CHILD'S PLAY (1988) BLU-RAY/UHD REVIEW

Child’s Play (1988) d. Tom Holland (USA) (87 min)

After Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), the notorious Lakeside Strangler, is cornered and shot in a Chicago toy store, he uses his dying breaths and voodoo mystic abilities to transport his soul into that of a Good Guy doll, the red-headed, freckled, talking sensation on every kid’s birthday wish list. Young Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) is one such lonely youngster, hoping that his newly widowed mother Karen (Catherine Hicks) can somehow come up with the funds to buy him his very own “friend to the end” to ease the pain of his father’s death. She manages to secure a deal with a back-alley peddler, not knowing that the doll in question is in fact harboring the serial killer’s spirit, and equally ignorant of “Chucky’s” plans to inhabit Andy’s body! Mysterious deaths begin to surround the young lad, arousing the suspicions of Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon), the level-headed detective assigned to the case. Will anyone believe Andy’s story or will he become the vehicle for Chucky’s future crimes?

TRAUMA (1993) Blu-ray Review

Trauma (1993) d. Dario Argento (Italy) (106 min)

David (Christopher Rydell), a graphic artist for a local news station, encounters a young Romanian runaway Aura (Asia Argento) contemplating suicide on a highway overpass. He convinces her to come in off the ledge, but when he tries to comfort her at a local diner, she reveals her bulimic tendencies, fleeing for the bathroom and into the waiting arms Dr. Judd’s (Frederic Forrest) Farraday Clinic cronies, from which she had recently escaped. Returning Aura to her spiritualist mother Adriana (Piper Laurie), the family reunion is spoiled when Adriana holds a séance in which she senses a murderer at the table and is herself murdered along with her husband by a mysterious serial killer known as “The Headhunter,” so dubbed for his/her decapitatory tendencies with a portable garroter. (Who knew there was a call for such things?) Aura flees again into David’s arms, and the two begin an investigation into the killer’s connections to Dr. Judd, Adriana, and the increasing number of victims, all of whom seem to be connected by a common thread…

BODY PARTS (1991) Blu-ray Review

Body Parts (1991) d. Eric Red (USA) (88 min)

Bill Chrushank (Jeff Fahey) is a criminal psychologist who loses his arm and nearly his life in a grisly car accident. Dr. Agatha Webb (Lindsay Duncan) proposes an experimental medical procedure, successfully grafting a new limb on its place. Following a strenuous period of rehabilitation, things seem to be back to normal… until Bill’s new arm starts to exhibit a will of its own, striking out against Bill’s wife Karen (Kim Delaney) and children, while Bill begins to experience horrifying dreams of murder and bloodshed. Are these symptoms all in his mind or are they linked to the limb itself, residual traces of its former owner’s troubled life?

URBAN LEGEND (1998) Blu-ray Review

Urban Legend (1998) d. Jamie Blanks (USA) (99 min)

While turning the scary little “true” stories that everyone has heard from “a friend of a friend” into horror films is nothing new (see When a Stranger Calls), this slick feature attempts to incorporate as many as possible into the context of a slasher movie with moderately successful results. First-time director Blanks (Valentine, Long Weekend) assembles an extremely photogenic cast to play students enrolled in professor Robert Englund’s college class on urban legends. Silvio Horta’s smirking script then proceeds to creatively eliminate the student body utilizing the syllabus’ grisly methodologies.