The 1988 movieChild’s Playintroduced horror fans to Chucky, a completely evil “Good Guy” doll who loves murder, manipulation, and being in control at all times. While Chucky is too expensive for Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) to buy for her young son Andy (Alex Vincent), she is able to buy him from a man who is homeless, and she’s thrilled and grateful to make her child happy. Unfortunately, Chucky kills Andy’s babysitter Maggie Peterson (Dinah Manoff) and that’s when the trouble starts.
While there have been several films in theChild’s Playfranchise, it’s the 2019 reboot that sticks out to fans as it’s a disappointment. This movie suggests that some horror movies can’t be rebooted.
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The 2019 rebootChild’s Playis one of theworst horror movie remakesand sees Aubrey Plaza playing Karen Barclay, mom to Andy (Gabriel Bateman). The story plays out in a similar way to the ’80s film, with a young child enjoying playing with Chucky and then realizing that strange things are going on. But the movie doesn’t feel as interesting as the original, and there are a few reasons why.
In the 2019Child’s Playreboot, Mark Hamill is the voice of Chucky, and it doesn’t work as well. Brad Dourif voices this classic character in the original movie and even voiced the doll in thewell-done TV seriesChucky.
In aninterview withDaily Dead, Brad Dourif shared that Chucky can’t always be hilarious because it’s necessary for him to be scary. Dourf said, “The struggle is between the fact that Chucky loves his job, for lack of a better word, and Chucky can also turn a living human being into a piece of meat. Those are the two things that make up this character. That’s the line you have to be walking, so you cannot just make Chucky all funny, all the time. It just doesn’t work. He needs that edge.”
Brad Dourif is iconic in the horror world, and Chucky is a favorite figure just likeMichael Myers inHalloweenorGhostface inScream. It feels impossible torecast Freddy Krueger inA Nightmare On Elm Streetand it’s hard to recast Chucky as well. There’s just something familiar and nostalgic about Dourif’s voice, and as he said in his interview, he does inject the perfect combination of humor and fear into his famous character. When fans hear the Chucky voice, they know exactly what’s going on and what’s going to happen. The voice in the 2019 remake doesn’t seem the same, and that’s too bad, as fans feel attached to Chucky’s creepy yet somehow still endearing voice.
The explanation for why Chucky is evil is also a bit rough in the 2019 movie. In the original, Chucky is the result of voodoo magic. Charles Lee Ray, a serial killer, puts a voodoo spell on a Good Guy doll and his soul is put on the doll. While that might seem outdated now, it makes more sense than saying that Chucky is a robot with technical glitches. At the beginning of the movie, audiences see a factory making Buddi dolls, who are supposed to be friends to the people who own them. But because Chucky malfunctions, he’s now a killer. At the end of the film, Henry Kaslan (Tim Matheson), the CEO of the corporation Kaslan says that there was a problem programming the dolls.
Chucky survives in eachChild’s Playmovieand he doesn’t seem as terrifying in the remake. The idea that his programming is wonky doesn’t land the same way as a spell being cast on him. In the original film, it feels like Chucky’s descent into evil is inevitable. People are afraid of what they can’t see and understand, which is why dark magic can be a perfect explanation.
While audiences learn at the end of the end of the 2019Child’s Playthat Chucky will continue his evil killing spree, since the doll’s eyes are red, it still feels like if the manufacturers can figure out how to fix this defect, then perhaps this won’t happen in the future. That’s just not all that scary, especially not compared to theChuckyTV series.
In SyFy’s show, Chucky is absolutely horrifying. He laughs before killing people, he manipulates the main character Jake Wheeler (Zackary Arthur) into believing that he’s good and innocent, and he can use a knife and light a house on fire like no one else. While it’s too bad that the 2019 remake doesn’t evoke the fear and excitement of the original, at least fans have several other films in theChild’s Playfranchise to enjoy Chucky’s voice, personality, and beloved place as a horror movie villain.
