Blu-Ray Review: Child's Play

There was Talking Tina, then the marionette in Poltergeist, and Fats the ventriloquist dummy, but no doll can wreck havoc like Chucky.

Serial killer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif - The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) bonds with a good guy doll, with the help of voodoo, while evading arrest. Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks - 7th Heaven), buys the doll from a vagrant, for her son, Andy (Alex Vincent) for his birthday. Andy starts doing and saying un-childlike things and blaming his new buddy Chucky. After the murder of friend Maggie (Dinah Manoff - Grease) while babysitting, police detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon - Fright Night), who was chasing Charles Lee Ray the night of his transformation, takes an interest in the family. No one believes Andy until they’re attacked by Good Guy Chucky/Charles Lee Ray, then an all out doll hunt ensues.

I used to wonder why this flick creeped me out, until last Thanksgiving when a Twilight Zone marathon showed the Talking Tina episode. That one got to me when I was a young lad, and Child’s Play has the same effect. I just hope that when they remake Child‘s play in 2010 they don‘t use a Bratz doll. That would be scary.

Bonus Features include:

- Audio commentaries with Catherine Hicks, Alex Vincent, Chucky designer Kevin Yagher, and producer David Kirchner with screenwriter Don Mancini.

- Scene specific Chucky commentaries.

- The Evil Comes in Small Packages 3 Featurettes: "The Birth of Chucky," "Creating the Horror" and "Unleashed."

- "Chucky: Building the Nightmare."

- Monster Convention Featurettes.

- "Introducing Chucky: The Making of Child’s Play Vintage" Featurette.

- Photo Gallery.

Child's Play suits the Blu-Ray format well, giving brilliance to the colors and depth and menace to the darks. But what I really like about this issuance is that the second disc is a standard DVD, vice the digital copy that is released with some releases. I like this idea because the digital copy limits the format to computers and digital players whereas a DVD copy can be played on DVD players, computers, and Blu Ray players. More versatile and convenient, and even if you don’t have a Blu-Ray player at this time, you won’t have to re-buy the new format when you do.

ComicsOnline gives Child's Play on Blu-Ray 3 ½ homicidal children’s toys out of 5