Chucky is back. With more poor souls to add to his frighteningly high body count.
The Child’s Play remake hits theaters June 21, starring Aubrey Plaza and Mark Hamill as the voice of Chucky, our favorite talking killer doll. Over the years, the ’80s-born franchise has shifted tones, leaning more toward camp and shock than pure horror. As the new movie seems primed to bring Chucky back to his bloodier roots, we’re taking a look back at the OG Child’s Play film series and its five best — and most ridiculous — kills. Be warned, things are gonna get very bloody.
5. John’s Death in ‘Child’s Play’ (1988)
As scary as the original movie was, it also went pretty meta.
When confronting his voodoo teacher John Bishop, serial killer Charles Lee “Chucky” Ray learns that if he remains in the doll’s body long enough, he will be stuck in it forever. Since Bishop didn’t precisely sign on for the “killer toy” part of the religion, he refused to help Chucky in his quest for a human host. Chucky then took what he learned from Bishop and put it to good use — using a voodoo doll to both (gross) maim and kill Bishop. A doll using a doll to kill a man, who taught him how to use the doll to kill in the first place? That makes the brain hurt, sure, but it also makes for an excellent self-referential way to MDK a traitor.
4. David In ‘Bride of Chucky’ (1998)
Bride of Chucky is a fan favorite because it brought a strong dose of black comedy to the franchise, finding a quirky — but almost perfect — balance between the macabre laughs and the horrific violence.
Here, Chucky and his newly “dolled-up” girlfriend Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly, who absolutely OWNS this series going forward), have kidnapped a young couple — Jesse and Jade. The dolls want to use them as new human hosts. A friend of the human couple, David, finds Jesse and Jade but is unsurprisingly scared out of his mind when the two dolls start talking to him. We would have said “scared out of his pants,” but the semi-truck that wiped out David as he walked onto the highway takes care of it for us.
3. Lt. Preston’s Demise In ‘Bride of Chucky’ (1998)
The ending of Bride of Chucky is the best example of the film’s franchise-changing tonal shifts. After the “deaths” of Chucky and Tiffany, Lt. Preston examines the crime scene. Of course, he doesn’t know what to make of it. There’s one doll shot up like a mob killing, and a second one burned beyond recognition. The look on his face when Tiffany turns out to still be alive is an all-timer, especially as he watches her proceed to (gulp) give birth to her and Chucky’s child.
Unfortunately for Lt. Preston, he learns first-hand how hungry a possessed doll baby is after it is born.
2. Redman’s Murder In ‘Seed of Chucky’ (2004)
Probably the most confusing/meta movie in the Chucky series, Seed of Chucky sometimes struggles with deciding on what world it takes place in: Chucky’s fictional universe, or our real one.
The movie pulls a Wes Craven’s New Nightmare with Chucky and Tiffany kind of crossing over into our world, complete with their brand of snappy one-liners and violence. Redman finds himself gutted by Tiffany at the dinner table in, hands-down, one of the most insane and gory scenes in the franchise. Why does he get gutted? Well, Redman wants Jennifer Tilly in his film, but then she gets possessed by Tiffany. Yup, the actor voicing the doll gets possessed by the doll she voices. She then gives birth to human twins who take on the personalities of her “doll-child,” Glen/Glenda.
1. Fulvia In ‘Seed of Chucky’ (2004)
Fulvia was a tiny — but key — part of the Chucky-Verse. With Tiffany now wearing a Jennifer Tilly skin suit, Fulvia served as the nanny to Glen and Glenda. While she loved Glen, she was afraid of Glenda — so much so that that fear drove her to resign.
Tiffany, who doesn’t take kindly to anyone speaking ill of either of her children, did what any over-protective mother possessed by a killer doll would: She deep-sixed her former nanny. It would be less notable if not for the way Fulvia was killed. See for yourself.
Child’s Play arrives in theaters Friday.
