Orion Pictures
The first horror film I ever saw was Child’s Play 2 at a birthday party when I was in third grade. It really scared me as a kid, and I didn’t watch another horror film for many years. Now I have a love for horror films and especially the Chucky series. The Chucky series started in 1988 with Child’s Play and it set in motion plenty of sequels throughout the years and even has a television show coming soon. Most of the iconic horror franchises like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween have been remade and it was only a matter of time before the Chucky series was going to be remade. The new Child’s Play remake is completely different from the original, but still managed to keep some of the same elements.
After Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman) moves to a new city with his mother (Aubrey Plaza), he finds himself having a hard time making new friends. His mother gets him an early birthday present, a new Buddi doll that can connect to various different technology throughout the house. The new Buddi doll seems innocent at first, but when the doll takes a life of its own, Andy unites with other neighborhood children to try and stop the doll from wreaking bloody havoc.
The eighth Chucky film is a much better remake than other horror remakes I have seen in recent memory. There were plenty of things I enjoyed about the new film, with Mark Hamill easily being the best thing about it. Mark Hamill is such a talented voice actor. His work as the Joker in the 90s is so iconic and one of the best takes on the DC character. Hamill provides a very robotic style to Chucky’s voice, something that was much different than what Brad Dourif did with Chucky. As the film progressed, Mark Hamill was able to change from being friendly to being downright creepy as he became more obsessed with being a friend to Andy.
The whole cast actually did a great job in the film. Gabriel Bateman, who plays Andy Barclay, was much older than Alex Vincent was when he played Andy in the first film. Bateman was just the right age to be innocent as well as mature. At first he was put off by the idea of receiving a Buddi doll as a gift, but eventually grew a relationship with the doll. The relationship that was set up between him and his mom was strong and believable. Brian Tyree Henry plays Detective Norris, who lives down the hallway from Andy and his mother, provided the comedic moments for the film, which never felt forced or overused.
The film took its time building a relationship between Chucky and Andy and showing how they were friends. While I appreciated the fact that the film took its time fleshing out the relationship, it took some time for Chucky to feel like the Chucky we know. By the time the film presented its first kill from Chucky, I felt a little bored. After the first kill, the film picked up and became way more entertaining. The kills from Chucky were surprisingly gory, much gorier than I was expecting from this remake.
The story for the Child’s Play remake is much more believable than the original which focused on a murderer, Charles Lee Ray, and how he transferred his soul into a doll. The new Chucky doll, which was part of the company Kaslan and their line of Buddi dolls, was able to connect to other Kaslan products such as cars, televisions, or thermostats. Chucky was able to use other Kaslan products to assist him in his kills, which made Chucky less threatening. Despite the fact that Chucky killed several people, he was able to connect to different objects to have him do the job for him which didn’t make Chucky feel all that scary compared to the original version of him.
Child’s Play is a decent remake. One of my favorite horror remakes is the 2009 Friday the 13th film, but Child’s Play is much better than remakes like A Nightmare on Elm Street. This film set up a sequel, just like every Chucky film has done before, and if a sequel gets made I would like to see more of an aggressive side to Chucky and maybe Tiffany could get involved somehow. That would be a lot of fun!
Child’s Play has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes and is rated R for bloody horror violence, and language throughout.
Share this post
