Child's Play Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.0

Child's Play Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 17, 2016

Killer (or otherwise menacing) dolls weren’t exactly a new idea when Child’s Play came along in 1988. Not only had Dolls beat Chucky to the screen by a year (more or less), further back in the dim vestiges of time were other properties like one of the segments of the 1975 Movie of the Week Trilogy of Terror, a 1965 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour entitled “Where the Woodbine Twineth”, and the “Living Doll” episode with the unforgettable Talky Tina from The Twilight Zone: Season 5 . Child’s Play did offer some distinction from these earlier properties by addressing just how exactly a little doll could become animated and go on a killing spree. Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), a serial killer with a penchant for voodoo which would have put him right at home next to Mr. Cyphre in Angel Heart, transfers his soul out of his dying body into the little doll which has become such an icon of horror (and, let’s face it, comedy at times) in the ensuing years. As my colleague Dustin Somner mentioned in his long ago Child's Play Blu-ray review (a review I’ll actually be “officially” referring you to below for a plot summary), the basic premise of Child’s Play is undeniably “preposterous”, but perhaps for that very reason the film has attained a cult status. The Child’s Play franchise may have ultimately tipped more toward the humor than the horror side of things, but the first film, while silly and probably unintentionally funny at times, packs occasional startles and offers an undeniably creepy mood.

In the first of what will be two times of sounding like a broken record, as I've done with several other recent reviews of re-releases or "new, improved" editions, rather than rehashing Child’s Play’s plot dynamics, I’m referring you to my colleague Dustin Somner’s Child's Play Blu-ray review of the old MGM version. I do this because my hunch is most of the readers coming to this review will already have a general knowledge of the film’s story, and will instead want to know more about the differences in video and audio quality between this release and the old one, as well as what supplemental materials this new release offers.

Child's Play Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Child's Play is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Okay, here's the second example of me sounding like a broken record: as I've mentioned in several preceding reviews (including previous Scream Factory releases like The Thing and Carrie) which have had previous Blu-ray releases, I've attempted to recreate or at least come close to some of the screenshots included in our first review of the film, so that those interested can do a contrast and compare of their own. I find this technique to be far more "educational" than me blathering on about things, but blather on I will. The old MGM release had a pretty healthy bitrate for its day but still had occasional hurdles to overcome. Elements were a little wonky at times, and compression issues gave a pretty rough accounting of the variabilities of the grain field (due to the high prevalence of opticals in the film). Shout! is advertising a new 2K scan of the IP for this release, and while there is still some variability in grain structure and overall sharpness and clarity, there's an appealing uptick in detail levels and palette saturation, as well as much more homogenous accounting of the grain field. A comparison of screenshots shows that the Shout! release is noticeably darker and more burnished looking, though I personally didn't find anything about this look troubling and in fact at times felt it gave a better accounting of things like flesh tones. That said, there are occasional variances where the Shout! release actually looks a bit cooler to my eyes (note the differences in screenshot 3 between this review and Dustin's for one example). The vivid primaries that dot the palette also look more impressively suffused in this version. I'd caution against reading too much into Dustin's video score versus mine, as (and again this is broken record time) I very well might not have graded the MGM release as Dustin did and there's certainly no guarantee Dustin would grade this one as I have. My bottom line is this is a definite upgrade over the MGM version, with better compression and an overall slightly darker, warmer look.

Child's Play Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Child's Play features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that provides regular and at times extremely effective surround activity. The film has several standout sequences where little Chucky is tooling around various environments, and the pit a pat of menacing feet adds a nice subliminal sense of anxiety at regular intervals. The film offers at least a couple of example of booming LFE as well, with a few other startle effects sprinkled into the mix for good measure. Dialogue is cleanly presented and well prioritized.

Child's Play Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One (Feature Film)

• New Audio Commentary with Director Tom Holland. Holland isn't the most exciting speaker I've ever listened to, but he does a good job here going over a wealth of anecdotes about the shoot.


• Audio Commentary with Actors Alex VIncent and Catherine Hicks and "Chucky" Designer Kevin Yagher


• Audio Commentary with Producer David Kirschner and Screenwriter Don Mancini


• Chucky Commentaries on Select Scenes

Disc Two (Special Features)

• Making Chucky

  Behind the Scenes Special Effects Footage (1080p 1:00:08) has some really fun looks at the fabrication of Chucky and other SFX elements, with casual interviews with several crew members. Sourced from older and pretty rough looking video.

  
  

  Howard Berger: Your Special Effects Friend Til the End (1080p; 40:53) is a great interview with Berger, who talks about technical aspects like managing molds for the dolls and using little people walking as sources for Chucky's distinctive gait (there's some amusing source video included in this section).

  
  

  Life Behind the Mask: Being Chucky (1080p; 40:02) is another fun interview with one of those very little people, Ed Gale, who helped bring Chucky to life.

Featurettes

Evil Comes in Small Packages (1080i; 24:49) is an archival piece ported over from the first Blu-ray release.




Chucky: Building a Nightmare (1080i; 10:05) is another previously released archival piece.




A Monster Convention (1080i; 5:26) is another archival piece from the 2007 Monster Mania panel with the cast.




Introducing Chucky: The Making of Child's Play (1080i; 6:15) is another final piece, concentrating on techniques used to bring Chucky to life.




Vintage Featurette (1080i; 4:54) is the final archival piece in this section, with lots of snippets from the film and a couple of cool behind the scenes looks at Chucky being developed.

• More Child's Play

  TV Spot (1080p; 00:17)

  
  

  Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:02)

  
  

  Behind the Scenes Photo Gallery (1080p; 3:09)

  
  

  Posters and Lobby Cards Photo Gallery (1080p; 1:45)

Child's Play Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Child's Play is an effective little thriller, one that plays upon its "preposterous" premise rather smartly, while offering a rather uniquely emotional ambience in terms of the lonely little boy at its center with his "maybe, maybe not" imaginary friend Chucky. Scream Factory offers strong technical merits and as is its tradition, a really superb supplemental package. Recommended.