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Why ‘Child’s Play’ is the Greatest Horror Movie Franchise of All

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There is no doubt that Chucky (or Charles Lee Ray, if you want to get technical) sits on the pantheon of iconic cinema killers we absolutely can’t get enough of. Along with Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, Jason Voorhees, Hannibal Lecter and many others, Chucky is a character that will never stay dormant for too long.

Thus we have this October’s Cult of Chucky, the seventh installment in the Child’s Play franchise.

With six films released, one on the way and the potential for many more doll slasher adventures to come, it’s time to give this franchise its due. Child’s Play is the best horror franchise of all time. There. It was said, and it will not be taken back.

These films have a secret weapon that similar killer-centric franchises don’t, and that secret weapon goes by the name of Don Mancini, who has long been the captain of the ship. It’s incredibly unusual for a horror franchise to have one creative mind behind each film in some way. Wes Craven was in and out of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, John Carpenter parted ways with the Halloween flicks early on, and other franchises similarly change hands behind the camera, sometimes with each individual sequel.

This can lead to a standalone nature to the films that make up many of the various horror franchises we love. The movies don’t always necessarily grow on previous work or evolve in any significant way. They can end up being basic retellings of the same story, only through the lens of a different director.

This is not the case with the Child’s Play saga.

Don Mancini has managed to be behind the camera on every single adventure of his killer doll. He’s received solo writing credit on each installment except for the first 1988 feature, which he has stated was rewritten in parts to change it from a psychological horror flick to more of the cut and dry, good vs. evil movie it became. He’s been there from the beginning pushing Chucky through the original trilogy of films, which concluded in 1991 with Child’s Play 3 and then he was behind the reinvention of his franchise with 1998’s Bride of Chucky, directed by Ronny Yu.

From there, Mancini took full control of the ship by writing and directing every following feature – Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky, and the upcoming Cult of ChuckyMancini’s voice being present in each film has made it a unique horror franchise in that there is no rehashing of stories. Each movie genuinely grows and builds upon the last. When Mancini sits down to carve out a new Chucky screenplay, he sits with the memory and history of each film behind him – and it shows.

Mancini’s long-standing presence in the franchise is also what helps the Chucky films to have what all the best horror flicks have – character. The horror movies that stick with us are the ones that present us with characters so well developed and eerily relatable that they worm their way into our brains and never leave. Think of Norman Bates from the original Psycho or Jack Torrance from The Shining. Unfortunately, character can be missing from a lot of our favorite horror franchises. Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and others are always fun and interesting to watch, but the characters around them are usually interchangeable from film to film, there to serve the purpose of providing our villain with something to do…. or, rather, someone to kill.

There are of course exceptions to the rule, like Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween or any of the characters making up the ensemble of the original Nightmare on Elm Street, but those characterizations and the various emotional developments don’t typically last over multiple films. It can happen here and there (think Heather Langenkamp reprising her role in the Nightmare franchise), but we are typically stuck with characters inside a 90-minute feature that don’t particularly stand out or have memorable emotional arcs to go on.

The Child’s Play films, again, are different. Mancini is a lover of the horror genre and he understands that the tales that stick with us are the ones with characters that take residence in our mind and refuse to leave. 

This October’s Cult of Chucky sees the return of Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), the original boy to be tortured by Chucky in Child’s Play in 1988. We’ve already seen the character through the original three films develop, and he made a cameo appearance in Curse of Chucky in 2013. This sort of consistency is what helps give each of these films gravity.

We’ve seen Andy live out a child’s nightmare when he faced off against a killer toy in 1988, and then we saw him live the horror of believing something happened that all those around him told him wasn’t real in 1990 (Child’s Play 2). Now he’s an adult and Barclay carries with him the weight of years and events we have been witness to.

Also returning in Cult of Chucky is Fiona Dourif. The wheelchair-bound heroine from 2013’s Curse of Chucky is back in the newest feature, now residing in an insane asylum facing the same roadblocks Andy did years ago after facing off with Chucky.

This sort of characterization and development is what helps the Child’s Play franchise stand out and have more weight than its competitors. Even Chucky has evolved as a character through the various films. Sure, he still wants to grab the nearest knife and indulge in some good old-fashioned slicing and dicing, but we’ve seen actor Brad Dourif be forced to move beyond the screaming and one-liners and express real emotion through Chucky. Through six films we’ve seen our favorite killer doll became a husband and a father. A lot of it was played for laughs in Bride of Chucky and Seed, but that doesn’t make it any less relevant to who the character is now.

Another unique benefit to this franchise remaining under the rule of original creator Mancini and never going through the full reboot or remake treatment is that it stands as a fascinating chronicle of a filmmaker’s career and evolution as a creator.

Mancini has expressed himself as an artist almost exclusively through the Child’s Play films. He is credited with writing one other movie under a different name, and he has worked on television shows like “Tales From the Crypt,” “Hannibal,” and “Channel Zero.” Other than that, it’s been all Chucky, all the time.

While some might see working with the same character for twenty-nine years as a chore or a grind, Mancini is clearly as passionate about the franchise as ever. Each film may have DNA from the previous flicks, but Chucky is always being reinvented in some way. Since Mancini hasn’t gone outside the franchise too often, we’ve been able to watch him play with various genres and themes that interest him at different points through the tales of Chucky.

His using the franchise as a platform to express his various interests as a filmmaker is what has led to the subversive and comedic Bride of Chucky and the wacky, off the wall farce that was Seed of Chucky, as well as the toned down, psychological horror of Curse of Chucky. Mancini has taken his character down so many different alleys that one is hopeful that his continued interest in making sequels will mean just as many surprises to come as have been laid out for audiences before.

Saying Child’s Play is the best horror franchise is not a knock against what are some absolutely amazing pieces of art by other filmmakers within various other horror sagas. It’s merely a recognition of a franchise that perhaps doesn’t get enough credit for doing what almost no other horror franchise has been able to do. Cult of Chucky lands this October not as an attempt to cash in on a marketable name or a bid to reboot or retell the same story we’ve already seen, but rather as the next chapter in a long-running novel of horror that has made many of us both gasp and laugh, sometimes in the same movie.

The franchise remains one epic saga, making it something truly special for horror fans.

Cult Of Chucky image courtesy of Universal

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

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Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

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Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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