Child's Play is a 1988 American supernatural slasher film directed by Tom Holland, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Don Mancini and John Lafia, and a story by Mancini. The film stars Catherine Hicks and Chris Sarandon with Brad Dourif as Chucky. Its plot follows a widowed mother who gives a doll to her son, unaware that the doll is possessed by the soul of a serial killer.

A slasher film is a subgenre of horror films involving a killer stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a generic term for any horror film involving murder, film analysts cite an established set of characteristics which set slasher films apart from other horror subgenres, such as monster movies, splatter films, supernatural and psychological horror films.