Child’s Play | 2019 | R | – 3.9.6

Why is “Child’s Play” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “bloody horror violence, and language throughout.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a few implied sex scenes, references to sex and teen pregnancy and several cleavage revealing outfits; many scenes of violence toward an animal and humans resulting in death in gruesome ways with bloody and graphic results shown; and 17 F-words. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.”

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A reboot of the franchise: When a woman (Aubrey Plaza) moves with her pre-teen son (Gabriel Bateman) to a new city, she gives him an electronically enhanced doll (voiced by Mark Hamill) hoping that it will help him make the adjustment to their new home. The doll’s programming begins to make it do unexpected things and soon the boy must convince everyone that something is very wrong. Also with Brian Tyree Henry, Tim Matheson, David Lewis, Beatrice Kitsos, Ty Consiglio, Hannah Drew and Trent Redekop. Directed by Lars Klevberg. A few lines of dialogue are spoken in Vietnamese with English subtitles. [Running Time: 1:30]

Child’s Play SEX/NUDITY 3

 – A man and a woman kiss passionately and his shirt is open to reveal a T-shirt underneath as a pre-teen boy walks into the room and interrupts them. A man fastens his pants as he walks out of a room following a woman (sex is implied).
► A man watches a CCTV video of a woman in her bathroom wrapped in a towel and then wearing a bra and underwear (we see cleavage, bare back and legs to the hips) until the electricity is cut. A video of a doll thrusting its hips suggestively is seen on a cellphone screen.
► A woman comments about having a “productive sweet 16” (implying sex and teenage pregnancy). A woman makes reference to a married man having sex with an employee.
► A woman wears low-cut tops and dresses that reveal cleavage in several scenes throughout the movie. A woman wears a low-cut sweater and a short skirt that reveal cleavage and bare legs to the upper thighs.

Child’s Play VIOLENCE/GORE 9

 – A man climbs a ladder to take down Christmas lights from a roof at night, the ladder lurches, the man falls to the ground breaking his legs (we see bones sticking out from his pant legs) and screams for help; tangled in a string of lights, a motorized tiller moves toward him pulling the string in its blades, the man stops the tiller as a doll with a knife jumps on his chest, the man lets go of the tiller and it cuts his head with a lot of blood spraying and the doll stabs him in the chest repeatedly (we hear crunching and we later hear that he was stabbed 13 times).
► A doll slashes a man on the back of the leg and the man screams (we see blood) and falls to the floor where he is stabbed in the chest a couple of times; the man climbs on a saw table, the table tilts and the man grabs onto a pipe that becomes hot as the saw blade at his feet spins; the man loses his grip on the hot pipe and his foot touches the blade (blood spurts), he falls onto the blade and his leg is cut off (we see the leg fall on the floor with a lot of blood spraying and pouring).
► A woman riding in an unmanned car screams when it speeds around a parking lot out of control, it reverses onto the hood of another car, the seatbelt is unfastened and the air bag is disengaged as it crashes into a parked vehicle (we see the woman with blood on her head and face and hear her scream when a doll with a knife appears in the driver seat and we hear a crunch when she is stabbed); we see the woman dead later with blood on her face, head and on her chest where a large knife is seen.
► A doll stabs a man in the neck and we see blood spray on several people standing around him when he removes a large mascot head and falls to his knees. Several drones with knives attached to their propellers fly around a crowded store slicing people in the neck, face and chest (blood pours from the wounds). A pre-teen boy hears noises at night and finds his pet cat dead in a pool of blood with a doll standing over the body; the boy puts the cat in a box and throws it down a garbage chute. A doll with a large kitchen knife moves toward a teen boy and another boy tackles the doll reaching for the knife and the doll slashes him on the arm (we see blood).
► A woman, bound and gagged, is lifted off the floor by a fork lift with a rope around her neck as a pre-teen boy is pinned on the floor by a doll that cuts the boy’s shirt with a knife; the boy gets free and tries to cut the rope holding the woman with a hedge trimmer, the doll attacks him and they both fall catching onto the rope and breaking it; they all fall to the floor and the boy stabs the doll in the chest, a man shoots the doll and the woman pulls the doll’s head off. A pre-teen boy panics and screams when he sees a man’s face (removed from his head) stretched on something on his dresser; he wraps it in wrapping paper and tells his mother that he made something for his neighbor and wants to give it to her; the woman drops it on the floor with a loud thud and remarks about how heavy it is (she does not unwrap it); the pre-teen boy grabs the package and runs to a garbage chute where he dumps it.
► Two teens and a pre-teen boy watch a horror movie that shows people being killed by a man using a chainsaw and a knife; we see a person’s head being cut open with a lot of blood and matter, and other people being sawed and stabbed (with a lot of blood spraying) and one person’s face is cut off and held up to show skin with holes at the eyes, nose and mouth. A man jumps from the roof of a factory and slams onto the roof of a car (we see this in the background of a scene and there is no blood evident). A doll with the face of a bear roars and growls as it attacks people (one man is pulled off-screen as we hear him scream).
► A man yells at and shoves a pre-teen boy, and then pushes him back on a bed and threatens him (he leaves the room with no additional physical contact). A preteen boy and teen boy fight and wrestle on a floor with a couple of punches landing before they are separated (one boy has a bruise on his face later); another boy is shoved into a shelving unit when he tries to separate the first two and he has a bruise on his head later. A man slaps another man in the face for not working at his factory job; the first man tells the second man that after he is finished assembling a doll, he is fired.
► Several teens with sledgehammers and baseball bats beat a doll repeatedly breaking it apart and then burn it in a barrel fire. A pre-teen boy opens a closet and we see a doll holding a knife; the boy is holding a hammer and tells the doll to give him the knife (it does), and the doll follows the boy to his room where it is struck by two others who hit it and hold it on the floor until one of them pulls out the doll’s controls (its eyes flutter and switch off) and we later see the doll wrapped in cloth and thrown into a garbage chute. A teen girl slices a doll in half using a hedge trimmer and stabs it in the chest with a knife. Video of a pre-teen boy wishing a man would go away and calling him names plays on many TV screens in a store and a boy slams a doll onto the floor and pounds on it. A cat scratches a boy on the hand (we see blood dripping from the wound) and a doll holds the cat around the neck strangling it until the boy stops it. A pre-teen boy swings a baseball bat around in an apartment breaking things and slams a TV screen repeatedly when it plays videos of people being hurt by a doll. A teen girl shoves and threatens a teen boy. A pre-teen boy connects a doll to a system causing the doll to twitch and glitch and its eyes flash red off and on.
► We see a video of a woman being killed by a doll (in a car crash). A doll plays the sounds of a cat screeching as it was being killed. A doll plays a recording of a pre-teen boy calling a man names. A doll is locked in a closet by a woman. A doll is locked in a closet by a pre-teen boy. A doll startles a man in a few scenes causing the man to fall on the floor (there are no injuries) and the doll roars at him. A doll talks to and sings to a pre-teen boy, who becomes frustrated and covers his head with a pillow to block out the noise. A doll practices making creepy, scary faces. A doll steals bags of chips from a vending machine.
► A man hooks a doll to a car battery and jumpstarts its system (we see the doll strapped to a table and it has a smear of blood on its face); the man moves toward the doll with a power drill and the scene ends.
► A man jokingly accuses a boy of selling drugs and beer in an apartment hallway. A woman pulls a red ribbon around her neck pretending to be hanging herself. A woman holding a pen gestures stabbing herself in the head. A teenage girl makes a comment about a situation being like a “robot apocalypse scenario.” A man remarks about a “white guy” dying in a watermelon patch being poetic.
► We see a dead man’s body with his face removed (it’s a bloody skeletal head). A teenage boy vomits loudly and gags a few times (we hear splattering in a garbage can and see goo on his face) when he sees a man’s face (cut off from his body) in another boy’s room. A man urinates in a bathroom (we hear the trickle) and sprays himself in the face with urine when a doll in the room startles him by playing a recording of a boy calling the man names. A factory scene shows dolls being assembled with separated heads and body cavities open to show machinery.

Child’s Play LANGUAGE 6

 – About 17 F-words and its derivatives, 1 obscene hand gesture, 6 sexual references, 20 scatological terms, 27 anatomical terms, 11 mild obscenities, name-calling (worthless, stupid, ginger, hobo, bat [scatological term deleted] crazy, crazy, creepy, weird, freak, narc, ridiculous, rude, psycho killer, bozo), exclamations (busted, shut-up), 3 religious profanities (GD), 11 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Oh God, Jesus, I Swear To God, Help Me Jesus). | profanity glossary |

Child’s Play SUBSTANCE USE

 – A woman answers her front door holding a glass that we understand contains liquor, a man makes a gesture and facial expression that implies that a woman drinks heavily, a man drinks from bottles of beer in several scenes, and a woman drinks glasses of wine in a few scenes. A man smokes a cigarette in a parking lot.

Child’s Play DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Fitting in, happiness, understanding, control, disappointment, relocating, making friends.

Child’s Play MESSAGE

 – Modern technology has run amok and it is terrifying.