University of Virginia Library

CINEMA

Trust The Inevitable Evil Spirit Theory

By JIM JUBAK

At an early point in Child's
Play the issue of trust rears up
its hydra heads and sits in front
of us on the screen, glaring out,
almost malevolently, at the
audience. This first glance of
that serpent caused more than
a slight tremor of disquietude;
and by the end of the film my
tremor had become an ague of
discomfiture.

Trust, indeed, could have
been the main theme of Child's
Play. It could have been, but it
wasn't. James Mason brings
trust to our attention for the
first time. As Old Lash, Mason
is trying to teach a very
recalcitrant class of juniors to
translate a Latin proverb.
Finally, after he has bullied a
good portion of this class,
someone translates it correctly:
"Trust, like the soul, never
returns once it goes." To make
sure we haven't missed the
word "trust" Mason then
comments: "Trust, a much
abused word, gentlemen."

This is just the start of a
long and I'm sure tiring career
for trust. At points too
numerous to mention it comes
running out of the woodwork
for a few lines of dialogue. The
climax of the dramatic role of
this veritable workhorse comes
as Beau Bridges tries to
convince some of the junior
boys that their trust has been
abused; that their seeming
friend, Robert Preston, has just
been using them to get rid of
Mason because he wants
Mason's job. In a scene which
I'm sure meant something to
someone, the boys drown out
Bridges' arguments by
conjugating the verb "to trust"
just before they beat him to
death with their school books.
The problem with all this is
that it is impossible to define
the position that the film has
taken toward the issue of trust.
To simplify matters greatly,
Mason doesn't trust and by the
end of the film he is dead;
Bridges does trust and by the
end of the film he is dead;
Preston manipulates his boys'
trust and at the end of the film
he is about to die. If you can
make anything out of that
you're a better man than I am,
Gunga Din.

Of course a film doesn't
have to have a deeply
meaningful theme, but Child's
Play doesn't even work as pure
entertainment. Ostensibly, the
film is of that well known
sub-genre: the mysterious
terror in the Catholic boys
school where all the boys are
committing acts of violence
upon each other and the
authorities are helpless to stop
it type.

In movies of this type their
primary source of enjoyment is
in trying to figure out why the
violence is being committed,
and for a while it appears that
Child's Play will be a classic
example of this genre. One of
the priests suggests that
perhaps an evil spirit has
gained control of the school –
the inevitable evil spirit theory.
There is also the gee-Whiz
rationalization: The boys are
only letting off steam before
the holidays. What finally
becomes obvious though is that
in some way the violence is
linked to the conflict between
Preston and Mason. Yet for the
life of us, we can't figure out
exactly how.

The reason that we can't
figure things out more quickly
is that Child's Play doesn't play
fair. The trust of the audience
is abused and we are
deliberately mislead.

Just one example of this
should suffice: Preston and
Jennings, one of his students,
are talking after class, when
suddenly the music tells us that
we are about to have a
mysterious incident. Medley,
another one of Preston's boys,
confronts Jennings, tells him
he has to go to the gym, and
utters other mysterious but
significant remarks. Preston
demands to know what's going
on, and here is the cheat.

Preston, being the instigator
of the violence knows what is
going on. There is no possible
internal motivation for Preston
to act as if he doesn't know.
The only reason for him to