The Chucky Collection: Child’s Play Boxset – Review

By Roger Crow

Child’s Play 2 (1990)

Director: John Lafia
Cast: Alex Vincent, Jenny Agutter, Gerritt Graham
Certificate: 15

Five years before Toy Story revolutionised filmmaking forever, there was a sequel to the original Child’s Play (included in this boxset and reviewed here). Remember that late eighties stalk-and-slash movie about a serial killer whose soul is transferred to a doll? And the two movies seem remarkably familiar. Key protagonist in CP2 is a kid called Andy, who barely survived the first film. However, as we see during the opening titles, remnants of Chucky, the possessed doll, did, and they are refashioned to form a new talking terror.

The youngster is taken in by a kindly foster couple, which includes the dreamy Jenny Agutter sporting a mild American accent.

In one overhead shot of their house, it almost seems like the same affluent North American neighbourhood as Toy Story. Anyway, Chucky version 2.0, still possessed by the soul of a dead serial killer (just go with it) finds out where Andy lives, hijacks a car, and gets driven to said abode.

In a spot of exposition, we see a priceless, delicate heirloom, which may as well have a sign attached saying ‘Chucky will break this and Andy will get the blame’.

There’s another foster kid living at the house, but the parents forget to mention her until the last second. Anyway, she’s a feisty smoker who sports late eighties fashions, as well she might, given the era. And suddenly the fact this film is 33 years old feels like a shocking wake-up call. It’s pre-internet and cell phones, so the analogue element is everything. That extreme close-up of an old phone looks like it belongs on Bargain Hunt.

Naturally Chucky proceeds to wreak havoc, and is desperate to transfer the trapped serial killer soul from doll to kid via an ancient incantation.

Given how nonsensical this all is, kudos to the cast for playing it straight, and the doll effects are terrific. Okay, there are obviously scenes of a person in Chucky suit, but the animatronics lend an eerie quality.

And like Toy Story 2, which appeared a decade after this, there’s a scene featuring a maze full of packaged dolls, and a finale which feels like a candy-coloured version of Terminator 2.

Given the age of the film, the picture quality and sound are excellent, and clocking in at under 90 minutes, the multiple endings eventually wrap things up with a finale so abrupt it crashes into the closing titles. There’s a horrible sense of misogyny from a couple of characters. You’d expect it from Chucky, the doll we love to hate, and the argument “It was a different time,” is no excuse.

Anyway, it’s a lean, mean sequel which is just the job after a hard day as it requires no brain power, and was obviously designed for the inevitable second sequel. Chucky, after all, is a production line creation, so little wonder the films followed a similar pattern to the antagonist’s birth.

Child’s Play 3 (1991)

Director: Jack Bender
Cast: Justin Whalin, Perrey Reeves, Andrew Robinson
Certificate: 18

The doll everyone hates to love, and loved to hate is a pile of molten plastic… and blood. Yes, the half-doll/half-trapped soul of a serial killer is resurrected as the opening titles roll, and if you needed any exposition, there’s a valuable slide show with a bunch of corporate suits filling in the blanks between film 2 and this one.

When a golf-loving, cigar-chomping businessman falls foul of Chucky in his penthouse apartment, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next. If you’d said Chucky would rock up in a junior version of Full Metal Jacket, I’d have needed proof. But Kent Military School is just where 16-year-old Andy Barclay winds up. Naturally, he falls for a feisty, attractive, sharp-shooting female cadet, and naturally Chucky wreaks havoc. This time he wants to possess the body of a young kid as Andy is apparently too old.

Anyway, there’s a paintball exercise when the ammo is changed to live rounds by you know who, and you start to wonder why the ‘junior military academy versus possessed doll’ genre didn’t take off after this barking second sequel as released in 1991.

It’s quite bizarre, occasionally fun, and Perrey Reeves is a great heroine. Not as great a character as scenery-chewing psycho barber Andrew (Dirty Harry) Robinson alas.

Picture and sound quality are rather good considering the age. The blues really pop, aptly on Blu-ray. The stuff in a haunted house naturally feels more germane to the EC Comics-style genre.

As ever the MVP is Kevin Yagher, whose Chucky doll is gloriously nutty.

Bride of Chucky (1998)

Director: Ronny Yu
Cast: Jennifer Tilly, Katherine Heigl, John Ritter
Certificate 18

Seven years on from CP3 and Chucky returned with the inevitable Bride of Frankenstein homage.

With the aid of a pentagram and a guidebook, “Voodoo for Dummies”, bloodthirsty trailer trash Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) has found the remnants of the killer doll and has stitched it back together.

Arachnophobes be warned, there’s a jump scare with an eight-legged co-star which will leave some unnerved.

Anyway, long story short. Tiffany is the girlfriend of the dead serial killer trapped inside Chucky. When he spurns her wish of living happily ever after, she locks him in a playpen, but at least gives him a doll in a wedding dress as company.

Seeking his own form of vengeance, it’s not long before Tiffany is sobbing while watching James Whale classic The Bride of Frankenstein. And then gets electrocuted. There’s just enough time for Chucky to transfer the dead woman’s body to the doll. And naturally, they go off and wreak havoc.

What follows feels like The Rocky Horror Show with nods to Hellraiser. While Katherine Heigl, before she was famous, deserves full marks for playing it straight.

The script is often so cockily meta it hurts, but there are some nice set pieces, including a couple who meet a watery end on their wedding night, and explosive shenanigans with an RV.

It’s a comic book-style caper on a par with the original Creepshow, and a lot of fun. Tilly is mesmerising as the femme fatale, and it never outstays its welcome. Unlike what followed.

Seed of Chucky (2004)

Director: Don Mancini
Cast: Jennifer Tilly, Hannah Spearritt, Jason Flemyng
Certificate: 18

The low point of the saga picks up after the last movie with some awful credits sequence involving a bad CG shot of the conception of Chucky’s son. He looks a bit like David Bowie, has Made in Japan stamped on his wrist and wreaks havoc with a British family who seem to exist somewhere in an alt-Victorian era.

Following a Psycho homage, we cut to shenanigans involving Santa (Jason Flemyng), but all is not as it seems, because we’re soon in meta territory and the making of a new Chucky movie involving Jennifer Tilly moaning about her career.

Lord of the Rings veteran Billy Boyd plays the voice of Chucky’s gender-confused son Glen/Glenda. And yes, it’s a homage to Ed Wood.

The script is terrible, some of the acting is awful, and even indie movie icon John Waters can’t help save a weird horror comedy that’s neither scary nor funny. Avoid at all costs.

Curse of Chucky (2013)

Director: Don Mancini
Cast: Fiona Dourif, Chantal Quesnelle, Danielle Bisutti
Certificate: 18

After the abomination of Seed of Chucky, there’s an attempt to get the franchise back on track with Curse Of.  Shot in Canada, it centres on a gothic pile, a disabled woman (Fiona Dourif, daughter of Brad who makes a rare appearance instead of just playing Chucky’s voice) and her doting mother. When a doll-shaped package arrives, it’s not long before that promise of a title has been honoured. When a cute kid pops to the loo in that same shadowy abode, it’s not long before there’s a yelp. Her concerned guardians break-in, and there’s the delighted child with a Chucky doll.

“It’s a doll. What’s the worst that could happen? Huh?” What indeed?

How about rat poison in your dinner?

Only a priest seems to be wary of the plastic addition to the family… but why does he leave the dinner early? And why is this so much better than the awful predecessor?

Well before you can say “Don’t lose your head”, there’s another decapitation, only this is so much better than the one in the previous movie.

There’s actual tension in CoC. Along with the usual tropes of any haunted house movie, including thunder, lightning, things behind curtains, and nobody being too bothered by the fact there’s hardly any lights on.

And adhering to the golden rule of a heroine who loses her clothes will probably end up dead, there’s a clever scene involving a bucket of water, a spot of cyber flirting, and an inevitable denouement. The ending is left open for another chapter in the seemingly indestructible saga…

Cult of Chucky (2017)

Director: Don Mancini
Cast: Fiona Dourif, Alex Vincent, Jennifer Tilly
Certificate: 18

There’s a feeling of things going full circle with this nasty little continuation of the schlocky horror show that is Child’s Play and its more atmospheric creepy chapter, Curse of Chucky.

Andy Barclay, the kid from the first couple of movies, is now all grown up. And he likes to torture the severed head of his living Chucky doll. Meanwhile, the wheelchair-bound heroine from ‘Curse Of’ has been committed to an insane asylum, so there’s a feeling of Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, and all those other heroines who went through a trauma and were locked up, only to escape later while chaos ensues.

Those are the laws of sequels, right?

As before, there are set pieces involving creative murders, including an arty fallen glass routine reminiscent of the time that couple were killed by fallen glass from an overhead mirror. And there are throwbacks to the meta world of Jennifer Tilly. Yes, she does look like the actress and no, this sort of thing never works, as Ocean’s 12 proved with the sly nods to Julia Roberts and her on-screen character.

Fiona Dourif once more proves she is a solid lead, but it’s time this franchise was left well alone. Even though a rather good reboot with Mark Hamill followed.

Child’s Play (2019)

Director: Lars Klevberg
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Gabriel Bateman, Mark Hamill
Certificate: 15

The saga gets a reboot with this rather good offering featuring Aubrey Plaza.

She plays the overworked single mum who smiles sweetly at irate customers when they return faulty Buddi dolls.

She and slightly deaf son Andy have just moved into a new apartment. He’s lonely. And though the Buddi doll phenomenon is a little young for him, he politely thanks Mum when she brings him a rejected toy from the store. The thing is, this version of the AI doll has been reprogrammed by a miffed worker in his overseas factory sweatshop, so all the safety protocols have been disengaged.

Stuttering like Max Headroom, the faulty Buddi, named Chucky, tugs at the heartstrings as he tries to come to terms with the world and right and wrong. Like Data from Star Trek, this next generation of toys is a compelling sight. Ugly, yet endearing, and obviously creepy, as all dolls are in horror movies.

So it starts off well. And a scene involving Christmas lights must win an award for one of the grossest, and funniest of 2019. The set-up is wonderful, while the eventual pay-off leads to an equally funny comedy of manners at the dinner table.

The joy of Child’s Play 2.0 is it gets the tone just right. A mix of horror and comedy, with Mark Hamill relishing his role as the voice of Chucky. And the fact it’s hard not to sympathise with the faulty doll as an added bonus. One minute a psycho, the next a fearful plastic ’kid’ in peril. That duplicity is what made Gollum work, and it also ticks a lot of boxes here. Although I could have done without that closing song.

Hamill’s a great Jedi, but can’t carry a tune.

While the second act may lose a little steam, the showdown in a toy shop is just the prolonged end the movie needs. The cast do a great job, while director Lars Klevberg exploits every thriller trope in the book, including the well-worn fridge door gag. (Character opens door, obscuring view behind it. Looks for goodies. Closes it. Psycho appears).

Gabriel Bateman is spot on as Andy, and does a great job of carrying the bulk of the movie.

I wish the last shot didn’t suggest a sequel could be in the offing. But this is a mainstream popcorn offering rather than a more subtle indie flick. So in a way it’s a given.

The movie looks like it cost far more than $10million. And, while it might not have been a massive global success, the thought of that sequel is not the most horrifying thing in the world. Only next time, no singing Mark.