Chucky has been terrorizing the world since 1988, causing bloody mayhem across eight movies and a TV series. And some are better than others. Here's the "Child's Play" franchise ranked from worst to best.
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00:00 Chucky has been terrorizing the world since 1988, causing bloody mayhem across eight movies
00:06 and a TV series.
00:07 And some are better than others.
00:09 Here's the Child's Play franchise ranked from worst to best.
00:13 The Child's Play remake changes things up.
00:16 Chucky is not a possessed doll in this film.
00:18 Instead, he's a malfunctioning robo-toy, sabotaged by an overworked employee.
00:23 Remaking Child's Play without the involvement of creator Don Mancini and Chucky actor Brad
00:28 Durif was always a terrible idea.
00:30 But they went ahead and did it anyway.
00:32 The results are rather dire.
00:34 The 2019 Child's Play had none of the charm of the original franchise.
00:38 And while there are some gruesome kills, they lack the style that one expects from the series.
00:43 Mark Hamill's take on Chucky isn't bad, and he does make the doll a lot more sympathetic
00:47 than Durif's iconic version.
00:49 "Yay!"
00:50 "Okay."
00:51 The film also deserves credit for going with a mostly practical Chucky instead of
00:57 making the character CGI.
00:59 But almost nothing here really works.
01:01 Not even the usually wonderful Aubrey Plaza, who is miscast as a cool mom.
01:06 While by no means a box office flop, the 2019 Child's Play was so disliked by critics and
01:11 fans that any plans for future installments with this new Chucky seem to be dead.
01:17 Seed of Chucky is the silliest film in the series.
01:19 And that's saying something, since this is an inherently silly franchise.
01:24 It's also the first film that goes for full-blown comedy rather than a mix of comedy and horror.
01:27 "Chucky's broke again!
01:28 This is bloody ridiculous!"
01:32 Seed of Chucky was the first film with Chucky creator Don Mancini in the director's chair,
01:36 and it's not a very nuanced start.
01:38 The premise has promise.
01:40 There's a film being made about Chucky's murders, and Chucky and Tiffany are resurrected on
01:44 the film set.
01:46 The murderous couple finds out they have a child, another doll named Glenn.
01:50 This is actually who resurrected Chucky and Tiffany from the afterlife and transferred
01:54 their souls into the dolls being used as props for the Chucky movie.
01:58 Meanwhile, Jennifer Tilly, playing herself, struggles to land a part as the Virgin Mary
02:02 in a new biblical epic being directed by rapper Redman, also playing himself.
02:07 All of these plotlines converge into a truly stupid movie, where almost none of the jokes
02:11 work and Chucky becomes a shadow of his former self.
02:15 The Child's Play franchise was never high art, but Seed of Chucky took the series to
02:19 a near all-time low.
02:21 Thankfully, it eventually recovered.
02:23 Cult of Chucky isn't great, but you have to give it credit for being fully committed to
02:27 an insane premise.
02:28 Writer-director Mancini sets the film within the confines of a mental institution, which
02:32 seems like the perfect opportunity to take the series to a new location.
02:36 But the institution is almost an afterthought here.
02:39 The film could take place almost anywhere and unfold pretty much the same way.
02:43 The one thing Cult of Chucky has going for it is the fact that there are multiple Chuckies
02:46 here.
02:47 Chucky has been brushing up on his voodoo and is now able to transfer his spirit into
02:51 multiple dolls at once.
02:53 It's a neat idea, and having Brad Duriff converse with himself leads to some good moments.
02:58 But you can't help but wish the film had done more with the concept.
03:01 From a visual standpoint, Cult of Chucky is often surprisingly gorgeous, with a stark
03:05 minimalism at play within the walls of the asylum mixed with a snowy winter backdrop.
03:10 Yet, just as often, there's a cheapness to everything, particularly in scenes featuring
03:14 Chucky props that look more unconvincing than they ever have before.
03:18 Child's Play 3 was the first real indication that the franchise might be spinning its wheels.
03:23 The film actually came out less than a year after Child's Play 2, hinting at a rushed
03:27 production trying to cash in on Chucky's growing popularity.
03:31 In the film, Play Pals, the company that makes Good Guy dolls, recycles some destroyed bits
03:36 of Chucky from the previous film to create a new doll.
03:39 Meanwhile, a teenage Andy is shipped off to military school.
03:42 But things go south when Chucky finds his way onto campus.
03:46 The idea of Chucky bucking up against rigid military tradition is great, but Child's Play
03:50 3 lacks the charm of much of the franchise.
03:53 It feels colder, more removed.
03:55 It also comes across as a one-note movie, Chucky versus the army, over and over again.
04:00 Once you get past the novelty of that initial idea, it becomes clear the film doesn't have
04:04 a whole lot more to offer.
04:06 "Sayonara, suckers!"
04:09 Yet, as always, there are things to enjoy here, particularly the finale, which shifts
04:18 away from the military base to a carnival, where Chucky terrorizes the film's characters
04:23 on one of the most elaborate and dangerous haunted house rides ever created.
04:27 As wild as it is, though, you can really sense that Mancini is starting to realize he needs
04:31 to stop repeating the same Chucky formula and do something new.
04:35 That stagnant feeling of Child's Play 3 was successfully overcome by 1998's Bride of Chucky.
04:41 Hong Kong filmmaker Ronnie Yu helmed Mancini's script and gave Chucky a whole new feel.
04:47 Slick, polished, more modern, Mancini finally stopped worrying about Chucky trying to put
04:51 his soul into Andy and crafted a natural-born killers meets Bonnie and Clyde-style road
04:56 movie.
04:57 Chucky is brought back by his old flame Tiffany, who soon finds herself reincarnated as a doll
05:02 as well.
05:03 While almost all the previous Child's Play films were open to using humor, Bride of Chucky
05:07 is the first film in the franchise that seems like it's in on the joke.
05:11 By now, Chucky has changed into something of a comical anti-hero, and Mancini's script
05:15 leans into that here, while also still maintaining that Chucky is bad news.
05:20 "For God's sake, Chucky, drag yourself into the '90s.
05:23 Stabbings went out with Bundy and Dahmer.
05:25 You look like Martha Stewart with that thing."
05:28 Not all the jokes work here, but there's a tongue-in-cheek nature to Bride of Chucky
05:32 that succeeds far better than the nonstop jokes of Seed of Chucky.
05:36 After the near-fatal misstep that was Seed of Chucky, the franchise needed a bit of an
05:40 overhaul.
05:42 Curse of Chucky is almost a remake, but not quite.
05:45 Mancini changes up the setting, with this film taking place in an old, dark house.
05:50 The film becomes something like a murder mystery in the process.
05:53 Where Seed of Chucky was over-the-top to the extreme, Curse is subtle — or at least as
05:58 subtle as a Chucky movie can get.
06:01 The kills aren't played for laughs here, which effectively makes Chucky kind of scary again.
06:06 Also helping matters is Fiona Durriff as Nika, who gives us our first real main character
06:11 to root for in the series since Andy.
06:13 Thankfully, Mancini and company put some real thought and effort into Curse, resulting in
06:17 one of the best entries in the franchise.
06:20 The Chucky series is nothing short of brilliant, as creator Don Mancini has effortlessly managed
06:25 to weave the three eras of child's play films into one coherent story.
06:29 The show picks up after the events of Cult of Chucky, where the possessed doll is purchased
06:33 by Jake Wheeler at a yard sale.
06:36 Jake intends to sell the doll, but of course, that doesn't work, and now Chucky is hell-bent
06:41 on using Jake as his new scapegoat to enact a reign of terror on Charles Lee Ray's hometown.
06:46 The series is the culmination of everything that makes the Chucky franchise great, balancing
06:50 genuinely terrifying moments with sharp-tongued comedy and a lot of heart.
06:54 It's also a testament to the brilliant storytelling of Mancini, because the series never misses
06:59 a canonical beat.
07:00 At the same time, it's not afraid to lean into the absurdity.
07:05 While child's play gave birth to Chucky, it had yet to fully understand his full potential.
07:09 For a good portion of this 1988 film, director Tom Holland tries to tease the audience about
07:14 whether or not Chucky is even alive, or if he's the insane imaginings of young Andy.
07:19 There's nothing wrong with this concept, but the film completely abandons it at the midway
07:23 point, which inadvertently makes the first half of the movie weaker by comparison.
07:27 On top of that, child's play plays things straight, very straight.
07:31 There's not a single moment in this film that treats the concept of a living, killing child's
07:35 toy as anything other than serious.
07:37 While that's commendable, it also doesn't quite work, just because the concept itself
07:41 is too inherently amusing to begin with.
07:44 That's not to say child's play should have been a laugh riot, but there are moments where
07:47 you can't help but think the film is taking itself too seriously.
07:50 Still, this is a lot of fun to watch.
07:52 Dura's performance in this film is nasty to the extreme.
07:56 This was before multiple sequels softened Chucky a bit and turned him into an anti-hero.
08:00 Here he's nothing but trouble, killing almost anyone he comes across, often for no discernible
08:06 reason.
08:07 He just likes to kill, and being stuck in a tiny doll body isn't going to stop that.
08:10 A scene where Andy's mother slowly realizes that Chucky, her son's doll that has been
08:15 talking and moving its head for days, has no batteries inside him, is a perfect moment
08:19 of mounting tension.
08:20 "Hi, I'm Chucky, wanna play?"
08:28 Moments like this help elevate child's play to almost the top of the list.
08:31 Almost.
08:32 As became common in the franchise, Chucky is killed at the end.
08:36 Set on fire and shot multiple times.
08:38 It makes you wonder if he'll come back.
08:41 He comes back.
08:43 Desperate to calm stockholders, Play Pals takes the burnt remains of Chucky from the
08:47 first film and rebuilds them, with the hopes of proving Andy's story was bunk.
08:52 And there's nothing wrong with the doll.
08:53 Of course, they're wrong.
08:55 Here it is, the best child's play film.
08:58 While child's play set up the world and rules of Chucky, child's play 2 fully realized how
09:02 to make the most of them.
09:03 This is a funny, weird, twisted film, filled with iconic moments that the franchise has
09:08 never quite been able to top.
09:10 Most of all, this film is fun while also being scary.
09:13 While the subsequent sequels could never entirely balance the humor and horror, child's play
09:17 2 does it marvelously, with funny moments punctuated by truly disturbing death scenes.
09:23 After child's play, Andy is sent to a foster home.
09:25 There, he struggles to readjust to normal life, all while everyone around him is suspicious
09:30 of the events of the first film.
09:32 One thing's for sure, there's no way anyone believes his story about a killer doll.
09:36 Of course, Andy is telling the truth, and a resurrected Chucky soon finds his way back
09:40 into Andy's life.
09:42 This is the best-directed film in the series, with Helmer John Laffeya employing fisheye
09:46 lenses and strange angles to always give the film a sense of uneasiness and menace.
09:51 Durif really finds his groove with the part of Chucky here, and he's clearly having a
09:55 blast as the character.
09:57 This is also the first film in the series that lets Chucky employ his now-trademark
10:01 laugh, a high-pitched cackle full of gleeful evil.
10:04 [Laughing]
10:12 Best of all, though, is the film's climax, which is set within the maze-like confines
10:17 of the Play Pals factory, where more and more Good Guy dolls are being constructed.
10:21 With shades of The Terminator or The Shining, Chucky chases Andy and his foster sister Kyle
10:26 through the factory, while towers and towers of stacked Good Guy doll boxes gaze down at
10:31 them.
10:32 The factory's Rube Goldberg-like assembly machines eventually transform Chucky into
10:35 a mutated monster.
10:37 But he just keeps coming.
10:39 He'll always keep coming, his thirst for blood unquenched.
10:43 For close to 30 years now, Chucky has worked his way through horror's hallowed halls and
10:47 come out the other end, basically intact.
10:49 No matter how often he's shot, stabbed, burnt, or blown up, he always returns.
10:54 [Music]