Child's Play (1988)

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You'll wish it was only make-believe.

Andy, a six-year-old, has gotten a Good Guys doll for his birthday and is over the moon about it. The doll, Chucky, moves, speaks and asks for hugs. Everything a little boy could wish for in a doll. If only it didn't have that pesky little problem of wanting to murder everyone dearest to him.

While on a chase for "the strangler", detective Mike Norris ends up finding the presumed dead body of Charles Lee Ray in a toy store next to a pile of Good Guys dolls. What he doesn't know is that Charles had performed a ritual to transfer his soul into the inanimate doll, making himself into Chucky.

Karen, Andy's mother, is desperate to give her son the hot new toy, a Good Guys doll. So desperate that she is willing to buy it off a homeless dude who obviously used nefarious resources to attain it, for only $30! Quite a steal for a doll that was reasonably priced at $100. Talking, murdering dolls were expensive in the 80s. 

When the doll is brought home, Andy is soon privy to the filthy thoughts of this criminal. While being babysat by his mothers friend Maggie, Chucky decides he wants to murder her. He leaves an incriminating trail of evidence that clearly marks Andy as a psychopathic child killer. I mean, there were tiny child's footprints in the flour spread all over the kitchen, my investigative senses are tingling!

The movie goes on with Andy trying to convince clueless adults that no, really, a doll is murdering all these people. Eventually they believe him, if only after Chucky tries to murder them as well. 

This movie has so much nostalgia for me. I watched it several times as a child. According to parents in the 80's, this should have made me an unbalanced murderer. I love the concept and it looks pretty good for having been made 26 years ago. I have also found great pleasure in watching the terrible sequels Child's Play 2, Child's Play 3, Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky. Mostly because of Jennifer Tilly, who I really have an unexplainable love for. I have yet to have seen the 2013 Curse of Chucky, but it promises just as much cheesiness as the previous ones.

Score: 7/10 for a great concept and remarkably good child acting. Seriously, the scene were Andy cries in the psych ward is pretty amazing for someone that young.

69% Critics score on Rotten Tomatoes