Ranking The Franchise: Child’s Play

Having recently ranked the Mission: Impossible franchise after it [allegedly] wrapped up with The Final Reckoning, I got to thinking about what other franchises I could do a ranking of. In addition to Tom Cruise’s nearly 30 year action journey, I had previously done the Halloween, Friday The 13th, and Nightmare On Elm Street series from bottom to top. Which is little surprise, as horror has always been my thing.

But what other horror franchises have I watched every entry of? There’s the rub, because each major one has at least a few titles I haven’t seen yet. There is Scream, of course, but as that one is still going, it seems a bit early to do a ranking now. Maybe later this year after Part 7 comes out.

There was one other that came to mind, though, and it was for a series I watched every part of in the last few years so I could do a mega podcast with some other great talents. It is Don Mancini’s Child’s Play/Chucky franchise. Having remembered that, the decision was made.

Here’s the problem, though: I don’t LOVE the Child’s Play series. I mean, they are part of a classic 80’s horror franchise, so I’ll pretty happily sit down and watch any of them at any time. But that’s on me. The problem is that for an eight part series, only three of the movies are anything I would categorize as “okay” are better. Most of the Chucky films are bad. Good and fun bad, sure! But… bad nonetheless!

But whatever. No matter. Let’s rank them! The hardest part was ordering #4-8 because, like I said: they’re pretty much all just enjoyable trash.

8. Seed Of Chucky

This one will hurt people because I know it has a HUGE fanbase, especially in the LGBTQ+ community for how queer-coded this one is. I mean, the whole franchise has queer undertones, but this one goes full OVERtones and wears its inspiration on its sleeve. Hell, John Waters is in it!

Appreciation for that aside, this entry just doesn’t work for me. It has a really lame Britney Spears reference in it… for a film that came out in 2004, a few years after Britneymania had peaked. And the whole script feels like that: dated jokes and attempts at humor that mostly do not land. And it’s not scary or horrifying at all.

That said, there are some plusses: Tiffany constantly riffing on Jennifer Tilly as an actress is some enjoyable meta-humor. Like I said… I find aspects here to dig, and I’ll always WATCH IT. But as a critic, this one is the most painful.

7. Cult Of Chucky

After the lagging franchise was revitalized with 2013’s Curse Of Chucky–more on that in a bit–Cult of Chucky came out four years later and just… lost some of that goodwill. Though, in all fairness, it has an absolutely wonderful tagline: “YOU MAY FEEL A LITTLE PRICK”.

The whole multi-Chucky aspect that this movie added seemed like a real shark jumping moment for a franchise that already jumped, like, 20 sharks with Seed Of Chucky. I think Mancini really needed a way to make Chucky even more threatening, so they went with there being multiple Chuckys. Okay, I guess. Not sure how ONE soul does that, but… sure. Let’s give it a shot.

The effects work here is wonky (if I recall correctly from the Child’s Play documentary, they had lost the original doll and animatronics by this point), and the kills are just “all right”. Despite Andy’s return and Fiona Dourif continuing to do her best, there isn’t a ton here to love.

6. Child’s Play 3

After two very solid outings to start the series, Child’s Play 3 is where things really started going awry. New Andy and Tyler weren’t portrayed by the best of actors. The strange decision to send the climax off to a carnival is so bizarre after the entire rest of the flick is at a military academy. And everything just starts feeling really cheesy.

I do like the military academy setting, though! It’s a great use of creativity to take Chucky out of his urban setting and put him there, and the movie gives him lots to play with, from the general to the hair cut guy to the paintball war games set piece that rules, even if you shouldn’t think about the mechanics of paintball guns AT ALL for it.

It’s a shame this movie was just more a harbinger of things to come than it was an outlier.

5. Child’s Play 2019

Not a very beloved offering from this franchise, I might argue that the 2019 Child’s Play remake is slightly underrated if anything. But again, it’s not good! It just has moments.

Or moment. It has one moment. “This is for Tupac!”. I legitimately Laughed Out Loud at that, and I’ll go to my grave never forgetting that scene.

In addition to that bit, you’ve got a cast that includes Aubrey Plaza as an exasperated mom and a very game Mark Hamill doing his best to fill Brad Dourif’s shoes. The flick really does give it a fair shot.

Remakes of respected and adored horror franchises always have an uphill battle. And while this was funny and had some star power, it just changed too much. For god’s sake, they altered the name of the doll brand Chucky is! Why was that necessary?

4. Bride Of Chucky

This was the point where the Chucky movies temporarily decided to abandon any attempt at horror to just go full schlock, and BOY… you either love or hate that decision. For me, I like my horror-comedies to be HORROR with a little comedy, and not so much vice versa.

You know why this is as high as it is, though? Because dating back to college, I have always been an enormous mark for John Ritter. I do not know why, but damned if I wasn’t. My first ever laptop’s wallpaper was a signed picture of John Ritter I found online.

So John Ritter being in a Chucky movie? Even a bad Chucky movie? I’ll take it! And when he is getting stabbed by Chucky, I may have jumped up in my seat and yelled “John Ritter, fight back!”.

Katherine Heigl is in this, too.

But mostly John Ritter.

3. Curse of Chucky

Hey, we’re finally into the “good” Chucky films!

A surprising little return to [some] form for the franchise, as this goes back to its more horror-centric roots while also maintaining the existing timeline (even if it seems to contradict a fair amount of what we saw last in Seed Of Chucky, but… no loss there).

The silly-but-unfunny antics of the last two movies are in the rearview mirror as Curse is entirely creepy and murderous without too much of a sense of humor about it. The cinematography remains the same as Kirschner and Mancini are still involved, and while I get a little tired of the slight Dutch angles and far-out-zooms, at least there is some consistency from the direction by this point.

I distinctly enjoyed Curse of Chucky when it came out, and I was thrilled to see the U-turn in the form of mood. It’s just a shame about Cult Of Chucky.

2. Child’s Play 1988

In a minor upset, the one that started it all does NOT top the list! But it’s still a horror classic from the late 1980’s.

Child’s Play is the story of serial killer Charles Lee Ray using voodoo to transfer his soul from his dying body into that of an innocuous children’s play thing. And that spawned seven sequels and a television series, lasting longer, all told, than Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible pictures. Wow!

The animatronics are flat-out amazing. Chucky is iconic. Andy does good work for a child actor. And Chris Sarandon pops up! There are iconic moments here (The doll’s head spinning around and shouting “HI I’M CHUCKY WANNA PLAY” is chilling), and it’s fun without being goofy.

1. Child’s Play 2

And at the top, we have the very first sequel, Child’s Play 2. It gave us the delightful tandem of Andy and his foster sister, Kyle. They were such a strong pairing, it’s downright criminal that part 3 wrote her out and aged up Andy. It would have been an immensely better movie if we focused on the more immediate aftermath of part 2.

But back to this one, it’s got some great kills (including Chucky murdering Andy’s teacher, which is a lot of folks’ favorite death in the whole franchise). It has some humor without going overboard (Chucky disposes of and then impersonates a Tommy doll and has to think for a moment what his name was). And the climax in the Good Guy factory is a sheer chef’s kiss denouement.

It was the height of the series early on. Too bad it never again matched the greatness offered up here.

*******

That’s my ranking, but what is yours? Let me know in the comments how you would sort these!

And let me know what franchise I should do next. It doesn’t have to be horror, but I won’t complain if it is! Just give me some ideas, and I’ll watch the ones I haven’t seen.

Until next time… take care!