Child's Play

When I watched Child's Play I thought it had a Twilight Zone type feel to it. The ending looked very familiar, now it might because I would had watched this episode back in 1984 or 85.

It turns out that the story was based on the Twilight Zone episode 'Six Characters in Search of an Exit.'

The Preston family wake up to discover that their house is walled in. There is no escape. The house is getting warmer and there is gunge in one of the rooms.

They are trapped, with no way to break out. Time is stuck and there is this corporate logo everywhere.

It is an episode where it all makes sense at the end. The title of the story is an obvious clue.

The big problem is that the story was too long and too cheesy. It would have worked more effectively in the shorter format.

'Hammer House of Mystery' was one of my favorite TV series (British). And this episode stands out as one of the best, as well as the creepiest. see the entire series if u can, and DON'T miss this one. Actually, there is a pretty basic existential question at the heart of this film, but it is rarely handled with such precision or finesse.

First viewing: November 1984 / Second viewing: October 2003

Easily the most memorable of the whole `Hammer House Of Mystery And Suspense' series, `Child's Play' is like a stage play. Just three characters (kudos to the beautiful Mary `I shot JR' Crosby) – a nuclear family of sorts – who awake at 4:10AM one morning trapped in their own home. We learn very early on about the steel fortress and the mysterious symbol that constantly appears. A sense of impending doom and claustrophobia pervade throughout and the final scene is shocking in its execution. `A true story. Which has just been told before its time' reads the caption on the final reel. Almost perfect and nineteen years later I'm still amazed. 9/10

British TV movie, made by Hammer Films for their second series "Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense", does a good job slowly building up the characters' fear without making it feel like things are moving at a snail's pace. Nearly all of its 70 minute run time is spent on the characters attempting various methods of escape and theorizing on who (or what) has trapped them and why.

Other occurrences soon indicate their predicament is even stranger than it appears, such as a mysterious slime oozing into one area of the house, characters suddenly losing feeling/use of a limb for no apparent reason, and total memory loss of major life events.

Always the pessimist, I fully expected the coda to all this to drop the ball. All I'll say is that it definitely does not. If you want to see something a little different and actually driven by its story (something increasingly rare) this is well worth checking out and a perfect example of how horror can best utilize the made-for-TV format.

This episode along with the last one in the series are the two with the most The Twilight Zone vibe of the whole series. This episode opens with an amazing idea, it evolves very well and culminates in a non-trivial ending even if it can be guessed by more or less half of the episode. The whole episode is very entertaining and manages to be truly wonderful and with the right rhythms that give it the perfect atmosphere. Too bad, however, that there is the classic nuisance child who makes the episode slightly more difficult to bear. Even the final part is very beautiful even if it consists of a very classic didactic explanation that spoils the atmosphere a little.