Killer dolls are popular once again and now seems like a better time than ever for Chucky to enter stage left and remind people that once upon a time he was the plastic maniac with a butcher knife. 1988’s “Child’s Play” is still a mini-classic that dabbles in the killer doll sub-genre and offers up its own twist. It’s essentially a slasher movie through and through, but it has small doses of the supernatural, and mysterious to add some kind of logic to the origin of Chucky. Brad Douriff’s turn as Chucky is immortal as he plays serial killer Charles Lee Ray, a man who is chased by police during a robbery. After being mortally wounded during a shoot out, Ray ducks in to a toy store and finds no other option but to summon magic to keep himself alive. Said magical incantation allows his soul to be transferred in to a popular doll named the “Good Guy Doll.”
Tag Archives: Supernatural
Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
It’s really hard to ignore the charm of Ernest and his Halloween adventure. “Ernest Scared Stupid” most definitely has a lot of nostalgic value and sentimental value, but it’s also a very good kids’ horror movie where Ernest battles a bunch of trolls. Ernest and Jim Varney has just always had a good chemistry and here it’s on full display when trolls are unleashed during Halloween. Here, Varney plays Ernest as a garbage collector in a Missouri town. Hundreds of years before a troll that used magic to turn kids in to wooden dolls was locked in a tree and kept dormant. Ernest helps his three friends Kenny Binder, Elizabeth and Joey construct their own tree house which they use as a means of entertainment and warding off the local bullies.
Dragon Wars: D-War (2007)
Shim Hyung-rae’s action film is a great concept with many possibilities that is never realized in to a watchable movie. While it’s not the worst movie of 2007, it’s an ill conceived film better suited for more forgiving Kaiju buffs. Shim Hyung-rae’s “D-War” is a confusing, poorly written, convoluted mess that only exists to host average CGI monsters, all of which are the actual stars here. Shim Hyung-rae’s film seems much better suited for cable, as its jumbled storyline tends to snuff out any momentum of action or suspense; it does sport one of the most droning prologues in cinema history, after all. “D-War” tends to fall in to repetition as a sloppy bit of fantasy filmmaking that it can never really decide what story it wants to tell. This meandering narrative does nothing but foreshadow future events, and the almost endless flashbacks hoping to bind the story into coherence fail and collapse in on themselves.
GiverTaker (2016)
For the nineties kids that grew up with great YA horror fodder like “Goosebumps,” “Fear Street,” and “Are You Afraid of the Dark,” director Paul Gandersman and writer Peter S. Hall really seem to have done their research, building a pretty damn great short horror film around the mold of a series called “The Dead Kids Club.” I hope they can find the funding to continue producing films under this label, as I’d love to see a series of shorts or feature length films within “The Dead Kids Club” concept.
Boy Eats Girl (2005)
“Boy Eats Girl” derives many elements from “Shaun of the Dead” as a romance comedy with a horror and zombie twist, all the while adhering to a lot of the classic teen romance tropes. There’s the alpha female, and geeky best friends, while our hero is a reluctant protagonist thrust in to an extraordinary situation that rekindles his love for his girlfriend. Nathan is a student at a local school where he constantly fawns for the love of his life Jessica who may or may not have the same feelings. After a misunderstanding, Nathan gets drunk, and accidentally hangs himself. His mom brings him back from the grave (When are people going to learn not to use mysterious books to do magic?), and all seems too good to be true.
Repossessed (1990)
I guess if you’re going to try to spoof a hit horror movie, you might as well bring with you the star of said film. For better and for worse, Linda Blair is now and will always be associated with her star making turn as Regan in “The Exorcist.” Sadly, she’s more known for the movie, than being a strong actress who gave a strong and compelling performance. Blair uses the chance starring in “Repossessed” to burn the whole motherfucking kit and caboodle to the ground hamming it up big time in a role that’s basically Regan 2.0 if Regan became a doting housewife revisited by Pazuzu. This time, though, she’s named Nancy. Get it? Nancy Regan?
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
In 1977, James Earl Jones co-starred in what is arguably one of the greatest movies ever made, and what is arguably one of the worst movies ever made. “Exorcist II: The Heretic” is a fine example of what could have happened if the original “The Exorcist” ended as an ill-conceived pseudo-spiritual mess. A bad idea from beginning to end, it’s one of the iconic bad sequels that is famously recollected by its producers as the movie that literally got them chased out of a theater by angry movie goers. Four years after being victimized by a demon, Regan MacNeil has somehow managed to put her life back together and live some semblance of normality. Sadly after the demonic possession, everyone’s life was just about ruined, and Regan’s life remained basically the same, as her mother Chris is frequently out of town. Does a girl have to get possessed again to get your attention, Chris?