the phone, where Andy had been placed with a foster family. Of course Chucky found his way there whilst leaving a bloody path behind him, and continued his murder spree while trying to chase down Andy (who is still a terrible actor) to possess his body. Amazingly the chase brings them all back the the GOOD GUYS manufacturing plant where Chucky was defeated by two children.

 

This movie managed to get dumber than the original, and with Andy having a bigger role, it was even harder to watch. 

 

 

CHILD'S PLAY 3

1991

Eight years after the events of Child's Play, Chucky is unwittingly loosed on the populace, yet again. 

Eight years had elapsed in the Chucky universe. After all the bad press around Chucky and the Good Guy dolls, the plant in Chicago had been shut down and left unused. However, knowing that people, generally have short memories, the manufacturer decided to start making Good Guys again. Of course, when they gather all the parts and plastic to get back to production, the blood of Chucky makes it into teh process, bringing back Chucky once again. 

 

AGAIN. 

 

Chucky knows how to use computers, cuz why not? and tracked Andy to the military school that he was shipped to and ships himself there to start up the violence again. 

 

I would call this movie a mixed bag. While the special effects might have been the best in the franchise, thus far, the writing might have been the worst. They developed a story that was dull and dump, and coupled it with a cast of unlikable characters. One good thing was that Andy was a teen in this installment, so they got a new actor. The love interest in the movie was laughable. The body count was ludicrous. There was just so much wrong with this movie that the only aspect I want to remember is to NEVER revisit this movie. When people make fun of stereotypically bad horror movies, this must be what they had in mind.