"Wanna Play?" - Facing my childhood fear
This is a bit different from what I've done before but this is something I've been wanting to share. I don't know how many of you can relate, but as a child growing up in the 90s, I would go with my family to the local Blockbuster Video store. We would browse through the various VHS tapes to see which one would be coming home with us that week and it was a Friday night tradition that I both loved and dreaded.
Our Blockbuster had an interesting layout. I don't know if the other ones were like this but in our store, the kids and family section was on the far left. The section next to it, that you had to pass to get to the cartoons mind you, was the horror section. I was a bit jumpy as a kid but very few things actually scared me to the point of nightmares. Fidget the Bat from the Great Mouse Detective primarily starred in my nightmares since his modus operandi was to pop through windows and my bed just so happened to sit under the window in the room I shared with my older sister.
That was, of course, until I wandered through that horror section hoping to find a new cartoon to watch, that my eyes caught a flash of red that would haunt my dreams well into my adult years.
A startling face with large blue eyes and a menacing smile, knife poised and ready to strike.
The cover of Child's Play and its sequels burned into my mind. From that point on, my nightmares would consist of that horrid little doll with his knife or scissors or whatever the weapon of choice happened to be that night. I had eased out of it a bit until the late 90s when The Bride of Chucky came out. Since new releases were plastered all over the back wall of the local Blockbuster, there was no avoiding the now scarred face of the evil doll and the impish grin of his bride; so back into the Child's Play nightmares I went.
Just a side note, dolls didn't scare me. I had several porcelain dolls, baby dolls, American Girl dolls, etc. I had loved watching Twilight Zone as a kid and even though the doll episodes freaked me out, they never gave me nightmares, but just seeing a picture of that stupid redhead was enough to terrify me.
This would go on for years, just the mere sight of the doll would send my heart racing and I would break into a cold sweat. In college I had tried reading through the plot summaries on Wikipedia, hoping that at least a basic knowledge would help rid me of the nightmares. This only served to make them more vivid.
It wouldn't be until late last year that my good friend, who was an avid lover of the Chucky series, told me that she would sit down with me and we would watch them. She assured me that once I had seen them, that I wouldn't be afraid anymore.
This wasn't the first time that suggestion had come up. My older sister (who I shared the room with) had told me years ago that it would help, and even my husband had made the suggestion after dealing with me waking up from one of my Chucky nightmares. That was all fine and well but there was no way I was watching those movies by myself. So August 2017 my friend and I pull up Child's Play on Amazon and the sounds of Tom Holland's work fill my apartment.
I was antsy. I paced the apartment as the beginning scenes with the car chase and toy store played. I busied myself in the kitchen baking cookies and doing dishes, hoping to avoid seeing anything that would scare me. My friend, determined that I was going to see this through, told me I needed to calm down and watch the movie. So mustering more courage than I actually felt, I sat down and watched.
First I noticed Chris Sarandon and the familiar face helped to ease my nerves. Then I see Catherine Hicks and the childhood nostalgia of watching Star Trek IV helped too. I end up laughing my way through the movie, enjoying the clever camera work, homages to Twilight Zone, and just overall feeling silly that I had let this scare me for as long as it did. 20+ years of nightmares vanished in a flash and I was left with a new appreciation for a genre I had never really explored before.
I ended up watching most of the movies with my friend, including the new one that was released on Netflix that October.
As it turned out, we ended up having to move that November and the following February there was a local convention. They were having a Fright Night reunion and among the guests were none other than Tom Holland and Chris Sarandon. The Friday of the convention I went into the guest area and got to meet the director. He was a charming older gentleman who was more than happy to discuss his work with me. My husband prompted me to tell him my story and the director just chuckled. He then asked me how old I was when I finally saw the movie.
I sheepishly tell him it was only a few months ago and the man rolled his eyes so hard his whole body leaned back to follow them. He smiled though and assured me that it was normal to be afraid of Chucky.
As he put it:
Our Blockbuster had an interesting layout. I don't know if the other ones were like this but in our store, the kids and family section was on the far left. The section next to it, that you had to pass to get to the cartoons mind you, was the horror section. I was a bit jumpy as a kid but very few things actually scared me to the point of nightmares. Fidget the Bat from the Great Mouse Detective primarily starred in my nightmares since his modus operandi was to pop through windows and my bed just so happened to sit under the window in the room I shared with my older sister.
That was, of course, until I wandered through that horror section hoping to find a new cartoon to watch, that my eyes caught a flash of red that would haunt my dreams well into my adult years.
A startling face with large blue eyes and a menacing smile, knife poised and ready to strike.
The cover of Child's Play and its sequels burned into my mind. From that point on, my nightmares would consist of that horrid little doll with his knife or scissors or whatever the weapon of choice happened to be that night. I had eased out of it a bit until the late 90s when The Bride of Chucky came out. Since new releases were plastered all over the back wall of the local Blockbuster, there was no avoiding the now scarred face of the evil doll and the impish grin of his bride; so back into the Child's Play nightmares I went.
Just a side note, dolls didn't scare me. I had several porcelain dolls, baby dolls, American Girl dolls, etc. I had loved watching Twilight Zone as a kid and even though the doll episodes freaked me out, they never gave me nightmares, but just seeing a picture of that stupid redhead was enough to terrify me.
This would go on for years, just the mere sight of the doll would send my heart racing and I would break into a cold sweat. In college I had tried reading through the plot summaries on Wikipedia, hoping that at least a basic knowledge would help rid me of the nightmares. This only served to make them more vivid.
It wouldn't be until late last year that my good friend, who was an avid lover of the Chucky series, told me that she would sit down with me and we would watch them. She assured me that once I had seen them, that I wouldn't be afraid anymore.
This wasn't the first time that suggestion had come up. My older sister (who I shared the room with) had told me years ago that it would help, and even my husband had made the suggestion after dealing with me waking up from one of my Chucky nightmares. That was all fine and well but there was no way I was watching those movies by myself. So August 2017 my friend and I pull up Child's Play on Amazon and the sounds of Tom Holland's work fill my apartment.
I was antsy. I paced the apartment as the beginning scenes with the car chase and toy store played. I busied myself in the kitchen baking cookies and doing dishes, hoping to avoid seeing anything that would scare me. My friend, determined that I was going to see this through, told me I needed to calm down and watch the movie. So mustering more courage than I actually felt, I sat down and watched.
First I noticed Chris Sarandon and the familiar face helped to ease my nerves. Then I see Catherine Hicks and the childhood nostalgia of watching Star Trek IV helped too. I end up laughing my way through the movie, enjoying the clever camera work, homages to Twilight Zone, and just overall feeling silly that I had let this scare me for as long as it did. 20+ years of nightmares vanished in a flash and I was left with a new appreciation for a genre I had never really explored before.
I ended up watching most of the movies with my friend, including the new one that was released on Netflix that October.
As it turned out, we ended up having to move that November and the following February there was a local convention. They were having a Fright Night reunion and among the guests were none other than Tom Holland and Chris Sarandon. The Friday of the convention I went into the guest area and got to meet the director. He was a charming older gentleman who was more than happy to discuss his work with me. My husband prompted me to tell him my story and the director just chuckled. He then asked me how old I was when I finally saw the movie.
I sheepishly tell him it was only a few months ago and the man rolled his eyes so hard his whole body leaned back to follow them. He smiled though and assured me that it was normal to be afraid of Chucky.
As he put it:
"Fright Night is fun and entertaining, but Child's Play will scare the [crap] out of kids. What kid wants to think that their toy is going to come to life and murder them?"
 |
| "Sarah, wanna play? Tom Holland" |
I got a picture with him along with an autograph. It was during our conversation that he asked me where I was from and I told him that I was from Central Florida. He looked over at his handler and asked if that was where Alex Vincent (Andy Barclay, the hapless child from the movies) was living now. Turns out Alex Vincent has a business that is about 10 minutes from where I grew up. Small world huh?
Anyways, there's my rambling misadventure as it were. In hindsight, it seems so simple now. I guess you could say... It's Child's Play.
Hope you all got a good chuckle at my expense, I know it makes me laugh thinking back on it. I'm hoping to get more posts done soon but we're going to be moving again in the near future so sorry for the all the delays.
Hope you all got a good chuckle at my expense, I know it makes me laugh thinking back on it. I'm hoping to get more posts done soon but we're going to be moving again in the near future so sorry for the all the delays.
Cheers!
DS
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