10 Movies That Influenced Audiences In Awful Ways

Back before the Chucky films leaned heavily into comedy and Jennifer Tilly, they were regarded as more serious horror films under the title Child's Play. Feeling he'd run out of ideas, the writer of Child's Play 3 ended the franchise for the next seven years, unaware that they were about to become notorious.

On February 12 1993, 10-year-old Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were playing truant from school as they regularly did, spending their time shoplifting in the local shopping centre. That afternoon, Denise Bulger visited the shopping centre with her two-year-old son James. While she was distracted for a moment, Venables approached the child, took his hand, and led him away from the shops.

When they arrived at the Leeds And Liverpool Canal, the boys tortured the toddler, before leaving his body on the nearby rail tracks, hoping it would look like he got hit by a train to cover their tracks.

It was this final act that inspired a theory amongst detectives when the killers were identified. One of the films that Venables' father had rented in the month prior to the crime was Child's Play 3, during which two teenagers end up killing possessed doll Chucky on the rail of a ghost train after his face is smashed in.

During their attack on Bulger, the two boys poured blue modelling paint into one of his eyes, again with paralleled in the film when Chucky has blue paint splashed on him.

While to this day there is ongoing dispute about whether either of the murderers had even seen the film, these similarities led to it being banned from distribution in the UK until 2002.