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CONTENT WARNING: Murder, voodoo, racism, suicide, serial killers, possessed dolls, child endangerment, childhood trauma, blaming the victim, parents not believing children, violence, technological horror, artificial intelligence, gore.

On paper, it’s the most ridiculously laughable premise for a horror film. Mom buys kid a doll possessed by the soul of a serial killer, doll terrorizes family, have to kill doll. It sounds like a movie destined for video trash greatness. Instead, 1988’s Child’s Play is a taut thriller with awesome horror elements, and because of the budget and craft that went into the making of the film, the premise is elevated to a pretty great horror movie. In fact, having seen the recent 2019 reimagining, we’re tempted to say the original might hold up better, even with some of its very tone-deaf and problematic material. Both movies play in some interesting and occasionally frustrating waters, but we have to give credit to the filmmakers for these two movies - they’re bold takes on the horror genre. Grab your Buddy dolls as we watch the 1988 and 2019 versions of Child’s Play on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!

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Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.