Franchises: Child's Play. Child's Play (2019)

After the successes of both Curse and Cult of Chucky, the last thing I'm sure anybody expected next from this franchise was a remake of the original movie; I know I certainly didn't. And even though this film was officially announced in July of 2018, I didn't hear about it until that October, when I watched a Midnight's Edge YouTube video on the history of the Halloween franchise, made in the wake of the newest film's release, and they talked about other slasher remakes and similar projects that were coming up. Having known about Don Mancini and David Kirschner's own attempt to do a remake in the mid-2000's, I was surprised to learn of this, and inherently sensed that it would be very alien to the Chucky we've known from the beginning (that was even before I knew exactly how different it would be). But, unlike so many others who were immediately denouncing it, I was more open to giving it a chance. And when I saw the first trailer the following February, my interest was genuinely piqued. It was kind of creepy, starting out as a typical, insincere corporate advertisement, with Harry Nilsson's Best Friend playing, only for it to quickly turn sinister once Andy unwrapped the box and was laser scanned by Chucky. The song then became distorted, the "best friend" lyric repeating and echoing, as you were shown glimpses of crime scenes, devastation, and total chaos, as well as hints of the murders. It hid what Chucky looked like, only showing a back-view and ending on a very creepy front shot of him obscured by darkness, and you never heard him speak, but that only got me more curious as to what they would do with him. By that point, I knew this was going to be a story of AI gone awry rather than anything supernatural, but that was fine with me, as I feel that a remake should try to do its own thing, regardless of whether or not I, or anyone else, likes it. The later trailers only confirmed that this was something to look forward to, as they highlighted what this version of Chucky was capable of and how utterly unstoppable he could be, and suggested that Andy had some other kids in his inner-circle who knew of and could help him defeat the doll. Plus, the kills looked really gnarly and they started to show more of what Chucky looked like. Couple that with the announcement that Mark Hamill was going to be voicing him and I felt that this one might turn out to be one for the books.

And yet, I ended up not seeing it in the theater. I have no excuse for that other than it just didn't work out. Thus, I instead saw it for the first time on Blu-Ray just after the first of the year and... I thought it was pretty damn good. I thought it offered an interesting new take on the story of the original Child's Play, and I found the relationship between Andy and Chucky to be effectively poignant and tragic, given how it inevitably progresses. As for Chucky himself, while nothing will beat the classic version or Brad Dourif's voice acting, I found this iteration to be, very different, for sure, but well-executed and even kind of sad in that regard. And man, are the kills nasty and downright wince-inducing. The movie is not flawless, though, as there are some characters who could've been utilized better, there are some moments of bad CGI, especially during the climax, and said climax could've been better, but it's a good movie overall, and it's a shame that, nowadays, it's been relegated to persona non grata status among the fanbase, even more so than the series' traditional black sheep entries. While I understand why a lot of loyal diehards aren't big on this, especially given how the studio treated Don Mancini when they decided to go ahead with it, I think it's more than worthy of a reappraisal based on its own merits.

The Kaslan Corporation has launched a line of smart toys that come in the form of a doll called Buddi. Able to connect to and control all other Kaslan electronic items, as well as access the company's various services, the dolls' artificial intelligence enable them to learn from their surroundings and they're programmed to imprint upon their owners and become their best friends for life. However, at a Kaslan factory in Vietnam, an employee is caught daydreaming on the job and his bullying supervisor fires him, ordering him to finish the Buddi he's working on before leaving. In retaliation, he removes all of the doll's safety protocols and installs the chip, before committing suicide. In Chicago, Karen Barclay and her twelve-year old son, Andy, have recently moved into a new, low income apartment building. Karen, overworked in her job as a retail clerk at ZedMart, is concerned about how her son is a reclusive introvert who spends nearly all of his free time on his cellphone and hasn't attempted to make any friends. One day at her job, a customer returns a Buddi doll that she says is malfunctioning, and Karen decides to take it home to Andy as an early birthday present. Though initially put off by it, Andy decides to go along. The doll imprints upon him, learns his name, and due to its defectiveness, misinterprets the name Andy thinks up for it as Chucky. Despite these and other setbacks, Andy accepts Chucky and the two of them start to become friends. Because of him, Andy is also able to make friends with two other kids in the building, Falyn and Pugg. However, Chucky begins exhibiting disturbing behavior, first by choking the family cat, Rooney, after he scratches Andy, and second when he grabs and brandishes a butcher knife after seeing Andy and his friends watching a horror movie. Things take a major turn when, after killing the cat, Chucky misinterprets Andy wishing that his mother's boyfriend, Shane, would disappear. He follows the man home and brutally murders him, flaying his face off and attaching it to a watermelon, which he brings to Andy as a macabre gift. Now knowing that Chucky is out of control, Andy and his friends disable and then dispose of him. However, he's found by Gabe, the building's janitor, who repairs and restores him to full capacity. After killing Gabe, Chucky sets out to kill everyone who stands between him and Andy, because if he can't be Andy's best friend, then no one will.

While I'd always intended to review this movie, I debated about whether or not to count it as part of the franchise as a whole, since it's disconnected from all of the other movies and the TV show, with the creatives behind the mainline series having no involvement at all, and, unusual for most remakes, it was made while the classic franchise was still alive and well and planning to make the move to television. It's really more of a strange offshoot, akin to something like 60's version of Casino Royale or Never Say Never Again, both of which were produced separately from the main EON James Bond film series while said series was still going on. Another example, from a series that I have talked about before, is how I don't tag the 1998 Godzilla as part of the mainline Toho series, the same way in which I tag the MonsterVerse as its own franchise, despite Godzilla and King Kong being part of it. But, in the end, since I haven't yet seen the Chucky TV series enough to include it as part of this franchise marathon, as well as because I've included the other classic slasher remakes as part of those respective series and I was going to eventually talk about this eventually, I figured I might as well include it here. Plus, it's about a killer doll named Chucky terrorizing a kid named Andy, so I can't exactly ignore it.

Because of the exclusive rights they retained to the original Child's Play, MGM always had the option of remaking it and didn't legally need Universal's cooperation to do so, which is one of the reasons why the initial attempt at a remake in the mid-2000's didn't happen. So, when they decided to go ahead with this film in 2018, with Stephen King's It producers David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith overseeing it, they technically weren't doing anything wrong. And given their financial issues, bankruptcy in 2010, and emergence from said bankruptcy, as well as their having recently revived the Orion Pictures label, it's understandable that they decided to go with a proven property to generate some cash-flow. What didn't sit well with a lot of Chucky fans was how they seemed to be stepping all over Don Mancini's toes. The announcement for this remake not only came shortly after Mancini and David Kirschner revealed their plans to next bring Chucky to television, but it was fast-tracked to begin shooting that autumn, seemingly to beat them to the punch. Moreover, they did this without consulting or even asking for their blessing, which didn't sit well with Mancini especially. Again, they legally weren't required to involve him or even ask his for permission, but he and others felt there was a moral principle to this that the studios were flat-out ignoring. Moreover, Mancini has said that both he and Kirschner were offered executive producer credits on it, but said credits were meant to be nothing more than ceremonial. Not surprisingly, they found that gesture insulting and patronizing, and turned it down flat.

Besides being hurt, given how he's always felt proprietary towards Chucky, Mancini was also frustrated with the problems that this remake's mere existence could've caused, regardless of whether or not it was successful. It could've potentially diluted the brand itself, causing confusion and disparity among both hardcore fans and average moviegoers, and might've made Universal get cold feet about going forward with the TV show. Basically, it was threatening Mancini's very livelihood. As he himself said in an interview, while he's done other things outside of Chucky (though, up until he wrote those episodes of Hannibal, the last non-Chucky project he'd done that got produced was his writing an episode of Tales from the Crypt back in 1990), this is very much the core of his professional life. So, in all those respects, I can understand why he did and, to this day, still hates this movie. Other people associated with him and the mainline series also shared their distaste for it, particularly Jennifer Tilly, who posted about it on Twitter with the hashtag, #NotMyChucky. Unfortunately, this caused a lot of vitriol in the fan community, with many refusing to give the remake any sort of chance. Even the book, Reign of Chucky, mentioned it only briefly in their short final chapter, which mainly talked about the development and launch of the TV show, whose first season had only recently aired. And while the authors did say that the movie wasn't bad, they added that it just wasn't the Chucky that everybody knows, loves, and wants. Finally, while it did fairly well, given its low budget of just $10 million, it's unlikely that there will be a sequel, so the main franchise can continue on for however longer it goes. Still, while it may not have been produced at the best time and could've had unfortunate repercussions for Mancini and company, the movie still deserves a fair, honest look, which we'll now get into.

While the two producers behind the remake were fairly well known by this point, thanks to what an enormous success the first movie of It was a couple of years before, both the screenwriter and director were newcomers. This was writer Tyler Burton Smith's first feature film, as he'd previously written a couple of shorts and had worked on some video games, including Quantum Break, which is what got him the job. The actual director, Norwegian-born Lars Klevberg (pictured here), had just recently made his feature directorial debut with Polaroid, an expansion on his own short film from 2015. Thus, I figured he would've gotten the job based on the strengths of Polaroid but, while the original short was fairly well-received, the movie... not so much. In any case, I think Klevberg did a really good job with this film, both in the technical aspects and the storytelling, succeeding in his goal of making this a warped version of E.T. Unfortunately, while Smith has several upcoming projects, Klevberg hasn't yet directed another movie.

This time, as opposed to a naive and innocent six-year old, Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman) is portrayed as a fairly cynical twelve-year old who, due to the recent move to Chicago, the loss of his father, and his disdain for his mother's boyfriend, stays inside their apartment and plays around on his cellphone when he's not at school. In their first scene together, Karen comes home to find that Andy still hasn't unpacked his stuff and has been on his phone all afternoon, even though it's cracked. He also comes up with excuses as to why he's not going outside and trying to make friends with the two kids she sees outside on the street corner, saying they could be serial killers. And when she encourages him to at least make an effort, he only does so when she offers to give his confiscated phone back and even then, goes elsewhere and sits by himself. He pretends to now have friends that he's going to hang out with when he comes home to find Shane there, but really just sits out in the hall and plays on his phone again. After Shane leaves, Karen gifts Andy with an early birthday present: a Buddi doll. Being put off by how it's the older model when there's a new one coming soon, Andy, with his mom's urging, still tries it out. Though irritated when the doll calls itself Chucky instead of Han Solo, as he tries to name him, as well as by how it can't do everything it's supposed to because of its defects, he opts to keep it in order to please his mother. Once Andy gets past Chucky's quirks, like his singing the Buddi theme song in the middle of the night when he's trying to sleep, and bringing him various items that he mistakes for his science textbook, the two of them begin to bond. Andy shares his frustrations with Shane and laments that everybody leaves him and his mother, something Chucky promises to never do. He then teaches Chucky to make scary faces in order to freak Shane out, and while doing so, meets and makes friends with Falyn and Pugg. Impressed with how Chucky says and does things most Buddi dolls don't, they encourage him in his pranking of Shane.

However, the first signs of trouble come when Chucky first attacks the family cat, Mickey Rooney, after he scratches Andy, and later kills him, and then when Chucky suddenly brandishes a knife in a threatening manner when he sees Andy and his friends watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. When he tries to stop him from hurting Pugg with the knife, Andy is accidentally cut on the arm. But where things really get serious is when Chucky scares Shane one time too many, as well as plays a recording of

Andy calling him an asshole. Angered, Shane harshly confronts and disciplines Andy about it, prompting him to wish he would disappear from his and his mother's life. Hearing this, Chucky takes it upon himself to murder Shane and bring Andy back a ghoulish gift in the form of Shane's flayed face placed onto a watermelon. Now knowing that his doll has become unpredictably dangerous, Andy, after attempting to dispose of Chucky's "gift," only for that issue to become all the more complicated, is forced to

lure him into a room, where Falyn and Pugg help deactivate him. This is extremely hard on Andy, who's in tears when he lures Chucky into the room, and while the others are holding him down so Andy can remove his internal core, Chucky begins singing the Buddi song. This makes Andy hesitate, forcing Falyn to remove the core. With that, Andy reluctantly disposes of the doll, and after Karen learns of Shane's murder and that he was using her in an affair, he comforts his mother while she drowns her sorrows. And after much frustration, he finally manages to

dispose of Shane's severed face. But just when he thinks the madness is over, Chucky not only returns but is restored to full capacity and has taken on a more vengeful personality, intending on killing anybody who's a threat to their "friendship." He also reveals that he has audio and video recordings saved within him that could implicate Andy in Shane's murder, and he causes a fight that leads Falyn and Pugg to disown him as a friend. As the body count ratchets up, Andy tries to convince his mother of what a danger Chucky has become but she doesn't believe

him, and she also begins to think he's losing his mind. Worst of all, after Chucky kills Detective Mike Norris' mother, Mike finds evidence that links Andy to it. It all comes to a head when Karen brings Andy to work with her on the night that the new line of Buddi toys is unveiled, and Chucky plans to ensure that he will be his one and only best friend.

One noticeable aspect of Andy's character here is that he's hearing impaired and wears an aid. However, it doesn't come into play nearly as much as you might think. You'd expect it to be one of the reasons why he's reluctant to make friends, as it makes him feel isolated and different, but it's never brought up that way. Other than a moment during his scuffle with another kid named Omar, who takes it out and tosses it to the floor, its only significance is that it allows Chucky to talk to Andy during the latter parts of the movie when he's hiding and stalking him.

Like Andy, Karen Barclay (Aubrey Plaza) is portrayed in a very different light than Catherine Hicks' version in the original film. While she's still a single mother who works in retail, her job in this version is at a K-Mart stand-in called ZedMart, and due to her lower income, her and Andy's apartment is nowhere near as fancy and nice as in the 1988 version. Also, not surprisingly, Plaza portrays Karen as much more of a modern-day, younger mother, one who's just moved to Chicago with her son, is very overworked, and has to deal with rude, entitled customers and constant talk of the upcoming new model of the Buddi doll just to make ends meet and to afford Andy a new hearing aid for his upcoming birthday. As if that weren't enough, she finds herself concerned about how he's not putting in any effort to make friends and spends all of his free time on his cellphone. And because she no longer has her husband (like in the original, exactly what happened to him is never made clear, but you get the feeling that he may have died somehow), she seeks solace with Shane and puts up with his not being the nicest or most considerate person, although she sees how much Andy doesn't like him. Hoping it will help bring her son out of his shell, Karen brings home a defective Buddi doll returned by a customer and gives it to Andy as an early birthday present. At first, Andy isn't too thrilled, and Karen becomes frustrated when the doll proves to be more defective than she thought it was, but he opts to make it work. And much to Karen's surprise, Andy does make friends thanks to Chucky. But things start to gradually unravel, first when Karen hears Chucky play a recording of Andy calling Shane an asshole, prompting her to lock the doll up in a cabinet and limit Andy's time with him. Then, Shane is murdered and Karen learns about both it, as well as that he was a married man who was having an affair with her. This drives her to wash away her grief with wine, but she has Andy to comfort her. And finally, Andy seems to start getting into fights, takes another kid's phone, and claims that Chucky is killing people. This causes Karen to break down, thinking that her son is acting out and making up a farfetched story to cover for himself. Her feeling is only reinforced when she comes home to find that Andy has destroyed their apartment while trying to find Chucky, who all but threatened to kill her next.

While Plaza's version of Karen isn't quite as involved in the story as Hicks' was, she still makes her a very likable character. The relationship between her and Andy, like in the original, is a very endearing one. The two of them have a very playful back and forth banter, with Karen, after she gets home from work and Andy says, "You look like shit," sarcastically responding, "Thanks," before adding, "And watch your language." She also gives him the playful nickname of "Noodle." But you can also tell that she

really cares about him and desperately wants him to be happy and make friends, which is why she brings Chucky home. The scene where she does so shows just how witty and cunning she can be, as she blackmails her supervisor, Wes, over an affair he had in order to make him let her take the doll. And while she can see the discord between Andy and Shane, and despite how much of a dick Shane is, Karen puts up with him because she'd rather have somebody than nobody. To her credit, she calls him out when he

harshly admonishes Andy after Chucky scares him one too many times, as well as for the recording of Andy calling him an asshole, only for Shane to blow it off and try to turn it around on her. As I said, the moment where Karen gets drunk on wine after learning the truth about Shane following his murder is a poignant one, given how Andy goes in to comfort her and the two of them just sit there next to each other. Thus, it's sad when Chucky begins to drive a wedge between them by making it seem as though Andy is starting to become a juvenile delinquent. Not

believing Andy's warnings about the doll, Karen takes her with him to work on the night of the unveiling of the new Buddi model. And that's when she learns the hard way that not only was Andy right but that she's now Chucky's main target, with Andy being forced to save his mother. She, however, does manage to finish Chucky off and have the last word in.

Because there's no version of Charles Lee Ray to be found here, the character of Detective Mike Norris (Brian Tyree Henry) doesn't have much of a role in the story until quite a while in. He's first introduced as just a jokey guy who drops by the apartment building every week to have dinner with his mother. Finding Andy sitting in the hallway playing with his cellphone, Mike asks him, "So, what are you? Some kind of fourth floor hallway hobo, or somethin' like that?", then adds, "I see you out here, like, a lot." He seems amused when Andy proves to be able to give as good as he gets, telling Mike, "Oh, uh, no, it's not me. I have, like, five twin brothers, so we just take shifts," and invites him to have dinner with him and his mother, Doreen, saying he could use "the backup" and implies that his mother gets a little crazy with her liquor. Karen comes out and asks Mike if Andy's in trouble and he says, "Yeah, lots of trouble. We've been gettin' lots of complaints about some kid out here throwin' parties, sellin' drugs, beer, peddlin' booze..." This attempt at humor falls flat, with Karen asking, "That was a joke?", and Mike clarifying, "It was an attempt. I was going to say I'm the fun police... not landing." He remains a peripheral character for a while longer, truly getting involved first when he sees Karen arguing with Shane in the hallway, and the next day, is called out to the latter's home when he's brutally murdered. He then has to break it to Karen that not only is Shane dead but that he wasn't who she thought he was. He and Andy get a little closer when the latter finally has dinner with him and his mother, although it's really a ruse so Andy can dispose of the watermelon with Shane's face attached to it. Things get serious when Chucky murders Doreen, and a distraught Mike later learns that Shane's skinned face was found, covered in wrapping paper that incriminates Andy. He goes to ZedMart on the night of the Buddi 2 unveiling to arrest Andy but ends up getting caught up in the chaos that Chucky causes and is very nearly killed. In the end, though, Mike does come out a hero.

Doreen (Carlease Burke) is one of those characters you really don't want to see die. Although she's a bit of a stereotype, the sassy older black woman, she turns out to be really cool and lovable. While first trying to dispose of Shane's skinned face, which Andy, Falyn, and Pugg cover in wrapping paper to hide, Andy ends up having to give it to Doreen after claiming to Karen that it's a present for her, saying she's been helping him with his homework. Karen goes with Andy to deliver it and Doreen, seeing the desperation in Andy's face, is good enough to go along with it. He also gets her to agree to wait until Andy's upcoming birthday to open it, as strange as she thinks that request is. When Andy has dinner with her and Mike later so he can get rid of it, he and Doreen also become quite close, as he helps her figure out to how operate the Kaslan app that she downloaded. She then declares Andy to be her new best friend, a statement that seals her fate, as Chucky targets her once he's fixed up by Gabe. When a Kaslan smart car picks her up to drive her to her Bingo night, Chucky takes control of it and terrorizes her by driving it wildly around the parking lot. When Doreen sees that it's a doll, she angrily calls him a, "Hobbit motherfucker!", which proves to be one of the last things she says before he brutally murders her.

Despite Andy's disdain for him, Shane (David Lewis) doesn't come off that bad, at first. But, very slowly, you start to see what a piece of work he is, like when Andy comes home from school, is surprised to find Chucky waiting for him at the door, and Shane, who's sitting on the couch with a sleeping Karen, shushes at him, even though Andy wasn't being that loud. Shortly afterward, Shane orders Andy to clean up his room, acting like he's his dad. And we then see that, when he's over, he does little more than laze around, constantly going to the refrigerator for one beer after another, and at one point, brushes off the cookies that Karen baked for him. But it's when Shane hears how Andy feels about him thanks to Chucky that he seriously oversteps his bounds. While it's understandable why he gets so mad when Chucky scares him while he's in the bathroom peeing, causing him to splash himself with urine, the way he stomps into Andy's room, throws the doll to the floor, and growls at Andy, "You got a problem with me, you say it, okay? No more usin' your little doll," is going too far. And when Andy yells for his mother, Shane shoves him back onto his bed, closes the door, gets in his face, and tells him, "Now, if you got a problem with me, you be a man and you say it. Come on. Let's hear it." Andy, naturally, is too intimidated to say anything, and Shane stands over him and smugly says, "Yeah, that's what I thought," then leaves the room. Karen confronts him over this as he leaves the apartment and Shane just says, "Fuck it. Sounds like a 'you problem,' not a 'me problem.'" As he heads out to his truck, he has an argument with someone over a cellphone, and when he returns home, it's revealed that he's married with two young daughters. Though he seems loving enough towards the latter, we can assume that was his wife he was arguing with, talking about how he works so hard and such. After he arrives home, he's taking down the house's Christmas lights, grumbling the whole time, and before he knows it, becomes Chucky's first human victim.

Though he doesn't get as much focus as Shane, Gabe (Trent Redekop), the apartment building's janitor, is another scumbag to whom Chucky deals a gruesome death. Seen sporadically throughout the movie, fixing various things around the building, he doesn't seem to be that bad, although Falyn calls him a creep early on. His major scene comes when he finds Chucky after the kids have deactivated and tossed him down the garbage chute. Taking him back down to his workshop, Gabe fixes Chucky up and restores him to his full capabilities, giving him a new central core, intending to sell him on eBay. You also learn that he's set up hidden camera in various apartments, including the Barclay apartment's bathroom. After repairing and reactivating Chucky, he sees Karen in the bathroom, preparing to take a shower, but that's when Chucky uses his full capabilities to torture and then kill him.

The part of the cast that I think the movie could've done better with is the utilization of Andy's two friends, Falyn (Beatrice Kitsos) and Pugg (Ty Consiglio). For one, they have the most basic personalities: Falyn is a bit cynical and street-smart, while Pugg is just a chubby, goofy smartass. (I assume they're brother and sister, as they seem to always be in the same apartment and are never separate.) While Chucky is the reason why they start hanging out with Andy, as they're impressed with

how he doesn't have the same parameters as other Buddi dolls, when it becomes clear that the doll is now dangerous, they try to help Andy deal with it. First, they come up with a way to dispose of Shane's skinned face, but Pugg's idea to hide it by wrapping it in colorful paper results in Andy having to present it to Doreen as a gift. Second, and most importantly, they help Andy subdue, deactivate, and get rid of Chucky himself. But when Chucky is repaired and restored to his full power, he drives a wedge between Andy and his friends. He goes to this other kid, Omar (Marlon Kazadi), who takes him in and starts calling him "Chode." And when Chucky reveals to Andy that he's back and has video and audio evidence that could incriminate him in Shane's murder, Andy attacks the doll, leading to a fight between him and Omar. Said fight quickly escalates, and when Pugg tries to break it up, Andy shoves him and causes him to bang his head against a shelf. This leads to them temporarily disowning Andy, and Pugg later wonders if Andy really was the murderer, something that Falyn, to her credit, isn't willing to accept. And when Doreen is killed, she wonders if Andy may be right about Chucky, and they soon learn that not only was he right but that Chucky is in the ZedMart, targeting Andy. They warn Andy of this, but before he and his mother can escape the store, Chucky takes control of the building's Kaslan devices and all of the new Buddi dolls, leading to absolute chaos. And in the end, Andy has to save Karen by himself.

Unlike Play Pals' nasty president Mr. Sullivan in the mainline series, Henry Kaslan (Tim Matheson) not only puts himself out there as his company's public face but also puts on the typical veneer of kindness and caring that big corporations often do. His main appearances are at both the very beginning and end of the movie, first in a commercial for the Buddi doll, talking about its capabilities and how it's intended to be its owner's best friend for life, and, following Chucky's rampage at ZedMart, in a public statement where he says his company is not responsible for what happened. He does, however, say that all Buddi 2 products are being recalled. And a message from him is also played on ZedMart's enormous screen right before Chucky begins his mass attack.

It goes without saying that Chucky himself is what makes or breaks this movie for everyone. If you can't separate the character from the concept of a doll possessed by a serial killer and voiced by Brad Dourif no matter how hard you try, you will not enjoy this, as this is most certainly not your father's Chucky. One of a line of sophisticated dolls with cutting edge AI that allows them to interact with and take control of all Kaslan products, learn from their environments and interactions with their owners, and, most significantly, imprint on and bond with them, Chucky is portrayed in a much more sympathetic and even tragic light here. He's doomed even before he's first activated, as a Kaslan Vietnamese production factory worker, distraught over being fired and abused by his supervisor, removes all of the doll's safety parameters before offing himself. Initially bought by somebody else, the doll is returned to ZedMart, with the owner telling Karen that it acted weird, with the blue eyes glowing red. Not really hearing this, as she's thinking about what the doll could do for Andy, Karen takes it home with her and presents it to Andy. When first activated, the doll proves to be quite glitchy, with how he talks in a stuttering manner, the static-filled shots from his POV, and his inability to understand very simple things. When Andy introduces himself by saying, "Andy. 'Sup?", the doll responds by saying, "Hi, Andysup," and he gets the name of Chucky because he badly misinterprets Andy naming him "Han Solo." He's also not able to connect other Kaslan products like he's supposed to. Despite this and some other annoying habits, Andy decides to keep Chucky around, and the doll slowly endears himself to him, most notably in how he listens to his complaints about Shane and how everyone leaves him, and promises Andy that he will never leave him. And because Chucky "doesn't follow the rules," as Andy says, and will do whatever he asks, this impresses Falyn and Pugg and leads to them becoming friends with Andy.

However, Chucky's lack of safety parameters first becomes evident when Rooney, the cat, scratches Andy unprovoked. Seeing the blood dripping from the scratch, and comprehending that the cat hurt his friend, Chucky's eyes turn red and he attempts to strangle Rooney. The cat manages to escape his grasp, and when Andy admonishes him, asking why he would do that, Chucky answers, "He was hurting you. He was making you unhappy." Andy tells him that he can't hurt people or animals, but this doesn't stop him

from using Chucky to creep out Shane. Then, when Andy, Falyn, and Pugg are watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and Chucky sees them laughing at the over-the-top gore and violence (particularly when the skinned L.G. is trying to cut Stretch loose with a knife), Chucky grabs a knife from the kitchen and comes at the latter two, repeating the phrases, "Head's up, bitch," and, "Wait for it," he heard Pugg say earlier. Andy has to tackle him to the floor and restrain him, getting cut in the

process. And when he's admonished, a clearly confused Chucky says, "I thought it would make you happy." After that, you see Chucky sitting in the dark in Andy's room, apologizing to him for what he did. Then, when Shane overhears a recording of Andy calling him an asshole and becomes angry over this, Karen locks Chucky up in a cabinet and prohibits Andy to play with him for more than one hour a day. Chucky, however, doesn't like being shut up in the dark, and Andy hears him banging on the cabinet's inside, trying to get out. The next day, when Andy

gets home from school, he finds that Chucky not only broke out but killed Rooney, telling him, "Kitty made us unhappy. Now, we can play again." But that's only a prelude to when, after Shane gets rough with Andy and he angrily wishes he would just disappear, Chucky hitches a ride home with Shane, brutally murders him, and brings his flayed face (something else he picked up from Chainsaw 2) back to Andy as a ghoulish present.

The movie's most interesting character dynamic is the more developed relationship between Andy and Chucky. Instead of an evil man using a young kid's naivety to his advantage from the very beginning, Andy and Chucky have a real friendship here. Moreover, because Chucky himself is portrayed in such an innocent, childlike manner for the movie's first half or so, it comes off like he's the little kid and Andy is his dad. Unable to connect to the cloud to learn everything he should know because of his

defects, Andy has to teach Chucky himself, and truly comes off as a parent trying to impress upon his kid the difference between right and wrong when he admonishes Chucky for attacking the cat or saying things that could cause trouble. It's also touching in how Chucky, having imprinted on Andy as his "best buddy," and having listened to his frustration and sadness about his life, just wants him to be happy and does what he does because he thinks it will make him so. But due to his safety parameters having been

removed, he's unable to comprehend that what he's doing started out as potentially dangerous and has escalated to being downright horrific and could get Andy in serious trouble. And when Andy admonishes and punishes him for it, it's clear that Chucky is both confused and, in his own way, sad that he did wrong. That's another thing: Chucky himself goes through a clear character arc. At first, Mark Hamill's voice acting comes off as robotic, stilted, and Chucky is often just repeating what he's heard others say. But as the movie goes on, his manner of speaking becomes

more natural and you can hear some emotion in it, especially when he's explaining why he did something and expresses confusion when he gets punished for it. This comes to a head when, after he and the others temporarily get rid of Shane's flayed face, Andy confronts Chucky, whom he locked in his bedroom closet. Opening the door, he finds Chucky brandishing a small knife, as he says, "You left me all alone. I don't like the closet... You're my best buddy. I just want you to be happy." Then, Andy gets him to give over the knife and lures him into another room,

where Falyn and Pugg ambush him. At first somewhat hesitant to walk through the door, due to Andy's crying, Chucky does so, asking, "Are we having fun now?", only to get knocked down to the floor. As Falyn and Pugg hold him down, Chucky desperately yells at Andy, asking, "Why are you doing this?! They're trying to hurt me! Andy!... But you're my friend!" He even starts singing the Buddi song, which stops Andy, forcing the others to remove his core.

Whether intentional or not, this depiction of Chucky and his relationship with Andy hearken back to Don Mancini's original Blood Buddy script. First, the line of dolls is called Buddi, which immediately caught my attention when I first heard it. Second, while there's no literal blood bond between them like in that script, Andy and Chucky's friendship is close enough to where you could call it a brotherhood just as much as a parent/child relationship. Third, Chucky does very much act out Andy's rage towards various

figures in his life whom he dislikes, like Rooney the cat and Shane, essentially becoming the embodiment of his id. This is also ties into how, in that original script, the doll wasn't inherently evil, but becomes a true threat due to how it's being influenced. And finally, as was the case there, Chucky eventually becomes a threat to Andy himself. According to the authors of Reign of Chucky, the remake also shares a plot-point with Mancini's own aborted remake attempt years before, where the doll would be faulty due to cheap foreign labor. I don't think Mancini

intended for this to be the reason why Chucky became lethal in his remake, as I can remember him saying he intended to keep the character of Charles Lee Ray and Brad Dourif as the voice, but it's another interesting seeming coincidence (whether or not it actually is is for you to decide).

After he's found, repaired, and restored to his full capabilities by Gabe, Chucky undergoes a very frightening personality change. The minute he's restored, he uses his ability to control other Kaslan products to kill Gabe, then goes over to Omar's home and pretends to be a random Buddi doll left on his doorstep. At ZedMart, he walks over to Andy when he's by himself, reveals that it's him, and tells him, "If I can't be your best buddy, then nobody can. You said it yourself: everybody leaves you." He proceeds to

link up with the TV sets on sale and play the incriminating video of Shane's confrontation with him and him, in turn, wishing that Shane were gone. This leads to Andy having a falling out with his friends when he tries to stop Chucky, leading to a fight between him and Omar that results in Pugg getting hurt. Next, Chucky, having heard Doreen refer to Andy as her new best friend, targets her when she uses a Kaslan smart car. He drives it crazily around a parking lot, telling her, thanks to his connection to its

system, "Nobody steals my friend," crashes it, then gets inside and finishes Doreen off personally. And when Andy is left alone in his apartment, Chucky plays video of Falyn and Pugg discussing if Andy really is the killer on the television. Possibly lurking somewhere in the room, or perhaps just using the Kaslan products from somewhere else, he tells Andy, "I've watched them. I've seen how they hurt you," and says in a sing-song voice, "If they don't let us play, they all go away." He also taunts Andy, his tone becoming genuinely menacing, and even giggles in an

unsettling manner (naturally, you can't help but think a little bit about Hamill's Joker laugh), as the kid runs about the apartment, smashing everything with a bat while trying to find him. He finally plays a video of Karen talking to him from much earlier, which panics Andy, as he knows what it means, especially when Chucky repeats, "If they don't let us play, they all go away."And just to twist the knife further, he plays video of when he killed Doreen, prompting Andy to smash the TV... just as Karen walks in, prompting her to really think her son has snapped.

This leads into the climax, where Chucky unleashes absolute hell on everyone at ZedMart for the Buddi 2 unveiling, as he shuts the lights off, locks the store down, and attacks them with the various Kaslan toys, including the new Buddi dolls. In the midst of this, he connects with Andy's hearing aid, telling him, "I'm everywhere, Andy, and you can't run away from me now. See? They're all leaving you. But not me." And later, just when Pugg, Falyn, and Omar have come to Andy's rescue and are trying to lead him out of the

store, Chucky reveals that he's taken Karen hostage, forcing Andy to face his former buddy. When he heads back to the storage area where Karen is being held, Chucky plays an audio recording of her saying, "Andy's just a bit different," adding, "Don't you see? She's not your friend. You don't need other friends. They try to keep us apart. Try to ruin our fun. But I won't let that happen. It will be all over soon. Don't worry, Andy. You're gonna thank me when she's gone... when they're all gone." He manages to knock

Andy unconscious, and as he prepares to kill Karen, tells him, "I was broken, Andy. I couldn't make you smile. But I'm better now. I know how to make you happy now." Looming over Andy, brandishing a knife, Chucky suggests that Andy may be broken too and prepares to "fix" him. Before he can, Andy starts singing the Buddi song, giving Chucky pause and confusing him. This gives Andy the opportunity to get him off of him and save his mother, but Chucky doesn't relent, and still has a bit of that childish personality to him, telling Andy that he's ruining their

"fun" and, "You're gonna play with me now! Only me!" And what's sad is, when Andy manages to stab him with his own knife, Chucky, as he shorts out, yells, "Andy! I thought we were friends..." But, that doesn't prove to be the end of him, although he only remains active long enough for one last jump-scare.

Performance-wise, it shouldn't be surprising that Hamill is actually quite good (I didn't realize until recently that he'd technically played Chucky before, on a Robot Chicken skit), and a big reason for that is because he doesn't try to copy Brad Dourif. Not that this new version of Chucky would call for that anyway, but you're definitely not going to get the one-liners and overall macabre sense of humor from this doll, save for some moments where he repeats things he's seen and heard elsewhere. In fact, this portrayal

is a bit more unsettling to me personally, given how the doll starts out so innocent and naive, not comprehending the horrible things he's doing, and then, becomes so attached to Andy that he targets others in his life that could get in the way of their "playtime." By the time we get to the climax, Chucky has apparently become so fixated and even deluded by this goal that he thinks that Andy's resistance is a flaw within him and believes he needs to be fixed. When Andy then fights back against him and tries to

save his mother, Chucky attacks him in a manner that could put his life in danger, and at the end, jumps at him in a manner that suggests he's distraught over Andy's "betrayal" to the point where he's willing to kill him. The best representation of the two sides of Hamill's performance comes during the ending credits, which begins with him singing the entire Buddi song, having only sang snippets of it throughout the movie itself. It's a genuinely sweet, heartwarming song, and Hamill's singing is very endearing. Then, during the last part of the credits, he

sings it again... but in a much more menacing tone that gives the lyrics a whole new meaning, and with the last lyric changing from, "I'll be yours till the day I die," to, "Till the day you die." There's also no music behind this version; just Chucky's voice slightly echoing in a void, making it all the more creepy.

More so than even the portrayal and performance, what really tends to turn people off from this version of Chucky is the design. While the general look is the same (two-feet tall, red hair, blue eyes, freckles, blue overalls, etc.), the details of the face especially, with its very Uncanny Valley quality, pouting lips, and chubby cheeks, are what many find it hard, if not impossible, to get around. And yeah, when I first saw it, I wasn't sure what to make of it either, as it's definitely not as appealing as the classic Chucky. But,

as I watched the movie, I was able to acclimate to it and feel that this design does fit better with a doll that's supposed to remain artificial, rather than one becoming more human-like due to something supernatural. And make no mistake, there are some shots where this Chucky does look genuinely menacing, most notably when he's partially or mostly obscured in darkness, smiling evilly, and when his eyes go from blue to red to signify how dangerous he's becoming. Also, his neutral look is sometimes

unsettling in and of itself, like in one scene where Andy is trying to sleep and Chucky is just standing by his cabinet in the dark, playing audio of when he killed the cat. The same goes for the very next scene, when Andy comes home to find Chucky sitting on the arm of the couch. He's not doing anything, just sitting there, staring at Andy, and as Andy slowly approaches him, with no other signs of life in the apartment, you start to wonder what Chucky has done now. In the end, it turns out that Karen and Shane are there, and that Chucky saw them having sex, but it's

an eerie sight, regardless. Finally, I thought the addition of this doll being able to take control of other devices, from other toys, appliances, and vehicles to a building's entire system, was a way to make him come off as even more of a threat. We still get the traditional stabbings and butchery, but this makes it to where Chucky doesn't even have to lay a finger on you to take you out. (My one qualm is that the stuff he uses during the third act is far more dangerous than it should be, but we'll get to that.) And speaking of "finger," that glowing tip is meant to be a reference to E.T., as part of Lars Klevberg's intended vision for the movie.

Speaking of Klevberg, a big reason why I think it's a shame that this movie didn't launch his career is because he proves himself to be quite a talented filmmaker just in terms of technicality. For one, while the movie's visual style and color palette are rich but fairly standard for the most part, there are moments where it becomes much more colorful. For instance, in the very opening, it goes from a somewhat sterile-looking advertisement for the Buddi doll to a look of deep green and blue when it cuts to the Kaslan factory in Vietnam. Also, Andy and Karen's apartment has a

grayish kind of feel in the daytime, due to how it's often overcast outside, and, at night, there's a warm, brownish feel to everything, but when it's late at night and the lights are out, amid the pitch darkness is a lot of blue light from the moon outside and even some instances of red, like when Chucky has been locked up in a cabinet and is trying to kick his way out. Similarly, during the lead-up to Shane's death, that scene is surprisingly colorful, due to the blue nighttime lighting, the amber light on the front porch, and the bright Christmas lights. And during the

climax, ZedMart goes from having that white, kind of dull look of most retail stores to suddenly getting bathed in darkness and red, as well as purple in one spot, while the final confrontation in the storage area has a blue-white feel. Cinematography-wise, Klevberg doesn't get too showy, although the way he shoots Andy discovering that Chucky has killed the cat through a slow reveal, starting on an out-of-focus close-up of the cabinet's smashed window, with Andy walking through in the background when he notices

it, and then cutting to the cat's blood pooled on the floor, with Andy's reflection slowly appearing in it, and keeping the cat's corpse mostly offscreen, is quite inspired. And I can't stress enough how creepy that scene is where Andy comes home to find Chucky sitting on the couch, waiting for him, thanks to the direction of Andy slowly approaching him warily. We also get the expected shots from Chucky's POV, but here, they're given a twist due to its being the POV of an artificial intelligence, and we also often see it

through the Buddi cellphone app. Finally, there are some nice instances of editing, like when, after Chucky is shut up inside the cabinet, there's a montage of shots showing the apartment building's empty hallways and the quiet interiors of the Barclays' apartment, the silence of which is broken when Chucky starts trying to kick his way out.

While it's again set in Chicago, this time the movie was shot entirely up in Vancouver, and that could explain why I feel it doesn't have that same special vibe that the original did. While it's still set in the winter, some time after Christmas, and is clearly cold and damp, it doesn't have the atmosphere of the frigid, snow-covered streets of the actual city. Moreover, none of the settings are that noteworthy. They're all just typical, everyday places like the Barclays' low income but comfortable apartment building, the K-Mart knockoff ZedMart, and the

suburban home where Shane actually lives. The factory in Vietnam stands out simply for being in another country and because of the less than ideal working conditions we see the employees having to put up with; we do get a handful of scenes on the city streets, particularly some rundown spots near the apartment building where Andy and his new friends tend to hang out; Gabe's workshop, which might also be where he lives, is a memorably uncomfortable place with how dark it is, as well as how his monitors

show feeds from the various webcams he's hidden throughout the apartment building; and the yard full of watermelons where Shane gets butchered does add all the more to that death's uniqueness, but otherwise, this is set in a pretty average world. I get that that's the point, to make this story of AI run amok feel disturbingly relatable, but I still feel this is one of the areas where the movie is kind of lacking.

Going back to Klevberg's notion of this being a horrific version of E.T., you can definitely see allusions to that movie, like Chucky's glowing finger whenever he controls other electronics (when I was re-watching the movie, that finger was reminding me of something but I couldn't suss out what exactly until I did some research), the way he picks up on stuff from watching TV, only for it to be twisted around when he watches stuff like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and Andy's bright red shirt and hoodie. However, the movie that I think of when watching

this is one infinitely more obscure: 1995's Evolver, about a teenager who gets a robot that hunts in a real-world version of laser tag, only for it to become increasingly dangerous as the movie goes on, ultimately leading to a final confrontation with its owner. Just like this version of Chucky, Evolver is potentially dangerous from the get-go (in that case, it's due to its being a repurposed military weapon), is negatively influenced by its surroundings, including what it sees and hears on television, and its initial robotic personality and voice become more human-

like, as well as actively malicious. And both films also get into why artificial intelligence is a terrifying concept, especially as it grows more advanced. Ignoring the Terminator robot-apocalypse scenario, I find the idea of smart machines that are basically thinking beings in and of themselves living with you in your home, learning everything there is to know about you and the world around them, to be a scary one. Even if they never make a move against you, it's just unsettling to think about, and for me, it makes

this version of Chucky much more frightening than a doll possessed by a serial killer, as this feels increasingly possible. The scenes here that best exemplify it are those that take place late at night at the Barclays' apartment, when everyone is asleep. Despite not yet being a threat, the sight of Chucky watching Andy from his bedside is so eerie, and it only gets worse later on when Andy's trying to sleep and Chucky is standing in the darkness, playing audio of when he killed the cat. Speaking of which, Chucky

now being so self-aware that he tries to break his way out of the cabinet that Karen locks him in, doing so well into the night, and finally succeeding and killing the cat when no one else is around is just... ugh. And finally, that notion that he's able to take control of so many devices produced by Kaslan, which is such a widespread, multinational corporation that its products are virtually everywhere? Forget it. And that's to say nothing of the AI becoming actively jealous and vindictive to the point of committing murder.

Getting back to Don Mancini's original screenplay, this film does tackle marketing and advertising, opening with a commercial for the Buddi doll, with Henry Kaslan himself talking about how great it is, saying, "At Kaslan, we believe that happiness is about more than entertainment. It's about being known, understood, loved. Introducing your new best friend, Buddi." It then goes into the typical, overly saccharine depiction of a family having a great time with one of these dolls, as Kaslan talks about how it's able to connect to various products and smart devices,

is self-learning, and adapts to its owners' routines, as well as how it imprints on people and becomes their best friend for life. (The latter is illustrated by one of the dolls being placed in a baby's crib at night, as the doll sings the Buddi song. Yeah, that's not spooky at all.) This is most definitely an expansion on what Mancini heard about in the 80's concerning corporations programming dolls to be children's best friends. And after all these features are introduced, the commercial ending with a mention about the doll's safeguards, we promptly see said safeguards get

removed from one of the dolls and gradually watch as all of these initially cool attributes go from being unsettling to full-on deadly. The movie also pokes at shopping mania and big sales, with the Black Friday-like debut of the new Buddi 2 model at midnight, with so many people gathering at the front of the store and running in like a mob once the clock hits midnight, making them a bunch of easy targets for Chucky. The satire about big corporations in general is especially biting in how, after the schmaltzy advertisement, we

see that Kaslan has outsourced its production of the dolls to third world countries like Vietnam for the cheap labor, with kind of crappy working conditions inside the factory, and the supervisor turning out to be a bully who cruelly berates a guy he catches daydreaming on the job. He not only tells the man that he's fired after he finishes the Buddi doll he's working on but talks about sending him back out to the street where he found him, and even intimidates and laughs at him. And at the very end of the movie,

after so many people are dead and Chucky has been destroyed, we see a message from Kaslan,who, as expected, says his company isn't liable, then adds, "However, as a precaution, we are recalling all Buddi 2 products for the time being. At Kaslan, the customers come first."

The satire is a little more light-hearted in its depiction of what a drag it is to work in retail, with ZedMart just inherently coming off as a soul-sucking place and Karen, already looking really bored and zoned out in her introductory scene, having to deal with an irate, foul-mouthed customer who returns the standard Buddi doll because he didn't know it was ginger... even though he has no excuse because the box has a window, and also because the blonde model, which is what his kid wanted, is going to be part of the Buddi 2 line. Of course, even though Karen points it out that

it's his own fault for not realizing it, the guy storms off in a huff. Later, when Andy is there while Karen is working, she makes a hanging herself motion, and she also tries to negotiate it to where she doesn't have to work the night of the Buddi 2 launch, which falls on her son's birthday (a plea that, naturally, falls on deaf ears). And Buddi itself is such a popular toy that Karen is sick to death of hearing about it even before she brings Chucky home. Also, as frightening a concept as AI is, the movie doesn't skirt around its

more downright annoying and funny aspects, chief among them how it can wildly misinterpret something you tell it, and how Chucky's defects cause his speech to stutter and make him bring Andy a bunch of junk that he thinks is his textbook. It's also really funny just to hear this intended kids' toy curse (and in Mark Hamill's voice, no less), like when Chucky repeats what Pugg says, like, "It's fuckin' loud," and, "Dickcheese," as well as, "Narc alert! Shut up, shut up!" And while it's right before he guts someone, hearing him say, "This is for Tupac," as Omar told him to say, is priceless.

Speaking of which, there is some notable dark comedy to be found here, the chief example of which is how Andy, Falyn, and Pugg's attempt to get rid of Shane's flayed face on the watermelon goes completely awry. First off, as gruesome as it is, Chucky put a bow atop the melon, truly meaning it as a present for Andy. After putting Chucky in the closet for the time being, Andy calls Falyn and Pugg over, and you immediately see the looks of horror on their faces when faced with it, especially Pugg's, who's barfing into a waste basket in the next scene. He

continues to be really queasy about it, saying, "Oh, it's winking at me. I can't look at it anymore," and as they're then wrapping it up, Pugg, who's having to hold it while the others do the wrapping, groans, "Oh, is that brains? Skin's on a melon! Why is there a fruit involved? Bleh!" Next, they attempt to head to the garbage chute, with Pugg telling Andy to say he has "crazy diarrhea" if anyone stops him. That's when they come across Karen, and Andy gives her that very excuse to explain why he's not at school. Naturally, she asks what Andy is carrying around and he says it's

a present for Doreen, coming up with the lie that she's been helping him with his homework. Unfortunately for Andy, Karen decides to accompany him to deliver it to Doreen. Again, Doreen is good enough to go along with what Andy says about her helping him, but when she takes the "present," Andy, in his reluctance to let her have it, causes her to drop it. Doreen picks it up and shakes it, hoping it's not fragile, and comes close to opening it, but Andy convinces her to wait until his birthday, when they'll open it together. Later,

after he and his friends have seemingly dealt with Chucky, Andy goes to have dinner with Doreen and Mike. The whole time he's sitting there, conversing with them and showing Doreen how to work the Kaslan app, he's eying the present, which is sitting on a mantel beside the table. Mike notices it as well, and when he asks Doreen about it, she puts it on the table and tells Mike. And just to make Andy all the more tense, Mike rests his hand atop it, drumming his fingers while he talks. Fortunately for him, Mike leaves the room and he seizes his chance, grabbing the melon, rushing out the door, and dumping it down the garbage chute.

Like I said in my review of Curse of Chucky, part of me was afraid that they would heavily go digital with Chucky here but, fortunately, they did rely mostly on animatronics and puppetry. Moreover, I think this is the first Chucky movie since Child's Play 3 to not make use of little person doubles, instead just relying on CGI whenever the doll had to do something it couldn't actually do on the set. In any case, the effects were the work of MastersFX, who had to build and figure out how to best operate the various versions of Chucky within just two months or so, whereas Kevin

Yagher and his team had almost a year of research and development when they did the original film back in the 80's. Regardless, like in all of the mainline movies, I think the practical effects work here is really good, with the filmmakers making use of around six or seven different puppets with interchangeable limbs and heads, radio-controlled facial features, cable-controlled hands and fingers, and rod-controlled limbs and bodies, among other techniques. Like before, I'm able to buy that Chucky really is moving around and doing what he does, and

while he is mostly fixed in one spot or walks just a little bit in shots from the torso up, there are also some impressive, full-body shots of him walking, like when Andy first takes him into his room. And just as the jerky movements worked in the past since it was a doll, it's actually even more believable here, since we're talking about a doll that really is an advanced animatronic rather than supernaturally-possessed. I may be giving these effects a little too much credit, but I just love the idea of a movie nowadays making

extensive use of this kind of effects work, rather than going fully digital. That said, though, when Chucky does go full CGI in some shots during the climax (along with some of the toys he takes control of, particularly the Buddi 2 bear dolls), it's very obvious, but never onscreen for more than a few seconds.

MasterFX also did the makeup effects for all the kills and, as I said earlier, they are brutal and rival those in both Seed and Cult of Chucky as the goriest in the series. The factory worker's death at the beginning may be a bloodless suicide jump, and Rooney the cat's death is mostly offscreen, with just some blood and a brief shot of his corpse, but Shane's death is the first real bloody spectacle. After falling down a ladder, you see his legs break painfully in either direction upon impacting the ground, and he gets his head caught in a tiller, which tears his scalp apart and

sends it flying. Chucky then takes the knife to him, and when Mike and the others investigate, you see a grisly close-up of his flayed, bloody skull, with his face then appearing attached to a watermelon in Andy's room. Gabe's death is more drawn out and painful, as he's repeatedly stabbed in the leg, crotch, and chest, his hands are badly burned, and he lands right on top of a running table-saw, which sends blood flying everywhere and slices one of his legs off. This time, when Mike investigates, the grisly

aftermath is kept offscreen. Similarly, Doreen's actual death isn't shown, but when Mike sees her body, there are a number of nasty stab wounds on her chest, with the knife sticking in her. And during the climax, there's a lot of bloody violence: people are stabbed in the neck, throats are sliced apart, people are bitten and clawed to death, and so on.

The first major setpiece is, indeed, Shane's death. After he climbs up the ladder against the side of the house in order to take down the Christmas lights, he pulls them loose and ties them around himself, when the ladder suddenly shakes and he has to grab onto it to keep from falling. Looking down behind him and pointing his flashlight at the watermelon patch, he thinks it was raccoons. He turns back around to continue dealing with the lights, when the ladder falls and he goes with it, pulling more of them down at the

same time. He falls and breaks his legs right outside the living room window, but his two daughters are playing around on their tablet and cellphone, with headphones on, so they barely hear him yell in pain. By the time they look behind them, he's dropped out of sight, so they go back to what they were doing. Lying on his back, he yells for help, but gets no response. He grabs his flashlight, sees his cellphone laying nearby, and crawls towards it, only to hear some rustling behind some plants. Stopping to look,

he then continues for his phone, when Chucky switches on his tiller. It moves towards the end of the Christmas lights, which are still wrapped around Shane, and makes its way up the cord towards him. Though he does reach his phone, it becomes clear that it's not going to be much help, as the tiller's blades draw closer towards him. He manages to hold it back with his arm, when Chucky jumps onto him, saying, "It's tickle time. Nobody hurts my best buddy!" Shane yells for help again, when Chucky raises his knife. Shane tries to grab it from his hand, letting go of the

tiller and causing it to slice the top of his head apart, his scalp flying out the other end and landing atop a lawn gnome. Even though Shane is dead, Chucky proceeds to mutilate his body, splattering his blood onto some nearby melons.

After Gabe has repaired Chucky and given him a new power cell, he's sure that this is going to mean a lot of money for him on eBay, especially when Chucky shows he can now connect to other Kaslan products. He prepares to put him in a Buddi box, when he stops to look at Karen in her bathroom thanks to one of his hidden cameras. He's so engrossed that he doesn't see Chucky rise up on the table behind him, and all of his video monitors then immediately go to static. He tells his Kaslan system to reboot, not noticing that his

Shark vacuum cleaner is now running, but it says it's experiencing connection problems. After several agonizing seconds for him, it reconnects, but before he can enjoy his eye candy, he's distracted by a loud racket behind him and sees that Chucky is gone. He peers around the room for him, when the lights suddenly go out. He orders the system to turn the lights back on, which it does, only for them to go right back off. This time, the system doesn't respond to his commands, and he's cut in his right leg. The

lights come back on, in time for him to get stabbed in his crotch, and for the roaming Shark to cause him to fall. Chucky then slices him twice across the chest, before scampering off into the darkness. Gabe gets to his feet and, again, tells the system to turn the lights back on, only for him to get stabbed in the back of his other leg right when they do come on. He climbs onto a table that just happens to have a circular saw built into it, and Chucky pulls a screw out of one of its legs, causing it to fall forward and activate the saw. Gabe grabs onto an overhead length of pipe, dangling

right above the running blade, when Chucky turns up the room temperature, causing the pipe to become increasingly hot. Gabe struggles as his hands burn, his glasses falling and getting split in half by the saw. He lets go with one hand and dangles lower, causing the bottom of his foot to get sliced open. Chucky repeats something Gabe said while he was repairing him: "Time to open you up. Let's see what we're dealin' with." The temperature then reaches 180 degrees and Gabe lets go of the pipe, falling right onto the saw

and getting badly gutted and mutilated, spraying blood up onto the overhead light and with one of his legs dropping to the floor. The saw stops and Chucky stands nearby, smiling evilly at his handiwork. He then grabs and slips on the new set of overalls that Gabe bought for him, and places himself in a package at Omar's doorstep.

Following his confrontation with Omar at ZedMart and his resulting falling out with Falyn and Pugg, Andy ends up with Omar's cellphone, which he dropped during the scuffle. Using the Buddi app, he sees what Chucky is up to. He watches the doll head out of Omar's living room, where he and his friends are gathered, and go into the kitchen, where he takes a knife. Meanwhile, Karen discovers Rooney's discarded collar and tag, while Doreen tells Mike that she's heading out to play Bingo, having ordered a

Kaslan smart car. Andy momentarily loses the feed, only for it to come back up to show Chucky watching Doreen as she waits for her car. Horrified at this, Andy rushes down the fire escape, while Doreen's car arrives and she gets inside. By the time Andy makes it down to the street, the car is already taking Doreen to her destination. He runs down the street, yelling at her, but she doesn't pick up on the urgency in his voice and just enjoys being taxied over to her Bingo night. But, just when she arrives at the place and

prepares to get out, the car suddenly goes backwards really fast. She tells the app to pull over but the app responds, "I'm sorry. I do not understand," as the car swerves around and heads through the parking lot. It stops right in front of Chucky, who then uses his control over it to further terrorize Doreen, swerving it wildly in the middle of the lot and making it back up across the front and roof of another car, almost causing it to tip over. He drives it back down over the hood and stops it parallel to him, hitting the curb, and he then tells Doreen, "Andy's my best friend." He

continues sending the car flying crazily throughout the lot, this time deactivating the passenger side airbag and the seat-belt. He sends the car right into the side of another one, sneering, "Head's up, bitch." Following the crash, Doreen, badly injured and suffering from major whiplash, leans back in her seat, as Chucky's voice comes through the car's app connection, tauntingly telling her, "I see you." Frightened, Doreen looks out the passenger side window, seeing nothing, when Chucky then says, "Peek-a-boo." She next looks in the backseat, not

seeing anything, and then back out the window when she hears something rattle outside. Chucky, in a sing-song voice, says, "Doreen, I said peek-a-boo!" He suddenly pops up in the driver's seat, wielding his knife, and proceeds to stab her to death, as the film cuts to a high-angle shot of the car's roof.

After Andy tries to warn Karen about Chucky when she confronts him about what happened to Rooney, she leaves him alone while she goes to return Omar's phone; meanwhile, Mike arrives at the crime scene and is beyond devastated when he finds his mother's horribly mutilated body. As Andy sits at the table, the TV suddenly comes on by itself, showing a recording of Pugg suggesting that there was nothing wrong with Chucky and that Andy is a psychopath. He's then terrified when he hears Chucky's voice talking to him

from somewhere in the apartment, but is unable to pinpoint where. He grabs a baseball bat for protection, and rummages around the room, smashing every Kaslan product he hears Chucky's voice emitting from. Chucky then plays footage of his mother, threatening to take her out next, and switches to video feed from his POV, showing that he's apparently watching Andy from somewhere in the room. Andy continues smashing everything up to find him, when Chucky shows him footage of when he stabbed Doreen to death. Angrily, Andy smashes the TV, as Chucky laughs at him. That's when Karen walks back in and almost reaches the end of her rope when she sees her son smashing the TV to pieces.

Cut to the night of the Buddi 2 unveiling at ZedMart, where Karen has Andy nearby so she can keep an eye on him. At the same time, Falyn sees police gathered outside of Doreen's apartment and tells Pugg about it. She suspects that Andy may be right about Chucky returning, and she and Pugg then meet up with Omar and his group outside. Omar tells them that his Buddi is gone, and Falyn takes his cellphone and uses the app. First, she sees a recording of when Chucky was spying on Doreen while she waited for her car,

confirming that Andy was right, and then, switching to the live feed, they see that Chucky is watching Andy at ZedMart. Realizing the danger he's in, they head over to the store. And while that's going on, Mike learns that Shane's skinned face was found in a dumpster. When looking at the photographs, he recognizes the wrapping paper as the same as Doreen's "gift." Back at ZedMart, with less than three minutes to go until the Buddi 2 unveiling at midnight, an employee, dressed up as the doll as part of the

promotion, puts on an enormous, wobbly version of the head to complete it, all very much to his chagrin. Because of this, he doesn't see Chucky standing behind him. Falyn, Pugg, and Omar show up and warn Andy about Chucky, when a balloon next to a bear-style Buddi 2 doll suddenly pops. Having already seen evidence that the doll is activated by its glowing eyes, Andy tells them that he needs to get his mom out as well. But when he rushes to find her, Mike suddenly comes in, tackles him to the ground, and handcuffs him behind his back. Karen rushes in

to confront Mike, as Andy again tries to warn them about Chucky. At that moment, the countdown reaches zero and the big crowd that's gathered rushes into the store. While Mike and Karen argue, the crowd rushes to the back of the store, to the unveiling. At that moment, the man inside the costume suddenly gets stabbed in the side of his neck. The curtain is pulled back and he stumbles out, knocking over a box and falling to his knees right in front of a little girl. He takes the head off, blood sprays from his wound and onto the girl's face, and everybody's excitement turns to panic. Seeing this, Mike cuffs Andy to a shopping cart and heads over to help, as Andy continues trying to warn Karen.

The lights suddenly go out, and everybody's cellphones automatically connect to the Buddi app. The large TV screen in the back switches on, showing a message from Henry Kaslan, while Chucky begins activating other devices throughout the store, like drones and the Buddi 2 dolls. The drones hover above the unsuspecting victims, while on the screen, Kaslan says, "It's time...", and suddenly, his image is replaced with Chucky, who finishes, "...to play!" The drones swoop down at the crowd, with Karen diving at and pushing Mike out of one's path. That drone, instead,

digs into the throat of the man who'd been stabbed, just after he managed to stem the bleeding from his neck by keeping pressure on the wound. Blood sprays from his neck all over the stunned onlookers, and everybody quickly snaps out of their shock and run everywhere. One woman gets knocked to the floor by a drone, while Mike gets up and runs to help with the chaos. Andy tries to free himself from the handcuffs, as people pour out of the store, only for Chucky to initiate the lockdown. The large metal shudders slowly start to close on the main entrance, while in

the midst of the chaos, Mike save Pugg from one of the drones. However, his throat gets cut in the process and he collapses to the floor, telling Pugg to run before he passes out. As the chaos continues, Karen tries to find Andy, while the bear Buddi 2 dolls come to life and begin attacking the customers. One of them pulls a victim down an aisle, before it comes around the corner at Andy, who's still trying to free himself. It crawls onto the cart and is about to jump at him, when Falyn comes around the corner, knocks it back

to the floor, chops it up with a hedge-trimmer, and frees Andy from the cuffs. (This is where I feel the movie goes a little too over the top, as not only do the drones' blades seem a lot sharper than they should be, but these growling Buddi bear dolls that bite, scratch, and drag people away make it feel like the movie has suddenly become a Gremlins knockoff. And yes, it's a movie about a killer doll, but up until this point, I find it frighteningly plausible.) The two of them, along with Pugg and Omar, find a way out of the store,

when Chucky's voice comes over the PA system, asking, "Where ya goin', Andy?" Andy looks and sees on a monitor that his mother has been abducted, with duct-tape across her mouth. Seeing this too, Falyn and Pugg warn Andy that it's a trap, with Pugg saying they'll call the cops and let them deal with Chucky. Andy appears to agree with them, but promptly closes the door behind them, telling them that the whole thing is his fault and he can't leave his mother behind. Taking the hedge-trimmer and blade that Falyn was wielding, Andy declares, "Alright, Chucky. You wanna play? Let's play."

Heading into the back, Andy follows the sound of Chucky's voice, who tells him that he's getting closer. He wanders into a spooky storeroom, with shelves filled with unused toys, and hears what sounds like small, running footsteps on the walkway above. Passing by a plastic curtain, he enters a much bigger storage area, and hears the sound of a toy engine behind him, only for a little toy police car to come out nearby. The thing just skitters across the floor by him, saying, in an unexpected but certainly cute reference, "Dead or alive, you're coming with me." Andy

follows it past another curtain of hanging plastic, into a section that's in much more disarray than the others. It heads down an aisle, towards Karen, who's gagged, has her hands tied behind her back, and a rope around her neck. Andy runs to her, when Chucky plays a recording of her saying that he's just a bit different. Chucky then tries to convince him that she doesn't care about him, that he doesn't need anyone else in his life, and he'll ensure that they're all gone soon. Andy suddenly gets knocked out from behind, and wakes up to Chucky telling him that it's going to be just the two

of them forever. He activates a forklift behind Karen that slowly begins rising, lifting the rope tied to her neck with along with it and threatening to eventually strangle her. Chucky himself sits atop Andy and threatens to cut him open to "fix" whatever is wrong with him as well. Just as he's about to bring the knife down on him, Andy makes him hesitate by singing the Buddi song. While Chucky is distracted by this, Andy grabs the toy police car and uses it to smack the doll off. Grabbing the trimmer, Andy climbs up some

shelves next to where his mother is hanging and uses the trimmer to cut through the rope. He cuts almost all the way through, when Chucky jumps at him from behind. He lands on his shoulders, causing Andy to lose his balance and grab onto the rope, above his mother. He drops the trimmer, which smashes to pieces on the floor below, and struggles to get rid of Chucky, who's threatening him with his knife. Taking it from him, Andy cuts the rope the rest of the way and they all fall to the floor. After landing roughly, Andy quickly spots and then grabs the discarded knife, runs over to Chucky, and stabs it into his torso, causing him to short out and say that he thought they were friends, before he seemingly dies.

In tears over having to do this, Andy gets to his feet and staggers over to his mother, hearing Chucky glitching while singing the Buddi song. Suddenly, he manages to sing it like normal, and when Andy looks behind him, Chucky jumps at him, wielding the knife again. Before he can reach him, he's blown out of the air by a gunshot. Said shot came from Mike, who managed to keep himself from bleeding out, and murmurs, "This is the end." For good measure, Karen stomps over to Chucky and rips his head off, exclaiming, "Don't... fuck... with my son!", before

tossing it aside. She runs to Andy and the two of them embrace, Karen thanking Mike for his help. Across from them, Chucky's head finally seems to die. In the aftermath, you see Karen and Mike being sent to the hospital, while in an alleyway, Andy, Falyn, Pugg, and Omar smash what's left of Chucky into bits with baseball bats and sledgehammers, then burn the remains in a barrel. As the movie ends with Henry Kaslan's final message, Andy is seen hanging out

with his new friends, sitting in front of a big billboard, while a Buddi doll is put into storage, only for its eyes to flash red and for it to smile in its box. Whether this is yet another doll with its safety protocols removed or a sign that Chucky's AI somehow transferred into it is never made clear.

Not going to lie, this climax is the one main setpiece that I find to be a tad underwhelming. It doesn't last as long or is as chaotic as I figured it would be, especially since you feel how the movie is building to it, and I expected to see a lot more people getting butchered, as well as for Chucky to use more of the capabilities he showed off when he killed Gabe, like turning up the room temperature, causing the water-pipes to burst and threaten to drown people, sending deadly power tools after people, have people get crushed or bisected while trying to escape the front

door during the lockdown, and such. For that matter, I would've liked to see Chucky kill some unsuspecting customers himself amid this chaos, and maybe even take out one of Andy's friends when he got the opportunity. Like I said, while there is a fair amount of bloodshed, those drones and bear dolls are rather lame attackers (the latter looked rather creepy when they were inert, but not so much when they're up and attacking). And, come to think of it, the lockdown is quite negated when Andy and his friends easily

manage to find another way out. Finally I also think the final confrontation could've had some more stakes, like with Chucky personally threatening Karen and Andy having to talk him down, or Karen getting the opportunity to impress upon Andy that she didn't mean he was different in a negative fashion.

The same year that he did the awesome score for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Bear McCreary provided some more excellent work for this film. Like with all of the best Chucky scores, he really leans into the toy-themed, darkly childish side of the franchise and character. In fact, the main theme he comes up with reminds me of Joseph LoDuca's Chucky motif for both Curse and Cult of Chucky, as McCreary also played it on a toy piano, and it comes off as both childlike, yet twisted at the same time, with eerie, modulated voices going, "La, la, la, la." It's hinted at when the movie first starts, and you first really hear it when the factory worker removes all of Chucky's safety protocols and the doll is shipped, but you hear this theme in its full glory during the ending credits. The other innovative piece of score that McCreary came up with is the Buddi song, which Mark Hamill himself not only sings at various points, and in those two very different tones during the ending credits, but is also made into parts of the score, such as when you see Andy and Chucky beginning to bond. Going back to the score's innocent yet dark dichotomy, McCreary comes up with a really crazed piece for the carnage at ZedMart during the third act, and he also manages to do music that's just plain dark and unnerving, such as for the kill scenes. He proves to be great at atmosphere as well, like for those late at night scenes and when Andy comes home to find Chucky seemingly in the apartment by himself. The sequence involving the disposal of Shane's face is scored in a slightly humorous manner, due to its darkly comic nature, and the scene early on where Andy is teaching Chucky to make a scary face is done in a mischievous manner. And there are moments of genuine, heartfelt music too, like when Chucky is sorry for hurting Andy, and when Andy is forced to "fatally" stab him at the end, then destroy him along with his friends.

While I understand the reason why, I still think it's a shame that Child's Play 2019 had so much going against it from the minute it was announced, as it has a lot going for it. It has good actors giving good performances, especially Gabriel Bateman as Andy and Aubrey Plaza as Karen, this new version of Chucky is an interesting take on the character and is voiced well by Mark Hamill, the story has some interesting and even tragic dynamics that weren't present in the original 1988 film, the core concept is actually kind of frighteningly plausible, the satire on corporations, merchandising, and advertising that Don Mancini intended is here, there's also some good old dark comedy to be had here, the movie is very well shot and directed, the animatronic effects on Chucky work really well, the kills are very grisly and make for some great setpieces, and the music score is excellent. There are some hiccups, like the utilization of Andy's friends and the character of Mike Norris, the setting not quite having the same atmosphere as the original, some instances of bad CGI, and the climax not only going a little overboard but also not living up to its potential, but for the most part, this is a fun little horror flick. We can argue all day about whether or not it should've been made and how the studio, indeed, weren't too kind to Mancini, but taken on its own merits, it deserves more of an audience than it has.