Childhood Fears - Chucky

Younger age fans of horror often laugh when I tell them that I was frightened of the Child’s Play villain Chucky when I was a kid, and then are usually left speechless when I add ‘before I even saw the movies’ to my statement. It is a situation these younger fans can’t really appreciate because one had to be a kid during the late 80s and early 90s to fully understand the terror this soon to be iconic horror figure could produce within us. The sad transition from horror figure to comedy figure that Chucky has endured over the last two decades also makes this difficult, especially when one’s first impression of the foul mouthed and easily provoked toy comes from the newer ‘stitched together looking Chucky’ rather than earlier ‘factory produced looking Chucky’ films. Back then Chucky was scary, especially if you were a kid, and one didn’t even have to see the movies to understand this -- a commercial preview on TV between scenes of a favorite show, or a description from a fellow grade school student who had happened to see part of the film was enough. Making it worse, we knew all about Chucky and some of the evil acts he was capable off inflicting upon people our age, but had no idea whether or not he had survived the latest film, thus making it possible that he could be hiding amongst our own toys one day -- hiding and waiting for the right moment to attack. It was horrible.

My earliest memory of fearing Chucky comes from the commercials I used to see as the Child’s Play 3 film neared its release date. To this day I have no idea what it was I could have been watching at the tender age of eight that would allow for such commercials to be shown, but remember several frightening instances of seeing a clip of Chucky breaking through the plastic front of his Good Guy box and grabbing hold of an unsuspecting person. The first time I saw this I ran screaming from the room, tears falling from my eyes. The next few times I forced myself to view the entire thing hoping for a glimpse that would hint about his eventual demise, which of course never happened. Once the movie was released the terror of viewing this commercial ended, but the fear induced by those few seconds of advertisement didn’t. Chucky had entered my mind and was there to stay. Occasionally moments came where I didn’t think about him, but it never lasted long. Making the situation worse a place called Blockbuster decided to open just down the street, one which would help reinforce the fear of Chucky every time I walked in thanks to the placement of their horror section and the large cardboard advertisements that sometimes marked the aisle. I don’t know whose idea it was to put the family and video game sections facing the horror section -- a sadist for sure is all I know -- but whoever it was made it nearly impossible for me to get to the beloved Nintendo games and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Cartoons without having to see the horrible image of Chucky chopping off the top of a Jack in the Box with a pair of hedge clippers. Such sights were not meant to be seen by children my age -- the resulting mind within the head of the person fingering these very keys to produce this post is proof positive of this.

As I grew older the fear of Chucky did start to diminish a bit (or got replaced thanks to my grandmother and the movies she let me and my brother watch), but never went away completely. Like a dormant volcano it was waiting for that perfect moment to become active again and wreak havoc. I was in the sixth grade when this finally happened. It was the weekend before Halloween, and much like the original introduction to Chucky I had suffered years earlier, I unsuspectingly saw a commercial on TV advertising a Child’s Play marathon -- all THREE movies -- that would be starting that night. Making it worse I was babysitting for a family friend that evening, and since the kids were required to be in bed by eight, I would have ample time to watch all three movies, the last of which I would view at home once the parents dropped me back off, my parents unable to interfere because they would be sleeping. All three Child’s Play movies at the age of twelve, the first two of in a strange and dark creepy house with no adults around, the third in the equality dark, but not as creepy basement of my own home. Needless to say my fears of Chucky were not lowered into a grave that night, a RIP tombstone marking its final resting place. I was scared of Chucky for a long time after that, and had to keep silent about it because the last thing my mother had said to me before wishing me luck that night with babysitting was ‘Don’t watch the Child’s Play movies.’

Eventually the fear did dissipate, but not before leaving a long legacy on my mind, one which, like I said, many younger horror fans can’t seem to understand and find funny. Hell, I probably would have found it funny too had I not lived the experience myself.

Update 11/30/10: Not surprisingly many of my younger friends found this post funny and have been laughing at me ever since for thinking Chucky was scary as a kid. Like I said, if your first impression of Chucky was from the later movies -- specifically the ones that had the name Chucky in the title rather than Child's Play -- then you probably never thought he was scary, even after going back and seeing the first movies. However, if your first impression as a young kid was from a trailer or preview for the first, second or third movie, and if you always had to see those box covers when going into the video store, he was pretty damn scary. Case closed.