God damn old folks homes and their eternally buzzing televisions with no one watching them. It must've been a Sunday afternoon because of the type of programming that ended up on the tube that day, as we (my sister and I) waited around for whatever was going on with my parents and my grandparents. I'm sure we were probably just restless and annoying everyone else pretty good and were sent to whatever recreation room or lobby with a TV (I do love that retirement homes have some kind of game room with ping pong or croquet or some puzzles - why aren't these rooms required in every type of building?). Either way, I found myself unsupervised and staring, unflinchingly at the scariest thing I'd ever even possibly imagined that could manifest itself in my head. Fucking Chucky was on TV. For those somehow lucky enough not to know about this bastard, Chucky is a scary-ass doll with flaming red hair that comes to life and kills a shit ton of people and things for no particular reason (I don't recall a plot in that movie or know of one in the other movies, and I refuse to believer there are plots other than what I've described - even if they throw in a Betty White or a bride of Chucky or whatever the shit they tried to pull to keep that monstrosity of a series going).
Anywhom, those images plastered themselves to my head, reeking of evil, paranoia, and hatred of such ideas that dolls could have motivation to take a big ol' knife to everyone, let alone be alive to do it. I'm pretty sure this was the first horror movie I ever saw, because it's the first time I remember being so scared to sleep at night for weeks, maybe months at a time (although I did see some sort of Lifetime movie around the same time in which some woman friend/neighbor/babysitter/relative? torches a family's house with the kids in it - not sure if they survived - but that's just Lifetime for you, not really horror). It seems kind of dumb to be afraid of something you could easily punt, and although this is not as truthful when you're a kid, it still seems scary for dolls that people fawn over and give names and love could be so damn evil. Anyone remember their first horror movie?
I will get to this later, but believe me, I will get to it. Chucky, eh?
ReplyDeleteI believe there is a plot to the original Chucky, at least about why the doll is so evil. This is based on my distracted viewing of the film during one of my many Monsterfests (I guess Fearfest now). It had to do with a human serial killer who was somehow converted into a doll because he was running away from cops or something in a toy store...and yeah, somehow he got turned into a doll.
ReplyDeleteAs to horror movies...I didn't watch that many as a kid. The one that really freaked me out was Exorcist III. We watched it at Jim's house on his projector a long time ago. One scene in particular. If you remember this at all, you know the one I'm talking about.