Movies
‘Child’s Play’ On a Train? Freddy Vs. Chucky? Don Mancini Dreams…
Crave Online posted a really fun online exclusive commentary track for Richard Attenborough’s killer doll movie Magic, which featured Child’s Play creator Don Mancini.
It’s no secret that Mancini is working on a follow-up to his Curse of Chucky, which Universal Home Entertainment released last summer. And while he’s keeping his cards close to his chest, he does share an idea he had that would put Chucky on a train with an old woman with Alzheimers.
“One of the ideas that I once had… I just have a whole file of different Chucky scenarios. I probably shouldn’t give this away because who knows, I might end up doing it somewhere, but why not?” Mancini said.
“The notion of Chucky on a train… I thought it would be interesting to do something where you’ve got this archetypal or certainly stereotypical notion of the kid who says, ‘The doll is alive and he’s doing this,’ but the kid befriends an old lady who’s also on the train. Like the old lady is the only one who will listen to this kid, and she’s like, ‘Okay, tell me what you’re thinking. I believe that you believe it and let’s investigate it.’ As the story goes on it turns out that the old lady… and also the old lady has early onset Alzheimers. There’s just something, another reason [why] other people aren’t listening to her either. But she turns out [to be] a charmed confidant of Chucky.”
Earlier this month, Mancini playfully talked about how he would pit Chucky vs. Annabelle, but now dreams of how Chucky could end up in a battle with A Nightmare On Elm Street‘s Freddy Krueger.
“I would like to do Freddy and Chucky, just because I think they would be a fun double act,” he explains. “I’m more really interested in the characters.
My pitch for Freddy vs. Chucky is Child’s Play on Elm Street. Chucky ends up in some kid’s house on Elm Street, and Chucky and Freddy inevitably meet in the dreamscape. Chucky sleeps. Why not? Chucky sleeps, Chucky dreams. And they have this admiration for each other. But they realize quickly that Elm Street isn’t big enough for the two of them, so in a riff on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels they have a contest: who can kill the most teenagers before the sun comes up?”
What do you guys think?
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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