'Child's Play': A Remake Better Than The Original

The first Child's Play film was released in 1988, I will have been two years old at the time. I think I may have actually seen the first Child's Play film when I was only about five or six, of course not very age appropriate, but its knife-wielding main character is an image from old school horror that remained fixed in my mind for many years. That film was a massive box office success at the time, and in traditional Hollywood fashion, it spawned a total of six movie sequels, and a TV series. Each sequel was of varying quality, but for the most part, you didn't watch these for storyline quality, you watched them because of the absurdity behind the idea of a serial killing doll. The general conceit of how the Good Guy doll came to be a murderous psychopath was that the soul of an actual murderous psychopath was able to possess the body of one of these dolls in order to escape an attacker. So the idea of a remake of the original, only two years after the sixth film in the original series was released (Cult of Chucky), was both interesting, and worrying, for fans.

Updating on the original idea, the "Good Guy" doll is now called "Buddi" and instead of being possessed by the soul of a murderous psychopath, it's an AI learning doll that's a little... defective. Andy has been aged up slightly, but the general idea is the same. Single Mom gets hold of one of these dolls for her son's birthday, and Andy proceeds to bond with this inanimate object because he has nobody else.

Andy's Mom (Aubrey Plaza), is simply a single mom trying to do her best for her teenage son, Andy (Gabriel Bateman). Working in a supermarket, she's struggling to be able to afford to get Andy a decent present for his birthday, so after a customer returns their "Buddi" doll for being defective, she takes it home, and gives it to Andy as his present. The crackling voice, the shifting to red eyes, and that creepy smile, all tell us that something's wrong with this AI doll, but for the most part, and to Andy and his Mom, it seems to work well enough.

As the film goes on, we get an idea into how the doll—now called "Chucky"(Mark Hamill)—develops its killer tendencies. Its 'best friend', Andy, is having a difficult time, and anything or anyone that it perceives as being harmful or upsetting to Andy is something that must be destroyed. Consider it like kind of a Terminator, but as a doll. As the film progresses, the actions of the doll become much more threatening, and much more gory, but in a truly fantastic way.

One thing to say about the remake compared to the original is that the tone is quite different. Instead of presenting itself as an almost-serious suspenseful thriller/horror like the original did, there's a fair bit more humour involved here, and the gore is presented in a much more brutal and "holy shit," Final Destination, kind of way. Director Lars Klevberg seemed to understand that the entire idea of a killer doll was, on the face of it, completely absurd, yet it ran with it in a way that made the film entertaining, and the idea behind the killer doll almost believable. Considering it stars Aubrey Plaza, there is also a fair bit of humour involved in this that creates a more entertaining balance between the light and the dark.

Less apparently intent on delivering to you a horror experience, its mission seems to be to deliver to you a broader, more entertaining ride that you can enjoy. There's over-the-top gore, ridiculous humour, some elements of slapstick, and the occasional jump scare (if you're into that sort of thing). Updated for the technological age, the climax of the film made sense, and again provided for an entertaining blood bath that just has you entertained until the credits begin to roll.

Despite my concerns that they may be tempted toward excessive uses of CGI, keeping to more practical effects, Chucky makes its actions, and its existence in the world seem all the more real. In fact, while there may no doubt have been more uses of CGI in the film, the only real obvious use of CGI was during the film's climax.

Much is made these days as to the "point" of remaking older classics, but we live in a newer age that may never have witnessed the original. Or, as a fact, an update in the concept may be able to introduce new elements or ideas that simply weren't possible in the original. All in all, it was funny, gory, and occasionally quite intense, but it never stopped being entertaining. Hamill was an amazing voice actor choice for Chucky, and I highly urge you to give it a watch.

Score: 7/10