Episode 267 - Child's Play Retrospective

[kingstownted]

MP3 Direct Download

It's a Child's Play retrospective this week as we take a look back at the franchise that enjoyed a series of successful instalments
and raised the character of Chucky to the upper pantheon of horror franchise icons.

Chucky is an interesting thing. A murderous doll possessed by the spirit of a voodoo practicing serial killer is at its heart a
ridiculous concept, any threat suggested being stripped away when confronted by the absurdity of the visual of a talking doll. There were factors that allowed the series to thrive such as the consistency of the writing by Don Mancini, the vocal performance of Brad Dourif who transformed the inanimate object into Charles Lee Ray (perhaps the biggest a-hole of the franchise killers), and of course the transition of the films from late 80's genre sensibilities into the self-referential perspective of the 90's.

Things may have gotten a little too on the nose with Seed of Chucky but Ronny Yu's switchup to playing with the inherent nonsense at the heart of the series with Bride of Chucky was perfect timing. Now we have a five film franchise that strikes a balance between an earnest twist on the slasher formula, and satirical stabs into the tropes of the genre. All pulled off with respectable direction, writing and a well performed antagonist, unlike other franchises say for example... Leprechaun.

As always we welcome your comments: [e-mail]
Voicemail [phone]

[craftfear]

Great episode, fellas. I was a little worried after the Leprechaun episode that we might just be veering into unabashedly silly territory for a few weeks. That may just be because I have seen Chucky but not Leprechaun and had no idea how terrible the latter was..

[bigmac]

Well, after this one, I'll have to watch Bride of Chucky, and maybe revisit the original. But as for the rest, come on. If you can't beat the stuffing out of a doll, how can you call yourself a horror fan? ;D

[darkfiction74]

Great episode! I missed Tony's perspective, but I guess he's not really into this franchise.

The first Child's Play and Bride of Chucky are my favorites of these, but I'm not really a big fan of parts 2 and 3. I'll have to watch them all over again to see if I still feel that way or not.

[jdsidd]

I missed hearing Tony on this one too. On the plus side, the episode inspired me to pick up the Chucky movies and give them a watch. I've only seen the first one when I was a kid and Bride about the time it was released. But I'm currently sitting on my couch about 20 minutes into part three. So far its been a fun ride. I'm really impressed at how good Chucky looks when he's moving around. I thought he effects would be terrible but they're actually pretty good.

Thanks for convincing me to give this series another shot, guys.