Horrorthon'08: CHILD'S PLAY (1988)

More 80s horror, and more dated but fun nostalgia. This one I did at least manage to see nearer the time it was released, just before one of its sequels was wrongly used as campaign fodder by one of the UK's more dangerous press institutions and effectively buried.

I can't say if it's the film that's dated or my tastes that have evolved (perhaps a little of both) but this time round the film just seems to have lost something. I'm not one to let Britain's tabloids tell me what to think, so that's not it. But what is it?

Could it be the fact that Brad Dourif, once so menacing, has now been coloured by some of the absolute dross he's been in since then? Could it be that the horror that once seemed so over the top to my young, impressionable eyes is actually pretty tame when watched again nowadays? Or is it the special effects? Chucky certainly doesn't look quite so menacing as he once did.

That said, there's still much to enjoy. Chucky still has his moments, some of the slapstick violence is pretty funny and there's something simultaneously disturbing and hilarious about watching a small boy violently fighting a psychopathic toy.

Not the horror classic that its maligned UK reputation would normally suggest but still fun all the same.