More than 30 years have passed since the release of the original Child's Play, and Chucky has
remained in the public consciousness ever since.
But everything old must be new again, and the killer doll is finally stepping up to
the reboot plate.
What do you need to know before seeing the new movie?
In the first Child's Play movie from 1988, the killer doll named Chucky starts out as
a humble murderer of the non-doll variety.
During the first two acts of his life, Chucky lived as Charles Lee Ray, otherwise known
as "The Lakeshore Strangler."
Ray was a relatively unremarkable crime enthusiast distinguished by an interest in voodoo.
In the opening scene, Ray is mortally wounded by a police officer while fleeing a robbery.
In a last act of desperation, he uses his voodoo expertise to transfer his soul into
a "Good Guy" doll.
(voodoo curse)
The longer his consciousness stays inside the doll, the more attached he becomes to
its creepy plastic form.
Hi, I'm Andy, what's your name?"
"Hi, I'm Chucky, and I'm your friend 'til the end."
Though he'd spend the next three decades waffling on whether he wanted to remain a doll, Ray's
first couple of adventures found him trying to put his soul into another human body and
stabbing some revenge into anyone that got in his way.
For the 2019 Child's Play reboot, the voodoo angle seems to have been scrapped.
This time around, Chucky is being presented as a "Buddi" doll, an animatronic smart toy
for a new generation of Facebook and iPhone users.
According to Paste, director Lars Klevberg says,
"[He's an] out of control robot doll."
"Introducing your new best friend."
With its distrustful take on modern technology, the new Child's Play sounds like it's going
for a distinctly Black Mirror kind of vibe.
Chucky even uses WiFi-connected smart devices like drones to assist in much of the mayhem.
It's certainly a departure from the enchanted revenge toy we've all come to know over the
years.
Whether fans of the old movies will be on board with this new Chucky remains to be seen.
In all seven of the original Chucky movies, the killer doll was played by acclaimed character
actor Brad Dourif, who also also portrays Wormtongue in the Lord of the Rings movies,
and Doc Cochran on Deadwood.
"He made the funniest face when I drilled him."
"Did you see the steam when I sliced open his guts?"
2019 marks the first time a Chucky movie hasn't used Dourif's voice.
Instead, the studio enlisted Mark Hamill for the job.
Beyond playing Luke Skywalker, Hamill has become one of the most successful voice actors
in Hollywood, memorably voicing the Joker on Batman: The Animated Series.
And here's where things start to get a little bit meta: He even played Charles Lee Ray on
an episode of Robot Chicken back in 2005.
"Hee hee hee hee, who's there?
Come and get some!"
Brad Dourif voiced Chucky in all seven of the original films, and creator Don Mancini
wrote or co-wrote every entry in the series, directing three of them.
Producer David Kirschner was also involved in all of the films.
But eagle-eyed viewers will notice that not one of these names appears in the credits
for 2019's Child's Play.
What's the deal with that?
As it turns out, the reboot is happening against the wishes of the original creators of Child's
Play.
Mancini even requested that his name not be included in the film's credits.
In a 2018 interview with the Post Mortem podcast, he described how difficult it was to keep
the franchise going for 30 years, only to have it pulled out from under him.
"Obviously my feelings were hurt."
The ill will reportedly runs much deeper than that: Jennifer Tilly, the titular Bride of
Chucky, even started a "Not My Chucky" campaign on Twitter.
For fans of the original Child's Play franchise, there's still good news.
Due to some legal loopholes, the rights to Chucky are astonishingly murky.
As a result, Mancini plans to continue his Chucky stories in a TV series in the near
future.
Chucky has gone through a number of changes over the years, but there's one thing that's
certainly been consistent throughout the films.
When the cameras start rolling, animatronics are the star of the show.
Naturally, when word got out that a reboot was in the works, fans were nervous at the
prospect of an all-CGI murder doll trying to take the place of their beloved psychotic
puppet.
Good news for purists: the new Child's Play production reportedly uses a total of six
animatronic Chucky dolls, operated by three to four puppeteers at a time.
In a behind-the-scenes video, producer David Katzenberg said:
"A big part of getting Chucky right was having animatronics be a lot of the times that we
see Chucky."
Details about the new movie are pretty slim right now.
By all accounts, Child's Play is a straightforward horror flick without a whole lot of room for
comedy.
That said, if things do get weird, it'd be far from a first for Chucky.
While the first three Child's Play movies were fairly straight-faced thrillers, Bride
of Chucky came along in 1998 and took the series in a campy new direction.
Things got increasingly bizarre from there.
That same year, Chucky appeared on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update segment with Colin
Quinn.
"Well I think I speak for most Americans when I say, 'Enough already.'"
Chucky also quite memorably hijacked a WCW wrestling broadcast, and then there was that
interview with Entertainment Weekly.
"You really wanna know if I have a 'Tickle Me' function?
Push here, dipstick, and see what happens."
Most recently, he made a highly memorable cameo in 2018's Ready Player One.
The point is, the strangest thing would be if the new Chucky didn't get strange.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite films are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.