- Directed by Tom Holland
- Written by Don Mancini, John Lafia, Tom Holland
- Stars Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Alex Vincent
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDbMsaJjp3c
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The practical effects and serious treatment of an absurd situation from a strong cast make for an entertaining movie that still holds up today. We were as entertained as we were when we saw it when it came out, if not more so.
Synopsis
We open on a man running down an alley with police in pursuit. He’s “The Strangler,” a notorious serial killer. There’s a shootout between him and Detective Mike Norris. He’s shot in the leg and hides in a toy store. Credits roll.
Charles Lee Ray, the killer, knows he can’t escape this time and swears revenge on the detective and Eddie, the partner who abandoned him here. He collapses next to a display of “Good Guys” dolls in the store. He opens one of the packages and then says some magic voodoo words over the doll. There is lightning and thunder outside as the magic happens. The entire store explodes from a lightning strike! Norris staggers over and finds Charles Lee Ray’s dead body next to a bunch of doll toys.
Sometime later, Andy Barclay watches a “Good Guys” cartoon on TV and wishes he had one of the dolls. He then has some Good Guys cereal. Andy lives with his single mother, and they’re obviously very close.
It’s his birthday, and he opens the big box and finds— clothes. He expresses his disappointment, but Karen didn’t have time this month to save up for a Good Guy. At work that day, a coworker tells her about a peddler behind the store who has one for sale at a bargain.
On her break, she takes the Good Guy to Andy; It says, “Hi, I’m Chucky, and I’m your friend to the end. Hidy-Ho!”
Karen has to work tonight, so Maggie offers to babysit. There’s a news report about Eddie Caputo escaping from jail, and the doll seems to notice. Andy goes to bed and Maggie turns on some old movies. We see Chucky running around in the background as she reads. She’s pushed out the window, where she falls seven stories to her death.
Karen gets home from work to find police, ambulances, and news crews outside her apartment. Detective Mike Norris tells Karen what happened. There are tiny footprints that Norris thinks are suspicious, but they aren’t Andy’s footprints. Norris thinks it’s a homicide, but he’s the only one.
Andy says that Chucky told him that his real name is Charles Lee Ray, and that he said, “Aunt Maggie was a real bitch and got what she deserved.” Karen gets angry and tells him that Chucky’s just a doll; he’s not alive.
The next morning, Karen drops Andy and Chucky off at school, but they slip out and take the bus downtown instead. They wind up in a very bad part of town where Chucky has business. Chucky slips inside Eddie’s house and turns on the gas. This leads to a very thorough explosion.
Norris calls Karen after they pick up Andy and Chucky. Andy keeps saying that Chuck’s been doing bad things, but no one believes him. Chucky just sits there when anyone else is watching; he’s just a doll, after all. “Mommy, he’s doing it on purpose.” They bring in Dr. Ardmore, a psychiatrist, who wants to take Andy away from Karen for a while.
Karen takes Chucky home without Andy. She looks at the Good Guys box and notices that the batteries are still there. She never put them in the talking toy, but it works anyway. She checks the battery compartment, and it’s empty. Chucky spins his head and talks. She screams and drops the doll, who rolls under the couch.
She grabs the doll and puts it in the fireplace. “I’m gonna make you talk!” He talks. Oh boy, does he talk. And punches. And bites. This is the first time we actually see him move for real— everything else was off-screen. He gets away.
Karen goes to Norris and tells him that Andy has been telling the truth. Now he thinks she’s delusional too. She goes to find the peddler who sold her the doll, and with Norris’s help, he admits he got it from the burned-out toy store, which rings a bell in Norris’s mind. The two talk about Charles Lee Ray. If Chucky killed Eddie, then that means that Norris is next. But he’s still not convinced
Norris drops Karen off and is attacked in his car by Chucky. He burns Chucky’s face with a cigarette lighter before crashing. Norris believes the story now. He shoots Chucky in the shoulder, but then the doll runs off.
Norris catches up with Karen, and they go after John, the man who taught Charles Lee Ray his voodoo tricks.
Chucky gets to John first and complains that when he got shot, he bled, and it hurt, but he’s made of plastic, so that shouldn’t happen. John says that the more time he spends in that body, the more human he will become. John calls Chucky an abomination, but Chucky’s got a voodoo doll of John, and he uses it to get the solution out of him. John says that Chucky will have to transfer himself into the first person he let in on his secret— Andy.
Norris and Karen find John, who tells them what’s going on just before he dies. “His heart is almost human. It’s the only way to kill him.”
Andy’s at the prison psychiatric ward for observation, and he sees Chucky approaching outside. The doctor ignores the whining. Chucky steals the keys and enters Andy’s cell. Andy escapes the cell, there’s a chase, and the doctor catches up to him. Chucky kills the doctor with the shock treatment machine.
Andy escapes the hospital and runs home, but everyone else is not far behind. Chucky knocks Andy out and starts his mind-transference ritual. The lightning and thunder starts up, but Karen interrupts. There’s a ridiculous battle, but Karen eventually traps Chucky in the fireplace, and Andy sets him on fire. Chucky runs around the room, screaming and burning. He’s just a melted plastic shell when they finish.
They attend to Norris’s wounds, but Andy notices that Chucky’s body is gone. “Give me the boy, and I’ll let you live!” Karen shoots Chucky’s head off. And his arm. And a leg. He keeps on trying to reach them.
Norris’s partner arrives and checks out the doll pieces all over the place. He brings in Chucky’s head, but the body still tries to attack. Norris shoots Chucky in the heart, and blood splashes everywhere.
Everyone goes to the hospital, leaving Chucky-chunks where they landed.
Commentary
Although there’s some natural humor here, this was played pretty straight compared to the many sequels that were as much comedy as horror.
Decent child actors were few and far between in the 80s, but Alex Vincent, as Andy, does a really good job here. Catherine Hicks and Chris Sarandon are also excellent, taking this all very seriously.
This was all before CGI, so Chucky is a mixture of puppetry, stop-motion, little people, and child actors. It’s all just fake enough to make it look real, which is just perfect here. It holds up really well today.