Last Updated on October 12, 2021
If you picked up the "Complete 7-Movie Collection" of Chucky movies when it was released a couple years ago (and if you haven't, you can do so at THIS LINK), that complete collection isn't going to be complete for much longer. In less than a month, the CHILD'S PLAY remake will be hitting DVD and Blu-ray – and you can pre-order a copy HERE.
In anticipation of the remake's home video release, we have decided to make Chucky the focus of this week's Face-Off. Specifically, we're pitting the original, 1988 version of Chucky against the hi-tech 2019 version of the character. It's Chucky vs. Chucky!
CHILD'S PLAY begins with serial killer Charles Lee Ray, the maniac known in the news as the Lakeshore Strangler, bursting into a toy store with a homicide detective in hot pursuit. A shootout in the aisles ends with Ray being fatally wounded. Luckily he has enough voodoo knowledge to transfer his soul into another body before he dies. It's not ideal, but the only body he can get his hands on in time is a doll that's part of the popular Good Guys toy line. So now Charles Lee Ray is a living doll. But he sure doesn't let that stop his killing spree. If you're going to make a killer doll movie, this is about the coolest and creepiest explanation there can be for why a doll becomes a killer.
The idea of doll turning homicidal because “someone set this thing to Evil” was a joke on an episode of The Simpsons back in 1992, but that's exactly the approach the CHILD'S PLAY remake took to its version of Chucky in 2019. The film shows us the year's biggest toy, the hi-tech Buddi doll from the Kaslan Corporation, is built in a sweatshop in Vietnam. When a worker there is berated and slapped around, he retaliates by shutting off the safety protocols in the doll he's working on. We can't know what result he expected from this, because it's the last thing he does before jumping to his death. Regardless, a doll without safety features isn't nearly as awesome as a doll possessed by a serial killer.
Chucky and young Andy Barclay are only really friends for about 24 hours before it all falls apart, and there is nothing genuine about their friendship. Of course there's not, this is a serial killer having to pretend to be a doll and hang out with a six-year-old kid. Chucky tells Andy he's his pal, even tells him the sick lie that he was sent by Andy's daddy in Heaven to be his friend, but this is only so he can convince Andy to take him around to the places where he needs to go. Like when he has Andy skip school so he can take him to the place where his traitorous accomplice is hiding out. Chucky is not really Andy's “friend 'til the end.”
This Chucky is actually a true friend to his Andy. He's programmed to be – Kaslan Buddi toys imprint on the person they were purchased for and become dedicated to being their friend 'til the end. Chucky is supportive of his pal, loves to play with him, hugs him and comforts him. Thanks to his self-learning A.I., he even appears to have real emotional responses to his interactions with Andy. He would have been a good friend if not for the glitch in his chip… But once a friend starts trying to kill people who take your attention away from them and giving gifts like a person's face nailed onto a watermelon, it's time to call things off.
About half the movie has gone by before Charles Lee Ray gives up on the Good Guy doll act and openly starts attacking people, but we get to see a whole lot of Chucky action in the second half… And this little guy is a raging maniac. He even gets so pissed off that he screams in anger, which has always been one of the most unnerving things about him to me. Chucky may be in a small, plastic body, but he is still a scumbag serial killer, so there's not a major drop in his scariness when he goes from being a human to being a doll. He's still dangerous, still just as capable of killing people.
Remake Chucky is unsettling at first because his naiveté makes him dangerous. He's just trying to help Andy and have fun with him, he doesn't know that it's wrong to try to murder the cat that scratched his friend or that Andy and his peers won't be as entertained when he attacks them with a knife as they were when they were watching the violent acts in TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. But then Chucky becomes stalker creepy when he gets too obsessed with and possessive of Andy, dropping lines like “If I can't be your best buddy, nobody can” and “If they don't let us play, they all go away.”
The first CHILD'S PLAY doesn't have as much humor as some of its sequels (or even the remake), so this Chucky isn't as funny as we've come to expect him to be. For the most part this is treated as a serious serial killer story, and most of the laughs that come from Chucky are due to his use of vulgarity. He's so nasty that it's amusing. One of the funniest moments comes when an old lady calls him an “ugly doll”. Chucky wants out of the doll body, but he's still insulted.
The new CHILD'S PLAY has a lighter tone than its predecessor overall, and a lot of its humor comes from the fact that Chucky is new to the world and just figuring things out. He's dorky and adorable (before he goes full-on maniac), and it's amusing when he repeats vulgarities. Andy and his tween friends have fun getting Chucky involved in pranks and getting him to say things like “This is for Tupac.” A line he repeats after murdering someone.
While Chucky doesn't rack up a large body count in his film debut, each kill is a memorable one. When a woman is killed with a hammer she isn't just bludgeoned to death, she stumbles, smashes through a window, and falls several stories. One character is killed in an explosion, another is electrocuted until his skin smokes and his mouth and eyes fill with blood. Chucky even puts a voodoo doll to use. This guy may be half the size of slashers like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, but he gets the job done.
People mock tiny terror movies like this, saying killer dolls can't be scary because you can kick them or stomp them and the threat is over. The filmmakers got around that by giving their Chucky enhanced abilities; since he's powered by A.I., he can also tap into other electronic devices and take control of them. With this ability, he causes deaths involving a garden tiller, power tools, a car, and drones. Of course, Chucky also gets his hands dirty and wields a blade, but that's not the most threatening thing about him.
It's tough to beat a character who has been a beloved horror icon for over thirty years, even when you're an upgraded version of that character. I think the 2019 Chucky is a fine, fun character who works well within his own film, but he just can't overcome how cool and nasty that original Chucky is.
Do you agree with the outcome of this Face-Off, or do you think the 2019 Chucky was an improvement over the original? Share your thoughts on these characters in the comments section below. If you have any suggestions for future Face-Off articles, you can send them to me at [email protected].
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