Who knew that Chuck turned 20 since the little devil is made out of plastic and always looks about five years old. Tom Holland’s franchise starting horror classic gets a great birthday present as the film FINALLY gets a widescreen transfer.
Serial killer Charles “Chucky” Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) has finally been cornered by Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon). Norris got off a good shot and mortally wounded Ray, but he’s made it into a closed toy store.
Norris finally finds Ray in the story but he’s using a voodoo ritual on a doll, which causes the store to get struck by lightening and explode. Norris barely makes it out of the store alive.
It’s Andy Barclay’s (Alex Vincent) birthday and he’s a certified fan of the kid’s show Good Guys. He thinks that the big gift-wrapped box is a Good Guys doll. He’s not happy to find out that its clothes (isn’t everyone?) and not the doll he wanted.
The Good Guy dolls are the hot ticket this season and his mother Karen (Catherine Hicks) wasn’t able to find one in time. The next day at the department store where Karen works her friend Maggie (Dinah Manoff) tells her that there’s a homeless man in the store behind the alley that has one of the dolls for sale.
She happily buys the doll because she knows that Andy will be elated. Sure enough he is, but what Karen doesn’t know is that the doll is from the burnt out toy store and contains the soul of “Chucky.”
It gets even better later when Chucky discovers that he’s becoming human in the pintsized form unless he transfers his soul into the first person he told of his existence – Andy.
Many moons ago when our mall was young we used to have a mom and pop toy store that had numerous stuffed animals on shelves all around the store. Legend was that at night the animals sprang to life. It’s every kid’s fantasy or nightmare that their dolls will come to life.
Child’s Play uses that age old fear to base its thrills upon. It proved so popular that four sequels have popped up and a remake is supposedly in the works. MGM released the original in a fullscreen transfer that has had fans clamoring to do a little murdering of their own.
MGM executives can how rest easy, even though it took eight years and the anniversary to finally get it right. Since it’s the little devil’s birthday MGM has also wrapped up some nice special features.
The sequels were never as good as the original, but they did offer some comedy (especially the last two) and Brad Dourif’s voice work always gets high marks.
Child’s Play is finally presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include three commentaries. One is from Alex Vincent, Catherine Hicks, and makeup maestro Kevin Yagher. The second is from producer David Kirschner and screenwriter Don Mancini. The last is from the Chuckster himself but is only on selected scenes.
What you’ll notice is that director Tom Holland is not here, an annoying oversight (Google “Tom Holland commentary” for an MP3 that you can sync up with the film – there’s even one for Fright Night!). Next is the 25-minute “Evil Comes in Small Packages” documentary with new interviews with the commentary participants as well as Sarandon.
The 10 minute “Chucky: Building the Nightmare” looks at how they brought the vicious doll to life. The 5-minute “ A Monster Convention” has Q&A footage with Sarandon, Hicks, and Vincent at the Monster Mania convention in 2007. The 6-minute “Introducing Chucky” is a vintage making of feature. Finally you get the 2-minute theatrical trailer, a photo gallery, and previews for other MGM discs.
Some rights are wronged in that we finally get the film in widescreen, but Tom Holland isn’t exactly dead (the footage of him in the doc is vintage) and his omission is one that you’ll have to correct yourself. Chucky does finally get his due and this special edition is fantastic.
Child's Play (Chucky's 20th Birthday Edition) is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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