Child's Play

Charles Lee Ray — the Lakeshore Strangler — is shot by a detective and stumbles dying into a toy store. He uses a voodoo ritual to transfer his soul into a Good Guys doll before he bleeds out. The doll ends up sold on the street and purchased by Karen Barclay as a birthday gift for her six-year-old son Andy, who names it Chucky and loves it immediately.

Andy's babysitter is killed — pushed from a window — and Andy is the only witness. No one believes him. He's taken for psychiatric evaluation. Karen begins to notice things: the doll spoke before she put any batteries in it; it has been places it shouldn't have been.

Chucky reveals himself to Karen and the hunt begins. Detective Mike Norris, who shot Charles Lee Ray the night he died, starts connecting the pieces. Chucky, meanwhile, is working against a deadline — the longer he stays in the doll, the more permanent it becomes. He needs to transfer his soul into Andy before the window closes, because Andy was the first person he revealed himself to.

Karen and Mike track Chucky through a voodoo practitioner he's already killed for the information. The doll is shot, burned, and reduced to a charred husk — and then starts moving again. Chucky is eventually destroyed for good by a shot to the heart, the one part of him that has fully become human.