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325. Child’s Play (#—)

Posted on May 20, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Charlene Lydon, this week joined by special guest Bren Murphy, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This week, Tom Holland’s Child’s Play.

Young Andy Barclay just wants one thing for his birthday: a Good Guy Doll. However, the coveted toy is outside his mother’s price range. Luckily, fate brings a discount doll into her hands, but things quickly become complicated. Andy finds himself at the centre of a series of mysterious deaths and is convinced that his beloved companion has taken on a life of his own, inheriting the spirit of the serial killer Charles Lee Ray, better known as “Chucky.”

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: Brad Dourif, charlene lydon, child's play, consumerism, don mancini, horror, imdb, killer dolls, mayhem, murder, podcast, slasher, The 250, Tom Holland | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “White Noise” and the Human Death Drive…

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of White Noise on Netflix, it seemed like a good opportunity to discuss Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s classic postmodern novel.

White Noise has long been considered unadaptable. However, Baumbach zeroes on a consistent throwline that guids his weird and eccentric adaptation through its various shifts and turns. White Noise is fundamentally a story about death. It is about the way in which so much culture – sex, media, consumerism – is designed as an effort to drown out the encroaching and inescapable sense of mortality. Baumbach presents a broad and cartoonish exploration of man’s inability to grapple with that universal certainty. In doing so, he tells a strangely moving story.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.