‘Wanna play?‘
If you look at slasher movies as a family then Halloween is undoubtedly the godfather. Friday the 13th is the tearaway son, and A Nightmare on Elm Street the unruly cousin. I guess that makes Chucky and the Child’s Play franchise the forgotten second son chained up in the attic. While Child’s Play will never be as beloved as the films that came before it, its longevity and endurance proves that there is still a lot of love out there for the little franchise that could. Let’s explore…
7. Curse of Chucky (2013)
Released straight-to-video following a nine year gap from Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky is a home invasion movie that takes place mostly in one room. It has that annoying post Sinister and Insidious habit of being filmed in washed out greys and blues, and this darker tone doesn’t really suit the Child’s Play franchise. When your villain is a 3ft doll, you need to be combining murderous rampages with some levity from time to time. Curse of Chucky plays it mostly straight, and as a result, it is undoubtedly the low point of the franchise, and further proof, if any were needed after Seed of Chucky, that Don Mancini is a great series creator and writer, but he fares less well when given full creative control.
6. Seed of Chucky (2004)
There comes a time in every horror franchise where the creators just think ‘fuck it’ and start throwing every damn random thing into the mix. Seed of Chucky, the fifth entry in the franchise, is categorically that film. Chucky and Tiffany are joined by their gender confused offspring Glen/Glenda (Billy Boyd), and we also see the inclusion of controversial director John Waters, iconic rapper Redman and erm… Hannah from S Club 7. As I said, this is a weird movie. But does it work? Kinda.
The first entry in the franchise to be directed by series creator Don Mancini, Seed of Chucky has some interesting ideas (the transgender doll, the film within a film, the concept of being addicted to murder), but the execution is so odd, so madcap, that naturally parts of this film simply don’t work. That being said, there is a lot of fun to be had with Seed of Chucky, and it boasts yet another wonderful performance from series MVP Jennifer Tilly. All in all, a lot of fun.
5. Cult of Chucky (2017)
Now we’re talking. This is what the sixth entry in a horror franchise should look like. Returning stars (Andy Barclay AND Tiffany make a comeback). A crazy but entertaining premise (Chucky comes across some spell on a website that allows him to ‘wake up’ the other Good Guys dolls). Some great kills. Sure, it borrows liberally from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, but as that is one of the best horror sequels of all time, it’s a pretty good place to borrow from. Finally, at his third attempt, Mancini directs an honest to goodness great Chucky sequel. A whole lot of fun.
4. Child’s Play 3 (1991)
The third film in a horror franchise is traditionally about rebirth. The first sequel tends to be a bad cover version of the original (Halloween II, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2), and so, the third film tends to be a reaction to the lukewarm performance of the previous entry. Halloween III dropped Michael Myers all together. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 moved the action to a home for troubled teens. Friday the 13th: Part III… well that one is more of the same actually, but it is the film that introduces Jason to the iconic hockey mask. Child’s Play III takes a now adolescent Andy Barclay and moves him to military school. A bold move…
Child’s Play 3 sees the return of Andy Barclay (albeit played by Justin Whalin) and Brad Dourif as Chucky, and it also feels like the end of a cycle of Chucky movies as Bride of Chucky wouldn’t appear for another seven years, and it also has a whole new cast of characters. To that end, Child’s Play 3 is a fitting end to the first phase of Chucky movies, and the denouement in the creepy fairground is suitably ridiculous and weird.
3. Child’s Play (1988)
As with all of these franchises, the original is the darkest. Before Chucky became the jester to Freddy Krueger’s crown prince, he was the ghost of a sadistic murderer trapped in the body of a kid’s toy following some kind of voodoo magic. Drawing on the later Halloween sequels, Child’s Play employs Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), a young wide-eyed boy, as the Final Girl equivalent, and this lends the original Child’s Play a darker edge than the more comedic sequels.
Dourif embodies Chucky’s murderous rage, but Chris Sarandon and Catherine Hicks bring a lot to the party also as a sceptical cop and a doting mother respectively. Not until Bride of Chucky would a Child’s Play film have such a stellar cast.
Watching Child’s Play again all these years later made me long for a time when a wild premise like this could be greenlit. Sure, we have the Annabelle movies now, but they aren’t as demented or strange or downright odd as this film is. Still, the original and almost the best.
2. Bride of Chucky (1998)
While ostensibly a sequel taking place a year after the events of Child’s Play 3, Ronny Yu’s Bride of Chucky is very much a reboot – a departure from the three films that preceded it. Child’s Play, and the two initial sequels that it wrought, can very much be considered their own self contained trilogy. Bride of Chucky dispenses with Andy Barclay entirely, and in his stead, introduces Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) as the eponymous bride. And Tilly, along with familiar faces like Katherine Heigl and John Ritter, helps to ensure that Bride of Chucky is close to being the finest moment in the whole franchise – it’s certainly the most entertaining.
Taking place in a post Scream world, Bride of Chucky opens with a shot of an evidence locker that also features Freddy’s glove, the masks of both Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers, and a chainsaw that presumably belonged to Leatherface. The fourth film in the Child’s Play franchise is full of these playful moments, and it’s all the better for it. Dourif returns as Chucky, of course, and by now, the evil Good Guy doll has become his own anti-hero – albeit an anti-hero that is matched every step of the way by Tiffany with an iconic performance from Tilly.
Bride of Chucky isn’t for everyone, but it is Chucky at his compelling. If you’re looking for a way in to the Child’s Play universe, this is the film for you.
1. Child’s Play 2
By the time Child’s Play 2 rolls around in 1990, it is clear who the star of this franchise is. Chucky adorns all the posters, has way more screen time, and has a lot more to say for himself. More, more, more is the theme of Child’s Play 2. More characters, more deaths and more voodoo. While that does result in a movie that occasionally feels like an inferior retread of the original, there are enough visually striking and menacing moments to ensure that Child’s Play 2 is more than just a solid sequel. The return of Andy Barclay helps in this regard, as does the addition of Christine Elise as Andy’s bratty foster sister Kyle.
In the end, Child’s Play 2 is a superior sequel that retains the mad spirit of the original whilst also helping to grow the universe that would go on to spawn numerous other sequels, a reboot and a television show. Not bad going. Plus, this film features one of the all time great horror movie villain deaths. And I don’t say that lightly.