Gunned down by Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon), dying murderer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) uses black magic to put his soul inside a doll named Chucky -- which Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) then buys for her young son, Andy (Alex Vincent). When Chucky kills Andy's baby sitter, the boy realizes the doll is alive and tries to warn people, but he's institutionalized. Now Karen must convince the detective of the murderous doll's intentions before Andy becomes Chucky's next victim.
There is so much to love about this film. I can't even tell you whether I had actually seen any of these Child's Play films before, especially as this first one came out the year before I was born. This is an origin story, and it plays out like one, which is quite a novel way to go about it. We actually get to meet Charles Lee Ray before he dies, we get to see what type of man he was, we see his skill sets, and we get to know his motivations, all right off the bat.
The film plays off of the world's fascination with Hasbro's "My Buddy" dolls at the time, to put forth a scenario where a fairly innocuous item like a doll (an item that would exist in nearly every house that has a child) could prove lethal. Much like how Jaws brought that fear of sharks to beaches and swimming pools, all of a sudden, Child's Play brings the same fear towards any toy with eyes and hands.
What works quite well is the slow reveal. While many other slasher films will show you the killer straight away, this film limits it as much as possible. It adds a lot of tension and suspense to the scenes and forces the use of some creative cinematography to misdirect. Although, it could have been much better; the "reveal scene" was still shocking, but it would have had a much greater impact had a few of the earlier scenes not given it all away (well, technically the marketing as a whole gave it away, but this was the first opportunity where the killer was unknown, and director Tom Holland almost managed to take full advantage of that).
The acting was pretty good. Alex Vincent was serviceable as the child actor for Andy; while his performances when scared or nervous were great, his overall line delivery was rather lacking. That being said, I personally found the less than stellar performance actually helped with his character, in general. The success of his entire role relied on him coming across like an ordinary boy; a relatable person.
Andy's mother (played by Catherine Hicks) has a superb performance and really is the main protagonist in the film, despite so much focusing on the relationship between Andy and Chucky. Chucky is voiced by Brad Dourif, and really emanates the same energy that we saw from Charles Lee Ray at the start of the film. Actually getting Chucky to talk was a great point-of-difference compared to the many faceless and voiceless slasher icons that existed.
The aspect that really sells this film is the animatronics, and that only really works so well because the premise revolves around a doll. It looks exactly how you would expect a doll to look when it moves, and that is most definitely nightmare fuel. There are actually several scenes in the film where they have a child dressed up like Chucky, and it is very noticeable, but the animatronics works incredibly well and shows the strength of practical effects when it still looks great 31 years later.
Overall, Child's Play is a compact and concise slasher flick. With a runtime of under 90 minutes, Holland does a top-notch job showing the origin story of Chucky, and still fitting in a full series of arcs afterwards, that all get sufficient payoff by the end. There are a few odd story points that feel like they are there simply for convenience, but it is easy to look past them as the pacing keeps the film rushing along with nary a chance to get your breath.
Child's Play's whole idea of taking something that we expect to be fragile, and giving it supernatural strength, speed, and blood lust, is surely the origin of every zombie or demon child used in the film industry from that point on.