Day 13 Child's Play 1 and 2!!

Lord do I love these movies.

Even the crazier and dumber they got after part 3. I say that still loving part 3, but recognizing Bride of Chucky, Son of Chucky,Curse of Chucky, and Cult of Chucky are all just.....bug nuts insanely dumb and fun.

But as the saying goes, we are learning. Nothing beats the first two.

So for the unfamiliar...

Child's Play is about a serial killer on the run from a police detective one night and unfortunately for him, for both of them. Charle's the killer is critically wounded and dying. He breaks into a toy store and just before death, he performs a ritual. Binding his soul to a doll.

As one normally does. Not that I remember word for word said ritual.

Later on we meet Andy and his mom. His mom has the worlds greatest job, working in retail. Today is her sons birthday and she knows he wants the latest toy.

The nightmare of my own childhood.

Not the doll from the movie. But there were actually toys like this growing up and they were not cool. They were terrifying.

So of course the son wants one or he'll begin stabbing people in their sleep. So mom can't pick up a Turbo man doll for her son legalls. So she goes and gets one from a homeless man.

This was how business was done back then. Trust me, Toy stores were hell holes for parents, so back room deals were a must.

So Andy gets his Turboman doll and immediately things are not cool. The doll is in fact the possessed doll from the beginning. So Turboman doll says to Andy, that his name is Chucky. They begin bonding, creepily bonding. I don't mean creepily as in the doll. So much as Andy himself. Growing up I remember as a very VERY young kid I carried around a Mr Bunny doll, and a Kermit doll. But as I get older it turned into a Garfield plushy I would keep in bed. I never kissed my dolls goodnight, or took them with me when I peed. I also never took them on a train through the run down part of town.

But Andy does. Because he ain't afraid.

So Andy and Chucky begin becoming pretty good pals. Until Chucky wants to watch the news, and Andy's babysitter says no. So Chucky disagrees with her and she gets thrown out a window.

Which Andy gets blamed for. Sort of. Well he's suspected.

So the train ride I mentioned? Yes Andy skips school and jumps on a train to go out into a run down part of town so Chucky can visit one of his old friends. A shaman who taught him about black magic and voodoo.

Which is where Chucky learns his destiny.

As he told Andy all about who he was, and his real name. He has begun a dark bond with the boy, and there fore, if he wants to become human again? He must possess Andy's body.

Otherwise the longer he stays in the doll's body. The likelier it is he will be trapped in a doll.

So now we have an end game for Chucky.

So naturally Andy doesn't like weird games Chucky wants to play, like one called 'Hide the soul', it's kinda creepy and he's not into it. Add to that, the mom begins suspecting this doll is evil. Which she learns by discovering the doll has no batteries in it, and it attacks her. It also attacks the police detective who shot him, which was hilarious itself.

Honestly Brad Dourif who voices Chucky is why Chucky is so fun. The movie has a good deal of gore and violence, but Chucky is just so damn fun.

So after a few deaths, the son screaming at people Chucky the doll is a killer, The mom being attacked by the doll, the detective being attacked by the doll. People are finally ready to believe it's the doll.

Which proves too late as Andy has been taken by Chucky and we are ready for Soul swapping to commence!

Which unfortunately can't happen as Chucky has spent too long in the dolls body so. This is now his life! Smooth as a Ken Doll.

Which leads to doll rage on a fun scale.

And our final showdown. That also gets us some fun moments and great quotes. Like Chucky being pushed into a fireplace and Andy coming over to him. Chucky pleads with Andy to let him go "We're friends till the end, remember?" Andy strikes a match and mic drops with "This is the end, friend." Boom, hot fire. Literally he sets Chucky on fire.

But that's not the end!

No no no. Chucky is more determined. Even after being burned, his body is still hot for revenge. So it seeks out his would be killers. Attacking another policeman even!. But leave it to the vampire from Fright Night, our detective to put an end to it all by shooting Chucky in his new doll heart with a .357.

That's how you stop evil, people. A bullet to the heart.

Or so it seems!

Child's Play 2

This is the money shot.

The first film was played more on the scary scale with some humor thrown in.

See horror films have this scale. They used to all be purely scary. But they started bringing a bit of humor because you need to put people at ease. Make them laugh before you make them scream. It helps setup good jump scares later.

So films balance on a scale. You go from scary and a little jokey. To super jokey and a little scary. or full fledged nightmare mode.

This film went right in the sweet spot of scary, and funny.

The opening tot his is creepy great. We see the scorched skull of Chucky being cleaned and worked on. Even the teeth are being scraped of char and cleaned to a pristine shape. Why? Because the company wants to...reconstruct the doll. They want to show the stockholders it's totes okay the doll is fine and no one is going to get murder killed or hurt.

Until they do. One of the workers dies while working with the doll and...Chucky is reborn.

Killing again and on the road to finding his best friend in the world Andy.

Now this, is the messed up part. The movie doesn't really cover it too much, but Andy has been put up for adoption, he is now living with a new family.

What?! How?! When?!

Well, there was a comic book, which filled in some of the blanks, and would've been interesting to have seein included. REALLY interesting.

In the comics the police chose not to back up the mom about the killer doll, so people assumed she was crazy. Chucky apparently came back a second time before the sequel took place, and killed the moms psychologist The mom killed chucky again, but....no one again believed her. So she was commited and charged with murder.

So there we go. Andy is put up for adoption as his only living parent is crazy and locked up.

So Andy has a special new family. His dad played Beef in Phantom of the Paradise, So Beef is who he is. Forever. The mom is very mom like and caring, but also has an entire foster family. Including a teenage daughter who likes to smoke and stay out and party.

The family for some reason thinks giving Andy another Turboman doll will make him happy. Until it doesn't and he freaks out on them, understandably.

Well Andy has nothing to worry about, he soon discovers the doll is okay, and it isn't the murder hungry doll he helped kill before. So he has a new friend.

Until he doesn't and Chucky arrives to bury the good Turboman doll.

Which leads to fun time murders. Like one of my favorite early traumatizing scenes. This has stuck with me and remains one of those things I will never forget and scared me at first as a kid, until it made me laugh.

Chucky goes with Andy to School, he has a look around and decides to get Andy in a little trouble so he can stay with him after School. So Chucky does some work on Andy's drawing, which the teacher doesn't appreciate. Art will always have its critics, but I guess writing 'FUCK YOU BITCH' in crayon over a drawing does have some merit for holding a kid in class during recess.

Andy soon begins to realize things aren't right. Mostly when he realizes Chucky is back when he discovers him peaking on him through the locked closet door in the classroom. Andy decides now is the time to enforce the GTFO policy and escapes through the window. Leaving the teacher to the classic fate I enjoyed and was scared of.

The teacher unlocks the closet thinking Andy got himself stuck in there, only to discover no. A killer doll is there. Who comes out, walking in full terrifying view, with a yard stick.

The walk is what got me. Just seeing the doll walking, imposingly with the yard stick toward the teacher. It was creepy! But then that delicate scale the movie uses kicks in and it's less scary. Chucky descends on the teacher and we see a near Hitchcock like shot of the yard stick being raised then hammered down, then raised again. The camera zooming further and further out. Its a very cool shot and was pretty funny too.

So needless to say Andy is not in the best frame of mind now, and tries convincing his new family a killer doll is after him. Which doesn't work. At all.

In fact things go so badly for Andy he wakes up in the basement and finds Chucky more than ready to play Hide the Soul again. Which he politely declines.

But luckily for Andy! BEEF comes to the rescue. Belittling Andy for hiding out in a creepy basement. But then Chucky decides he doesn't care for Beef, so he gets killed.

There is a lot of killing in this movie, and some wonderful lines from Chucky. But Andy is not alone. I mentioned a rebellious adopted sister. She decides Andy might be on to something. But she also decides this after Chucky uses some...we'll say persuasive measures to get her on his side.

Which mostly involves her adopted mom being killed and Chucky needing help finding Andy.

Which brings us to the best part of the whole film! The final battle of Andy and Chucky! Until part 3. But forget that for now. We live in a world where these two films are all that exist!

The final fight shall take place in.....The Good Guy doll factory!!

It's a plethora of nightmare moments.

A scary machine that's only purpose is to forcefully inject eyeballs into the sockets of the doll.

Which we get to see used on an unfortunate worker.

A machine that punctures hair into dolls heads.

Which also see's some use.

A hot melted rubber leaking vat.

Which aside being safe and childproof, also sees use.

And we have...well just the factory as i hole. Including a heated cage for....something with the dolls.

This is where the gore gets amplified. As well it should.

Andy and his adopted sister move from one stage of the factory fight to another, with Chucky taking the blunt end of the punishment. Including having his hand torn off and inserting a knife blade into its stump. Being placed in a hot box and deformed, losing his legs to a wooden bored he melts onto.

But the best part is his ending fate when the director recreates a fun scene from Big Trouble in Little China. You have to see it for yourself.

But for us. The movie is over. Chucky is gone, for good this time. Until part 3, then part 4, then 5, then 6.....seven.

These movies are wonderfully fun. Scary when they need to be, and funny at the same time. Part three is also another must watch.

A sad fact with horror, which I could blame on Scream, but it happened much earlier then that. But a sad fact of horror is comedy eventually wins out.

It started with A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors.

This was the turning point in the Freddy series where the films stopped being scary full time, and Freddy became a joker. It was still creepy and gory, but the films became more about Freddy being funny vs scary.

So to did it happen with Jason in Jason Takes Manhattan as well. And Child's Play 4 Bride of Chucky.

But these two films work well one after the other. Direct sequels are almost always great. The movie builds on the first. Continues following the family(sort of), it amps up the gore and humor to a good balance. But more importantly, Andy wasn't an annoying little shit. He actually did well in this, especially for a kid facing as much trauma as he has.

The movies are full of moments I left out for you to discover, fun one liners, good kills and a good deal of oh crap moments. Give it a watch. Even part 3 though some people didn't think it was as good. It's still good in my book. Andy is grown up and now in Military School. Which as you can imagine, means more fun for Chucky.

Check it out!