Hes everyone ones favourite killer doll with an impressive film collection to his name but how do the 7 movies in the original Childs Play series holdup?
Today I will be ranking and discussing all of them, I wont be covering the remake as I want to focus on the original storyline but I do have plans for these horror film remakes in the far future.
Obviously this is just my personal opinion and I will be ranking this list based more on which ones I want to re watch more than the quality of the films, this is purely rated by my own viewing pleasure and your list may be very different to mine.
With all that said and done lets get straight into this crazy series of films !
Curse of Chucky – 2013
The only curse this movie has is how boring it is and the fact that it makes very little sense in the timeline of events
The very much alive Chucky doll is shipped to a wheelchaired bound girl in a posh old mansion, the doll is in near mint condition considering that the last movie had his head, arms, and legs cut off.
The face is later revealed to be a mask hiding Chucky’s wounds but the arms and legs are never explained neither is what happened after the events of the last movie Seed of Chucky.
The casting is pretty decent here no one does a bad job and the main character Nica and her niece Alice are fantastic in their roles, Summer Howell who plays Alice is exceptionally good here and in my opinion is actually a lot more likeable than the series first hero Andy Barclay.
A couple of fun cameos from Tiffany and Andy are in this film and were some of the only really memorable moments for me, never the less its great to finally see Andy return as his “ending” in Childs Play 3 was less than satisfactory.
The twist ending was unexpected and a highlight of the movie, it was really cool to see a teeny bit of back story for Charles Lee Ray and the events which led to him running into the toy shop in the original Child’s Play.
I know I’m biased here because a lot of people really like this movie but I don’t really get it, yes I know its gone back to the horror side of the franchise and that’s great but I just found it no where near as entertaining as any of the other films, they don’t even have any great sets in this it practically takes place in one building minus a few scenes.
The kills were pretty basic compared to the last two movies and while overall it continues the Chucky storyline this is one film that I personally will not look forward to watching again if I decide to another Chucky marathon in the future.
Seed of Chucky-2004
Where to start with this one..
Taking place 3 years after the events of Bride of Chucky, a young adolescent doll named “shitface” later to be renamed as Glen” is trying to figure out where they belong.
The old Chucky and Tiffany dolls are being used as props in their own feature film, Glen notices that these two dolls on TV also have “made in Japan” so insists that they are their lost parents. So they travel to the movie studio to resurrect Mum and Dad !
This movie is insane, this is 100 percent a comedy film and it works as such, it being so ridiculous in its premise and delivery makes for a lot of funny moments. My favourite is Tiffany calling the wife of a cop she killed in the fourth movie and apologising and saying that she was seeking help after a self help book says she should make amends with the people she’s hurt, the scene where she is on the phone with Jennifer Tilly and her personal aid is also pretty funny as they both sound the same being played by the same actress.
We got double Jennifer Tilley she’s plays her self in this as well as the Tiffany doll and she is just amazing as she always is in her performances, she works so well in comedy films and parodies and even playing two characters in this she pulls off two very memorable performances.
Unfortunately I don’t have much more positive things to say about this one. I think Child Play works so much better when it’s taken less seriously but there needs to be a fine line and I think this jumped too far over it.
Everything from its premise to the kills is so over the top that this feels more like a Robot Chicken or Scary Movie segment and that’s the best way I can describe it. It doesn’t feel right more of a parody than an actual entry in the franchise, I like silly Chucky but this is just way too much !! There is a way it can be done well and it has been done much better in this very film series.
Seed of Chucky is a fun movie in its own ways but for me it just doesn’t work as well as some of the other films in the franchise, I understand that this is meant to extremely ridiculous and they took a comedy route here but even some of the other silly movies didn’t go quite this hard and I feel that’s this movies biggest issue, it steered a little bit too far from that nice balance of silliness and seriousness and that’s why Seed of Chucky is so low on this list.
Childs Play 3 – 1991
Childs Play 3 is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to these movies, this is because while it is generally a pretty underwhelming film it is still entertaining enough that it is enjoyable
The casting is really bad in this movie as well, it primarily takes place in a military academy, Andy this time played by Justin Whalin and plays the character as a young adolescence and he does an ok job but its nothing to write home about, a lot of the acting from the entire cast is either very monotone or extremely over the top.
They play the military stereotypes really hard in this movie, you have the bully character, the nerd, the pychopath, the abusive drill sergeant, the struggling newbie and the cool character. Its cliche and nothing special, Chucky is straight up silly in this movie dropping lines like “This means war” and DONT FUCK WITH THE CHUCK!
If there one thing I can say about the film its gotta be that last set they made for theme park., it is so cool inside of the Ghost train, the graveyard scene with all the zombies jumping out is quite scary even though its fake and the final battle with Chucky in the hell segment is very symbiotic of his evil and again it just generally is really cool to look at, I wish they made ghost trains like that in real life.
Child Play 3 is an entertaining movie but its just bad for a movie in this series, it lacked in creativity not only doing the whole voodoo soul stick for the third in a row but also taking place in a school full of weapons which did take a tole on the creativity of the kills. The only redeemable moment in the film was that ending ghost train scene and apart from that while it isn’t boring it just plain sucks.
Cult of Chucky – 2017
After a disappointing and forgetful prior film this movie in my opinion really took the franchise to a place where it needed to be a well balanced silly but serious movie.
Nica now in a mental institution is convinced by the system into believing that she was the person who murdered her family that is until Tiffany disguised as Jennifer Tilley delivers the Chucky Doll directly to her which starts to trigger not only awful memories for Nica but a series of creative murders as well.
The kills are not the best that we have seen in the series but they are a upgrade to the last movie, we get another glass ceiling death similar to Seed of Chucky which was definitely my favourite death in the film.
A really cool idea introduced to this film was that Chucky is now able to transfer his soul into various dolls and people allowing him to be in multiple places at once, this idea could be quite scary if it wasn’t made clear who was possessed at anytime, but because we are told who has the soul transferred into them it takes away a lot of the suspense and I hope the upcoming TV series handles this a lot better.
The original Chucky dolls head is still alive and being kept at Andy Barclays home, it is really beat up but looks pretty damn awesome, also it was great to see Kyle back even for such a small cameo
Cult of Chucky was a fun movie, it took the franchise to new levels by changing up its rules, I like that Chucky is more of a transferrable soul now than just stuck in his body, like I said it could be a scary premise if they wanted go down that route, other than that, the acting is great here and there is much more screen time for Tiffany who at this point I think I like even more than Chucky himself.
Child Play – 1988
Oh dear the one that started it all and barely making the top three !
The first Childs Play is easily the creepiest film in the series although that doesn’t mean it isn’t at all goofy
Moments like Charles Lee Ray saying a voodoo ritual to get his souls transferred into the good guy doll is pretty ridiculous and of course we have the infamous voodoo torturing scene which both stand out as pretty non intentionally hilarious.
Yeah this is a pretty voodoo heavy film !
But that’s not to say that this does not have its creepy moments, there is one scene where the mom character finally discovers that the doll is possessed and once Chucky realises the iconic line “Hi I’m Chucky wanna play” is said and its actually quite memorable for being the biggest scare of the film, well that’s my opinion anyway.
The scenes building up to this moment we only see Andy putting the doll to his ear, there are kills that could easily link to Andy having serious mental problems and being the killer and these moments are very well directed, of course once the doll actually being alive is revealed it does go a little bit off the rails with chucky saying curse words and becoming the comic relief of the film.
The only other thing to really note here is that there a good number of explosions which are not exactly realsitic considering their size, at times I had to wonder if this had been directed by Michael bay they were of such epic proportions.
The casting here is fine enough the only person who is remotely memorable bar Chucky is Catherine Hicks who played Karen Barclay I thought she gave a really believable performance, she played Andy’s mother and she fitted her role perfectly portraying a desperate woman who is dealing with her son murdering all her friends and trying to prevent him from being taken away from her.
Alex Vincent who plays Andy was only a little boy when this movie came out so I don’t want to rip into his performance too much but most people would agree that he is very annoying in this and obviously his acting is not great due to his age but that’s all I will say on the subject as I feel its unfair to really criticise him in this.
I love this movie, the first Childs play is half phycological horror and half comedy but its never too overtop compared to its many sequels, I watch this every Halloween and any other time I get the chance, its a super fun movie and one of personal favourites.
Bride of Chucky (1998)
This movie is where the series took a complete U-turn and completely rebranded its self while also sticking to the original storyline and events.
Before we begin I want to explain that this takes place 10 years after the events of Childs Play 3 and Andy is missing from this movie and never mentioned once, its very weird considering he was such a big part of the first trilogy but keeping that in mind lets get straight into it.
A new killer is shown in this movie Tiffany, a freaky cook played by one of my favourite Actresses Jennifer Tilly, Tilley’s comedic scene chewing works extremely well for her character in this.
Her reading Voodoo for Dummies gets me every time, its little moments like this that goes to show that this is not at all meant to be a full on horror movie, most of the kills and moments are goofy, its works really well as a comedy but still has some serious storytelling on offer and I think it was a great direction to take the series.
When they are both dolls I think the movie starts to get really fun because because both of these killers personalities bounce of each other very well and in a weird way they make a creepy but cute couple.
I cant discuss this movie without talking about the sex scene, Chucky get laid in this movie and it is hilarious, while this is important to set up the sequel this is probably the funniest scene in the movie, its super weird but pretty funny to know that even though they are trapped in their doll bodies the sex organs work just fine!
The kills in this movie are fantastic, early on Tiff tells chucky he needs to up his game and give up the boring stabbings, from this point on all murders are ridiculous but in a good way and it makes these movies standout from the competitors, I think my favourite was the couple being killed by the broken glass ceiling in the hotel room quickly followed by Chucky stuffing a burning t-shirt into a cars petrol tank and blowing up the ass hole cop that was inside.
What else can I really say about this one, it is such a great movie and by far its up there as a classic, I think Chucky works better when he not taken too seriously, a lot of the slasher movies from this era went goofy and didn’t work but it seems for Chucky hes better being silly than scary, in fact he was never really a scary character and when Bride of Chucky came out the new owners Universal definitely seemed to know this.
The casting is pretty good in the film Jennifer Tilly is amazing and of course Brad Dourif as Chucky is fine, the rest of the cast are good and while none of them stood out apart from the dolls I have no complaints.
stick this one on your spooky marathon list, it is great, really freaking stupid but it works so flipping well !
Child’s Play 2 (1990)
The second Childs Play is my favourite movie in the series for a lot of reasons.
The casting here is great and a massive improvement to the first movie and even know a lot of the later films had memorable performances, this was one of the only films where I think everyone did a fine job.
Andy is less annoying by this point and of course Chucky is fantastic in this, his character is just starting to get more into the goofy side than horror so his moments are memorable for being a little over the top as well as a little menacing. The death of the teacher is one of my favourites mainly because shes a massive bitch and seeing her get her comeuppance by the toy doll she confiscated is just too funny.
In the film Andys mother is in a mental health facility as no one believes her about Chucky so Andy is placed into temporary care with a Foster family.
The family are a lot of fun on screen the two parents played by Jenny Agutter and Gerrit Graham play two very different characters who bounce well off each other as the serious father figure and nurturing mother.
The Foster sister Kyle is one of better side kick characters for Andy is the series, she’s played by Christine Elise who does a grand job as the misunderstood teenager who at first doesn’t believe Andy but by the end of the film she teams up to defeat Charles Lee Ray once again!
Plenty of locations were shot for this film and they are very visually appealing, I love the Foster home with its creepy basement and old fashioned layout and of course the factory is really cool. The opening shots of the movie are of the burned chucky doll getting restored its quite creepy but at the end of the film the final battle in the factory is fantastic, the best part is when Chucky gets sent into the doll building machine backwards and we get to see him as a deformed version himself. He has a lot of great looks in this scene one, he has a knife hand, he gets his legs destroyed so has to wheel himself around and then there is the terrifying melting version before he gets his head exploded by gas pressure, it’s all really awesome and one of the better finales
Childs Play 2 is just a phenomenal film and is in my opinion not only the best in this franchise but one of the best movies ever made especially during the era of slashers, a lot of Chucky’s competitors had pretty weak second movies so its nice to see one work so well.
And that my official ranking of the Childs Play series !, Of course the TV series isnt out yet but I will add it to this list in the future as it does continue the story in this timeline.
So do you agree with my picks or would you have ranked these differently let me know in the comments below 🙂
Here is a link to last years ranking of the original 10 Friday the 13th movies
Happy Halloween 2021, I hope you have a Spooktacular day, have fun but also stay safe !
Next month we are back to regualr reviews before Christmas so I will see you then
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