Written by Patti Pauley

The ’80s were indeed a grand decade for the horror icon and, I think it’s fair to say, belonged exclusively to the slasher. From Freddy, Jason, and Michael, the 1980’s coined the word slasher and turned it into an unstoppable phenomenon. Between brilliant marketing of the all inducing ass-whoopings of those glorious 1-900 numbers to every kid on your block dressed up as Freddy sporting a plastic garbage bag Ben Cooper costume on Halloween, the era of the slasher was a glorious time to be alive for horror fans. And in 1988, a small but fierce force entered into that iconic fraternity of slasher legends- Chucky.

When Child’s Play opened in theaters back ’88, no one expected the pint-sized Good Guy to launch the kind of fanfare Chucky brought to the horror game. The movie made on a less than stellar budget of only $9 million ended up pulling in almost four times that amount worldwide upon its theatrical release and ended up spawning six sequels over the past 30 years, including the highly anticipated Cult of Chucky making its debut early this October.

However, this is Retro Rewind, and we’re backtracking all the way back to some glorious distorted VHS goodness.

Back in the glory days of the Polaroid cassette video tape, studios such as MGM would send out promotional VHS screeners of new releases to mom and pop video stores in an effort to get that movie lined up on their shop shelves. On a side-note, I remember the first time seeing Chucky’s face at my local one-stop rental shop Action Video and my seven-year-old self, fresh off a viewing of Dolls, was immediately impulsed to rent the little sucker. Not knowing a thing about it, and so glad I did.

Anyway, these VHS screeners sent out apparently also contained some extra promotional material intended to fancy up the marketing. In this case, a six and half minute promo of a stiff as fuck Chucky salesman breaking to rap about his movie came along with the Child’s Play screener and the cheese is so delicious my friends. Also, you gotta appreciate the gangster aspect of good ole’ Chucky taunting both Freddy and Jason in this promo.

“Jason? HA! He’s so scared of me, he’s gotta hide behind a mask.”

Beautiful. Check the video out below uploaded by YouTube channel DoctorSnowcone!