The TV glowed in the center of the room, reflecting the visage of a stern looking news anchor going on about something I had no doubt was very serious. Sure, I was tired, but I was having fun… even if I was a little afraid.
I was staying the night at my aunt and uncle’s house. My cousin was asleep in the other room and I had somehow avoided his same fate. It seemed I had done the impossible, I had achieved every six-year-old’s dream: I was up late. My uncle dozed quietly on the couch beside me and I hopped in and out of consciousness, desperately trying to keep my eyes open and focused on the soft light of the moving pictures set before me.
As it happens when one is caught between sleep and awake, my mind snapped back into sharp focus after one particularly deep slip into darkness. I blinked and returned my gaze to the television screen. Gone was the stern anchor and the floating box beside him, showcasing the topic of his report. In his place was a woman clutching a doll and seemingly holding back tears. Still, in my young and delirious mind, the two things were connected: this was a news report. What I was seeing was real.
I was awake then, sleep a foreign memory, as I watched the woman pick up the doll’s packaging and falter when an object fell from the box. My mind leapt to the large box which belonged to the MY BUDDY doll that I had at home. The object in question turned out to be batteries which seemed to cause the woman alarm. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. She turned to the doll. The doll that had talked.
Without batteries.
My mind reeled as she approached the doll once more, picked him up and verified that the slot on his back was indeed devoid of batteries. That’s when the doll’s head turned and spoke forcefully, “Hi, I’m Chucky. Wanna play?”
I screamed. In a moment, my uncle was awake and attempting to communicate with me, to discover what might be wrong. I was unintelligible, however I did manage to raise a shaky finger to the screen. I refused to look at it again, but at that moment, my uncle pieced the evening together. Before he took me upstairs to his and my aunt’s room (where I would stay quivering for the remainder of the night), I did manage to choke out a few words:
“It was on the news. A doll came to life.”
The memory of that night is one of the earliest, most vivid and detailed experiences I’ve managed to retain. It took weeks to convince me that what I had watched was not, in fact, a segment featured on the nightly news. The doll had not really come to life. Still, the damage had been done. Within minutes of getting home the next day, I had retrieved the MY BUDDY doll from my room, given it to my mom and left her with the directive, “get rid of it.”
After that, I avoided horror at all costs. Hated the stuff. Or, at least, that’s what I told myself. In reality, I was afraid of the power I bore witness to that night. The impact of that one, distilled moment. Less than two minutes of film had affected me more than any other medium I had ever encountered and it was easier to avoid it than it was to attempt to understand it.
Child’s Play (1988) is horror with all the trappings. It’s fun and scary, supernatural and yet grounded. At its core is the relationship between a mother and her son, and their shared desperation to be loved and accepted. The doll is a conduit for expressing and, eventually, exploiting that love as little Andy ultimately desires Chucky as a surrogate for the sorts of interpersonal interactions he yearns for and tragically lacks. As a result, the movie is capable of resonating with genre fans of all proclivities, providing the property with a lasting, timeless appeal.
And, at the end of the day, every kid can relate to owning a toy with batteries… and the implication of what it might mean were the thing to operate without them.
Still, the indelible impact of Child’s Play on my life didn’t come from seeing the movie (I didn’t even know what it was called, at the time) but from one iconic scene. Years later, when I finally did nervously revisit the movie that had so traumatized me when I was small, the scene still stood out. An expertly put together sequence which not only crafted nail-biting tension in its own right, but served to set the stage for the raw, visceral terror that permeated the remainder of the film’s running time.
The property underwent numerous changes and rewrites on the script level, transforming from Don Mancini’s early draft titled Blood Buddy in which Andy’s blood mixes with the fake blood of a doll that can really bleed causing it to come alive, to the final shooting script for Child’s Play with John Lafia’s addendum of the Charles Lee Ray angle and Tom Holland’s final touch-ups. The end result is a film that works wonderfully as an amalgam of horror conceits, both over-the-top and emotionally truthful.
The words on the page reflect a methodical nature to the storytelling, carefully building toward the moments of impact which very clearly inform the decisions onscreen. Still, there are some key differences: the writing reflects more interaction, exposition and blocking that puts both Chucky and Karen in different places emotionally and narratively compared to where the finished film puts them. However, the evolution to the frame brought with it a more nuanced, streamlined approach, honouring the aims of the screenplay despite the differences shared between them.
I may have spent the bulk of my young life sworn away from horror due to a few missing batteries, but at least I now know it was for good reason. If I had to be scarred, it’s best if it be by an impeccably constructed sequence that stands as one of the most impactful moments in the whole of an already fantastic film.
THE SCENE
Karen enters her apartment and sits down with the doll. She attempts to get the doll to talk, but simply receives one of its prerecorded messages. She retreats to the kitchen and picks up the doll’s box. Something falls from it, clanging on the floor: batteries. Fear dawning, she returns to the doll, lifts it and checks its battery compartment. Empty. The doll’s head swivels toward her, “Hi, I’m Chucky. Wanna play?” She screams and drops the doll. It rolls under the couch. She retrieves the doll, confronting Chucky and demanding that he speak. She marches over to the fireplace and lights it, threatening to throw him in if he doesn’t engage. The doll roars to life, teeth bared and attacks her yelling threats and expletives. Chucky escapes the apartment and Karen follows in hot pursuit.
THE SCRIPT
THE SCREEN
The scene opens with one, extended medium wide shot, tracking Karen as she carries the doll into her dark apartment, moves to the living room and sits down, facing Chucky. The screenplay describes a slight variation, suggesting that Karen has adopted a more callous attitude.
She drops Chucky on the table, and sits on the couch, staring at the doll.
In the film, Karen feels more emotionally connected to the doll. Her investment in its animation derives from desperation, a love for her son. If the doll is alive, Andy is exonerated. In a way, nothing would make Karen happier than discovering the doll is indeed sentient.
The shot holds on Karen with the doll, giving the moment room to breathe. Her emotional wariness is palpable and the absurdity of what she’s about to do is not lost on her. The screenplay reflects this beat with the line, The seconds tick past. The image cuts to a close up of the doll over her shoulder. Chucky smiles vacantly, his plastic features anything but alive.
“Well, say something, you little bastard.”
Karen’s words are angry and pleading. Quiet. The image cuts again to Chucky, continuing the shot-reverse-shot exchange between the woman and the doll. In the plain and powerful words of the script, Nothing from the doll. She yells in frustration, demanding that it say something when suddenly Chucky springs to life. Its eyelids blink mechanically, in an odd rhythm that feels indicative of all toys programmed to feign life. His voice is friendly, saying, “Hi, I love to be hugged.”
In the script, The mouth clamps shut, the eyelids slam down, and the doll whirs to a halt. After that, it calls for Total silence. In the film, the doll merely snaps back to its smiling, vacuous state, forgoing the obvious foreboding in lieu of something far more dangerous, innocuous pleasantness. In the script, Karen, stares at the doll hopelessly and says to herself, “Christ, what am I doing?” In the film, Karen starts to laugh, a sad, reflective laugh that can only come out of the most absurd situation. Hopelessness is certainly present in her reaction, but the moment feels distinctly human in sharp contrast to the thing from which she so desperately seeks humanity.
The scene progresses exactly as scripted, a medium-wide shot holding on Karen as she enters the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water. What is not scripted, however, is the blurred visage of Chucky, propped up in the living room in the background, constantly present and casting a dark sense of dread as Karen goes about her business unaware.
In the script, Karen picks up Chucky’s box and reads it aloud, saying, “A Play Pal doll, a kid’s best friend.” In the film she says, “He wants you for a best friend.” A slight change, but one that alters from a passive tagline to an active one, and the perfect transitory line to occur as the doll’s true nature is revealed.
Something metallic falls out, hitting the kitchen counter with a heavy thunk. The image cuts from a close up on Karen to a close up on the floor. Then, She is staring at four Double A plastic encased batteries. The image holds on the batteries and then zooms in, the visual equivalent of a loud, unexpected noise. The image cuts back and forth between Karen and the batteries until it finally lands on the words on the box: “Batteries Included”.
The image pulls away a bit, watching as Karen whirls around in a medium shot, her eyes locked on Chucky. She doesn’t run or scream, but faces him. The cinematography matches her kinetic intensity, the camera tracking with Karen as she approaches the doll once more. The next shot depicts Karen towering over the doll’s head in the center of the frame, a powerful giant in comparison to Chucky’s minuscule form.
The following passage plays out as scripted. The shots get tighter as Karen picks him up, slowly turning him over and shoves up his rainbow colored shirt revealing a little plastic door labeled ‘Batteries Go Here.’ The screenplay takes its time truly building the tension and distress, beginning to take on some of Karen’s point of view. After the battery case is revealed to be empty, the Action Description even summarizes what the reader very well knows, The doll has been talking and moving without batteries in it!
While there’s a charm to that degree of incredulity, the film propels the narrative forward, jumping from the empty battery well to the sharp, swivelling head of the doll.
Chucky’s head suddenly swivels a complete hundred and eighty degrees in her hand so he is staring up at her from between his shoulder blades. His eyes snap open and his mouth moves.
In a tight close up Chucky speaks, seemingly more loudly than before, “Hi, I’m Chucky. Wanna play?” Karen screams and drops the doll, jumping back, her steely resolve not enough to supplant her terror. The scene carries out as scripted, the doll hitting the floor and rolling under the couch in a medium shot. The action slows down again, lending a start-stop nature to the sequence that continues to ratchet up the anxiousness of what will come of Karen’s inquiries.
The next few shots are slow and well composed, creating a visual dread born out of repetition and shadow. The viewer sees the same few medium and close up shots, cutting back and forth as Karen bends down and peers under the couch. One image shows Karen’s hand slowly lifting the tip of the fabric shielding the shadowy area underneath the sofa. Another peers out from under the couch, a large object in the foreground obscured by darkness as Karen peeks in from the light of the living room. The shot works in broad contrast to that where she stood towering over Chucky just moments before. Now it is she who appears small in the wake of the mysterious thing obscuring her vision from the shadows.
The script continues to reflect on Karen’s mental state, continuing to interrupt the Action Description to dwell on the outlandishness of what she is encountering:
She stands there, one hand pressed to her heart, the other to her mouth, breathing hard and staring at the couch. It talked, the goddamn thing talked. Without batteries!
The logic of adulthood acts as a shield to guard against the more fantastic goings on in the world, reflecting irreconcilable truths with claims of falseness and impossibility. Despite Karen’s resolve to validate the doll’s sentience, a certain part of her mind resists the answer she sought. The screenplay brings this to life by keeping the doll hidden under the couch, forcing her to reach in to the unknown and feel blindly for the doll. In the film, the doll is revealed in full lighting as she peers under the couch, as inanimate and unthreatening as when Andy first pulled him out of the box.
In the screenplay, Karen grabs hold of the doll and lifts it, shouting at it to speak. The film halts the action for a moment more, showing Karen hit it first, before picking it up. A sort of nervous test. When she does reach for it, she drags it out from under the couch slowly as Chucky’s bright orange hair fans out around him in a lifeless way. Finally, she lifts Chucky and shakes him. Her mannerisms are exaggerated as her urgency increases, what little composure she has managed to maintain is leaving her. If the doll doesn’t spring to life, one gets the impression that Karen seems to fear that she might be the crazy one.
She drops the doll back on the couch, mirroring the beginning of the sequence. The film slips back into a shot-reverse-shot methodology between Karen and the smiling doll. Karen recites the scripted dialogue, progressively becoming more manic.
“Talk, come on, talk to me.” While the screenplay responds simply with, Still nothing from the doll. This continues until she finally threatens to “make” him talk. The script descends into Karen’s desperation, the Action Description becoming a direct reflection of her stream-of-conscious:
She shakes the doll. Nothing. She looks around desperately. What’s she going to do? Her gaze falls on the fireplace.
In a medium shot, following closely to the screenplay once again, Karen heads to the fireplace, retrieves a match, turns on the gas and lights a flame. The image cuts to a close up on Karen. She’s angry, upset and deranged as she shouts, “Talk to me, dammit! Or else I’m gonna throw you in the fire!”
At this point, the film deviates from the screenplay. On the page, Karen does not threaten the fire as the act is implied. However, after a beat, the doll leaps to life. He struggles in her hands fighting to be free and twisting around like a handful of snakes. Then, Karen grabs the doll and reacts crying out almost in joy. It’s after this brief moment of perceived victory that Chucky whips his head around and opens his mouth barring a set of teeth like king size Chiclets. He bites her and she drops him. After, Chucky grins dancing around her and enjoying her pain.
In the film, much of this is excised. Instead of providing Karen with a sense of triumph and Chucky with an impish escape, what appears onscreen pays off the slow mounting tension of the past few minutes by fully committing to the perceived terror of the is-he or isn’t-he sentient doll. Chucky comes roaring to life after the threat of the fire, snarling horrifically, a dramatic shift from the banal, plastic thing he was moments ago. He spews vulgarity as he attempts to fight Karen off, spouting shocking obscenities which contrast uncomfortably with the tone the film had employed leading up to this point.
“You stupid bitch, you filthy slut! Oh I’ll teach you to fuck with me!”
The screenplay features a similar outburst, found when Chucky is dancing around Karen, but with more of a playful air. He does launch himself back onto Karen to attack, wrapping himself around her leg and dancing away again once he knocks her over. The film streamlines all of this into the same sequence of actions beginning with Karen walking over to the fire place. After screaming at her, the editing adopts a more frenetic approach. Lots of quick cuts and close up shots allow for flashes of swiping plastic fists and Chucky’s snarling face to appear realistically as he tries to defeat the woman holding him.
Karen falls, but Chucky does not dance away. His small mouth opens wide in a way that appears disturbingly stretched and distorted. He bites deep into Karen’s arm and she screams. The script engages in dark whimsy, a fantastical sense of cruel fun whereas the film focuses on raw, unflinching terror. Once Chucky comes to life, reveals himself for who he truly is, it’s kill or be killed.
In the screenplay, the battle between them is elongated, Chucky saying that he’s “the Giver of Pain”. Karen responds by grabbing a fire poker and swiping at him, hitting the doll in the chest and knocking him across the room. He responds by bouncing back up and continuing his dance, giving a brief monologue that feels like it could gave been delivered by an uncharacteristically vulgar Bond villain:
“Didn’t you know, bitch? I’m indestructible. Do you hear me? Indestructible. Nothing can kill me. Nothing! (a really evil glint coming into his buttony eyes) Which is more than I can say for your bratty little kid. He’s going to fry for what I did. Do you hear me? Fry!”
Rather than bog the terror and intensity down with wordy exposition and the odd playfulness Chucky seems to carry with him in the script, the film focuses on intense moment to moment efficiency in both the visuals and the narrative. Karen heaves Chucky across the room and over the couch to get him off of her arm. He stands back up in a wide shot on the other side of the couch, his bottom half not visible, once more smaller in the frame. He turns to run toward Karen, to presumably finish the job and then halts.
There’s a sense of contemplation, as though he thinks better of it, and disappears from frame. The sound of a door opening and slamming signifies his departure from the apartment, leaving Karen with the burden, both physically and emotionally, of the truth she so desperately desired. While she follows after him, it’s to no avail.
Chucky is out, is dangerous and he is unstoppable. And no dancing or dialogue was required to prove it. Instead, the viewer is left as Karen is. Shaken. Scared. Unsure of what will happen next but poised, regardless of whether ready or not, to find out.
THE BLOODY CONCLUSION
I may never fully recover from the night I saw Chucky come alive on “the news”. A part of me will always fear dolls that are advertised as being able to really talk. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was grateful for that fateful, sleepless night (even if my Aunt and Uncle might’ve felt differently).
Child’s Play is a film which expertly explores the familial despair shared between a mother and a son torn apart, utilizing the over-the-top, supernaturally driven conceit of a doll come to life, imbued with evil. Still, no scene better represents the film’s ability to be psychologically distressing, carefully blocked and bombastically horrifying than that where it’s discovered the batteries were, in fact, included… just not in use.
Bringing the scene to life from the page was a complicated process. While the words certainly painted a picture of the pacing and tone the scene required to be successful, the filmmakers further allowed the sequence to evolve as it transitioned to the screen, streamlining events, dialogue and characterizations for maximum effect. But all of that would’ve meant nothing, had the doll not effectively come alive for the viewer.
In the feature “Chucky: Building a Nightmare” found on the previously mentioned blu-ray disc, special effects and ‘Chucky’ designer Kevin Yagher said there were, “three people that just work Chucky’s face” and that there was “one for the eyes, one for the brows and cheeks and one for the mouth”. He spoke about the various heads, arms and dummies that had to be created and kept on hand at all times so that different extremities could be changed out at a moment’s notice.
But it wasn’t just the animatronics— which according to Kevin Yagher were in their “infancy”— that required so much time, attention and manpower. Even simple things like making a doll roll away on its own required impressive ingenuity. Of the scene where Karen drops the doll and it rolls under the couch, Kevin Yagher recalled:
“We tilted the set to get him to roll… [we] built a portion of the living room floor and tilted it 45 degrees… to get it to bounce and then roll underneath.”
How the story is interpreted from the script is impacted by every single person who has a hand in creating the visuals which appear on the screen. Whether it be Tom Holland in the writer/director’s chair, Don Mancini writing his original script or Catherine Hicks (actress who portrayed Karen Barclay) who recalled on her commentary track that she pretended Chucky was a snake to achieve the proper amount of fear and loathing, all made decisions which led to the final sequence working in the way that it did. Kevin Yagher and the effects team’s efforts may be relatively invisible in the narrative, but it’s the nature of that invisibility that makes the final product so palpable, lasting and, ultimately, so utterly terrifying.
Horror is a powerful medium. I found that out young. For a long time I tried to ignore it. Like Karen Barclay, the prospect of something I didn’t understand shook me to the core, while at the same time drew me ever nearer to it. I still feel a chill when I catch a news report late at night, wondering if it’ll flash to some inexplicable event, something that shouldn’t be happening, that can’t be… and if I’ll be brave enough to keep watching this time.
I suppose my nightly routine of staying up late and putting on a horror movie is in some ways an eternal recreation of that night. A shared sense of desire and reluctance to experience that ultimate lack of control once more, the essence of fear.
Or, to put it another way, in the words of Tom Holland while describing the scene in question on his commentary track, “Great fun, great fun!”
Still… great fun?? When I think about my younger self, up late at night when I wasn’t supposed to be, sneaking TV and excitedly waiting to see how much longer I could get away with it, well… I guess Mr. Holland’s got a point.
Great fear, great fun… when it comes to great horror, it all amounts to the same in the end.
Child’s Play (1988): Written by Don Mancini and John Lafia and Tom Holland & Directed by Tom Holland
