Chucky is back and… wait, that’s not Chucky, who is that? And why is he wearing Chucky’s outfit? And why is he a robot now?
The classic Child’s Play movies have been scaring audiences for over three decades now and they’re still entertaining killer doll movies; and sometimes they’re smarter than you’d expect. It’s not surprising that a studio would want to reboot the franchise for a younger generation, but it is odd that it’s been done without the influence of Don Mancini, the original creator, and it’s even odder that it has so very little to do with the original premise.
The original “Good Guy” doll, which was possessed by serial killer Charles Lee Ray, was a send-up of 1980s commercialism, an era when parents would practically kill to get their hands on a Cabbage Patch Kid at Christmastime. The new Chucky, a “Buddi Doll,” hews closer to modern trends, has a powerful computer operating system, and gets treated more like an exciting new iPhone than a child’s plaything. (It’s almost/exactly like the title doesn’t make sense anymore.)
How does Chucky go psycho this time? Gone are the voodoo spells and the sinister serial killer. Instead, like the murderous Krusty doll from The Simpsons, “someone set this thing to evil.” An employee at a sweatshop overseas couldn’t handle the pressure anymore and decided, for no other reason than his boss totally sucks, to flip all the safety protocols off on one Buddi doll. Then, for even less reason (that we know of), he throws himself off a rooftop and he’s never mentioned again.
Chucky’s supernatural origin has always been sticky wicket in the Child’s Play movies. It’s not particularly clever, and the rules of the magic are asinine, but they were simple. The origin from the Child’s Play remake seems simple, and certainly it’s efficient and gets the killer doll out there into the world, but it raises a lot of questions the movie never answers.
Why, exactly, is a computer operating system in a mass-marketed consumer product so sophisticated that it can generate an artificial intelligence? Isn’t that kind of overkill? (Literally?) Why do his eyes glow red when the “evil” setting is on? Is that a bug or a feature? How often does this happen or, even scarier, how often is this supposed to happen?
But never mind all that. The movie certainly doesn’t. Instead, it introduces us to teenaged Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman, Benji), who just moved into town with his single mother Karen (Aubrey Plaza). He’s not acclimating well, so when a customer comes in with a seemingly defective Buddi doll she takes it for herself, and even though Andy is too old for dolls – even fancy animatronic talking ones that can control all the Bluetooth devices in your house – she tells him to enjoy it ironically.
Andy starts palling around with the doll, named Chucky (voiced by Mark Hamill), and he teaches it everything he knows. However, since he’s a teenager trying to make friends with weird kids and bullies, he ultimately teaches Chucky about violence and hatred and fear. Chucky gets it in his head that in order to preserve his friendship with Andy, and make Andy happy, he needs to dispatch of everything getting in Andy’s way. And if that means feeding someone into a lawnmower, that’s perfectly normal. He’s seen that exactly kind of violence on TV.
It’s not exactly a subtle message. The rest of the film is in your face too. Lars Klevberg’s Child’s Play is a fast-paced, gory, inventive horror movie. It’s not nearly as smart as it could be, but it’s about as smart as it wants to be. The kills are paced for jump scares, not for dread, which gives the movie a rollicking funhouse sensibility that makes up for how heavy-handed and silly it is. The movie is suspenseful and funny enough that you almost forget you’re watching a film about an evil Amazon Echo that bends over backwards, and nearly breaks, trying to look like a Child’s Play remake instead.
How desperate is this film to look and sound like the original, even though it makes no sense to the story? When Andy names his Buddi doll he tries to name it “Han Solo,” at which point the doll replies, “Did you say ‘Chucky?’” It’s as though fate itself has decreed that this movie had to be a remake, even though it’s completely arbitrary, and would have been better off as its own thing. All the dumbest parts of the new Child’s Play are the parts that refer back to the old one.
Which is a shame, because again, there’s a lot of good stuff in the new Child’s Play and it shouldn’t be overlooked. Mark Hamill’s uncomfortably innocent performance turns the murder doll into a tragic figure: a blank, innocent slate who only wanted to sing and be friends, who instead was treated callously by immature people, and absorbed all their casual negativity and thoughtless attitudes towards violence. Although he eventually goes full evil, there’s a pathos to the new Chucky that even the original couldn’t claim to have.
The new film also features some new powers for Chucky, so he doesn’t have to just stab or strangle people all the time. Mostly Chucky can control electronic devices around him, including lights and TVs and cars. This makes Chucky absurdly powerful, and evokes some giggle-worthy memories of 1993’s The Ghost in the Machine, but it keeps the movie from resorting to tired gags. Chucky doesn’t have to kill by hand anymore. Now he can let power tools and heating systems do the dirty work for him while he looms in the background, all glowy-eyed and weird.
Child’s Play builds to a satisfying climax. So satisfying, in fact, that it’s easy to wish the rest of the film had been more like it. The chaos Chucky can cause in this new form is impressive and leads to satisfying, icky moments but by the time he finally unleashes that murderous rage the film is almost over and we have to start wrapping everything up. Just when it was getting to the awesome stuff too.
Child’s Play (2019) is sloppy and poorly conceived, but it plays surprisingly well. The cast is uniformly excellent, bestowing a sense of realism unto a film that otherwise wouldn’t have any, and it’s eerily photographed by Brendan Uegama (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina). Bear McCreary’s score is easily the best the franchise has ever had, a memorable horror theme that’s equal parts whimsical and malevolent.
If the story made sense, or even if it was a heck of a lot weirder, Child’s Play (2019) would be an excellent new addition to the killer technology genre. As a killer doll movie, and specifically as a Chucky film, it can’t help but seem lacking. High-tech consumer robots are great and all, but they just don’t have the same creepy impact as a plastic doll that moves on its own. So why bother with the doll at all? Shouldn’t Chucky be out of their price range? And shouldn’t a movie leave us with more tantalizing questions than how much a killer doll would retail for…?
