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Child's Play

Child's Play

Horror · 1988

After being shot in a toy store, a serial killer transfers his soul into a Good Guy doll. A mother then gifts it to her 6-year old son Andy, which unleashes terror upon the city.

Movie details

Child's Play

“You'll wish it was only make-believe.”

1988 Horror 1h 27m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.8 / 10

Community rating

After being shot in a toy store, a serial killer transfers his soul into a Good Guy doll. A mother then gifts it to her 6-year old son Andy, which unleashes terror upon the city.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Child's Play?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Child's Play 2

Child's Play 2

Horror · 1990

Chucky is reconstructed by a toy factory to dispel the negative publicity surrounding the doll, and tracks young Andy Barclay to a foster home where the chase begins again.

Annabelle: Creation

Annabelle: Creation

Horror · 2017

Several years after the tragic death of their little girl, a doll maker and his wife welcome a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home, soon becoming the target of the doll maker's possessed creation—Annabelle.

Annabelle Comes Home

Annabelle Comes Home

Horror · 2019

Determined to keep Annabelle from wreaking more havoc, demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren bring the possessed doll to the locked artifacts room in their home, placing her “safely” behind sacred glass and enlisting a priest’s holy blessing. But an unholy night of horror awaits as Annabelle awakens the evil spirits in the room, who all set their sights on a new target—the Warrens' ten-year-old daughter, Judy, and her friends.

Imaginary

Imaginary

Horror · 2024

When Jessica moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter Alice develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey she finds in the basement. Alice starts playing games with Chauncey that begin playful and become increasingly sinister. As Alice’s behavior becomes more and more concerning, Jessica intervenes only to realize Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Horror · 1984

Teenagers in a small town are dropping like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria causing their suicides. A cop's daughter, Nancy Thompson, traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger, who was burned alive by angry parents many years before. Krueger has now come back in the dreams of his killers' children, claiming their lives as his revenge. Nancy and her boyfriend, Glen, must devise a plan to lure the monster out of the realm of nightmares and into the real world...

Child's Play

Child's Play

Horror · 2019

Karen, a single mother, gifts her son Andy a Buddi doll for his birthday, unaware of its more sinister nature. A contemporary re-imagining of the 1988 horror classic.

Bloody Birthday

Bloody Birthday

Horror · 1981

In 1970, three children are born at the height of a total eclipse. Due to the sun and moon blocking Saturn, which controls emotions, they have become heartless killers ten years later, and are able to escape detection because of their youthful and innocent facades. A boy and his teenage sister become endangered when they stumble onto the bloody truth.

Dolls

Dolls

Fantasy · 1987

A precocious girl, her nasty parents, two punk-rock losers and a weak-kneed salesman inadvertently become the guests of two ghoulish senior citizens in their dark, haunted mansion.

Brahms: The Boy II

Brahms: The Boy II

Horror · 2020

After a family moves into the Heelshire Mansion, their young son soon makes friends with a life-like doll called Brahms.

Haunt

Haunt

Horror · 2019

On Halloween, a group of friends encounter an extreme haunted house that promises to feed on their darkest fears. The night turns deadly as they come to the horrifying realisation that some nightmares are real.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Tom Holland

Written by

Don Mancini · John Lafia · Tom Holland

Catherine Hicks

Catherine Hicks

Karen Barclay

Chris Sarandon

Chris Sarandon

Mike Norris

Alex Vincent

Alex Vincent

Andy Barclay

Brad Dourif

Brad Dourif

Chucky (voice) / Charles Lee Ray

Dinah Manoff

Dinah Manoff

Maggie Peterson

Tommy Swerdlow

Tommy Swerdlow

Jack Santos

Jack Colvin

Jack Colvin

Dr. Ardmore

Court is in session

Put Child's Play on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Arthouse Gremlin

“Its refusal to behave is the point.”

The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Oddness is not depth.”

A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.