Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. With my housemate still away visiting family, I have continued to make rigorous use of my screen monopoly, munching through a bunch of Slayers and whatever horror films I know would normally get vetoed. That generally means “films about dolls or spiders,” and thus this week has seen me mowing down the greater Child’s Play franchise, munching through as many of its far-flung features as possible. The franchise has undergone a couple of major transformations over the years, but has actually maintained its core team and general quality through all of it, making it perhaps the most consistent of all the major slashers. Let’s break it down!
I of course began with Child’s Play, the first installment in what I believe is my final outstanding quasi-slasher franchise. Brad Dourif stars as serial killer Charles Lee Ray, who after being fatally wounded in a shootout, manages to transfer his soul into the body of a “Good Guy” talking doll. That doll is subsequently gifted to Andy (Alex Vincent), the six-year-old son of single mother Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks). With his identity thus concealed, “Chucky” sets to work paying old debts, using Andy as cover for his own murderous machinations.
It’s always interesting seeing the origins of franchises that have taken on a cultural life of their own, leaving behind the distinct combination of variables that first gave them life. Much like the cenobites in the original Hellraiser, Chucky’s presence is more often implied than indulged here, leaving the film’s first half to proceed as a mixture of beleaguered family drama and crime procedural, feeling a touch more Jaws or Don’t Look Now than Friday the 13th.
It doesn’t stay that way, though. The second half finds all manner of ways for Chucky to enact his evil will, while Alex Vincent puts in a surprisingly compelling performance as his human handler. Dourif is of course great, though seeing him do a largely voice-acted role is a touch bittersweet, given he has one of the most expressive faces in Hollywood history. Still, the fact that he’s playing a toy doll means Child’s Play can get real nasty about its villain’s ultimate fate. Turns out body horror doesn’t affect your film rating when the bodily horrors are being inflicted on a doll!
On that note, Child’s Play 2 serves as basically the ideal followup to the original film, offering a louder, splashier version of its predecessor’s first half and an absolutely bonkers rendition of its second. Alex is in foster care now, and the two years between films have made him into a genuine child actor, capable of holding his own as the film’s main protagonist. This in turn facilitates a far more claustrophobic, seemingly hopeless scenario than the first entry; rather than an adult woman attempting to discover what is happening with her son, we are now affixed to the shoulder of an eight-year-old boy being tracked by a killer doll without a friend in the world.
Beyond effectively winnowing Alex’s story down to its most discomforting fundamentals, Child’s Play 2 also doubles down on the profound violence one is legally permitted to inflict on a toy doll. The film culminates in a battle between Alex, his foster sister, and the bloodthirsty Chucky waged across a Good Boy factory production floor, a chamber festooned with demented Seussian devices like “the eye inserter” and “the joint affixer.” The building is an OSHA nightmare and a body horrorsmith’s dream, and the film makes full use of all its terrible features in executing its final battle. I had a lot of fun with this one.
Chucky’s shenanigans continued in Child’s Play 3, the last film to retain the franchise’s original title and template. Jumping ahead to our long-suffering protagonist’s teen years, Andy Barclay (now played by Justin Whalin) has at this point run through a sequence of foster homes, ending in his enrollment at Kent Military Academy. Meanwhile, two separate incidents of doll-incensed serial killing have apparently failed to quell the public’s hunger for Good Guy dolls, with the first off the assembly line possessing Chucky’s wicked soul and undiminished hatred for Andy.
This one’s obviously a bit of a retread, with even Chucky creator and long-term writer Don Mancini admitting he was rushed and out of ideas. Nonetheless, it’s still a perfectly reasonable slasher escapade, possessing a fine crew of supporting actors and effectively capitalizing on its military academy setting. There is a meanness to this film that makes Andy’s situation feel all the more desperate; the academy cadets are torturing each other even before Chucky arrives, his presence essentially just manifesting the violence they wish to inflict on each other. And as with its predecessor, the climax is a hoot, this time taking place inside a spooky circus ride full of grim reapers wielding preposterously sharp scythes, alongside equally sharp-edged turbines for… I dunno, I guess blowing streamers in the air? Lotta ways to die in the circus.
Chucky at last wanders on to fresh pastures with Bride of Chucky, set shortly after Chucky is unceremoniously eviscerated by that rogue propeller blade in the third film. Our long-suffering homunculus is stitched back together by none other than Jennifer Tilly, here playing Tiffany or “Tiff,” Chucky’s former paramour and fellow murder enthusiast. After Tiff swiftly dies and reanimates in her own doll form, the pair set off to claim new human bodies, setting their sights on a pair of eloping teenage lovers.
This entry marks a full-on genre shift in the Chucky franchise, as the slow-burn child-gaslighting of the first three is replaced with a horror-comedy focus on Chucky’s domestic struggles. This could easily seem like a shark-jumping moment, and maybe it is, but this team makes that jump joyfully and in committed unison. Dourif, Mancini, and original producer David Kirschner are all still here, and Jennifer Tilly makes a staggering splash as Tiff, basically redesigning the franchise in her own self-consciously gaudy image. Seeing doll-form Brad Dourif and Jennifer Tilly bickering about their relationship while murdering hapless strangers is bizarrely charming; they’re talented character actors with terrific chemistry, and that comes through even when Tilly is mocking Chucky’s weird little dick.
The self-aware Flanderization of the Chucky universe reaches its apotheosis in Seed of Chucky, in which Chucky and Tiff’s unlikely progeny works to hunt down his mysterious parents. Seeing that they’re starring as actual dolls in a Hollywood Chucky film (I told you, we’re getting really self-aware here), he ships himself over and revives them, only for Chucky and Tiff to try and steal the bodies of Redman and actual movie star Jennifer Tilly (like, really self-aware).
The film is as farcical as you might expect given that description, but as with Bride of Chucky, the franchise’s constancy of core players and commitment to its fundamental strengths keeps this entertaining throughout. Mancini is now directing as well as writing, Kirschner is still producing, and the Dourif-Tilly pair are as compelling as ever, with the introduction of a shared child driving both of them into delightful new hysterias. Tilly in particular is just phenomenal here, attacking her self-effacing duel role with manic enthusiasm, to the point where it’s actually Chucky who eventually decides That’s It, This Is All Too Fucked, I Am No Longer Willing To Be A Part Of This. Brad Dourif is basically the modern successor to Peter Lorre, our era’s most reliable avatar of weird freaky guys, and it is an immense credit to Tilly’s performance that she convincingly proves herself too much for him.
