“I’m Your Friend To The End!”
Charles Lee Ray is arguably the most well-rounded serial killer you’ll ever meet. He’s dabbled in voodoo, married, had a gender-fluid child, hosted talk shows, started his own cult, and……..killed a lot of innocent folks over the years. Of course, you may know Charles Lee Ray by another name, Chucky. Inspired by the Cabbage Patch Kids doll craze of the 1980s, Don Mancini developed the character of Chucky as a satirical take on those dolls. The resulting film would be called Child’s Play (1988). That film would spawn six sequels between 1990 and 2017, a reboot in 2019, and a successful television series and numerous other franchise tie-ins like comics, video games, toys, clothing, theme park rides, and more.
In the original film, Charles Lee Ray transfers his soul into a Good Guy talking doll after being fatally shot by a detective. The doll is then given to young Andy Barclay who quickly becomes the suspect in a number of murders despite insisting that the doll, named Chucky, is actually the culprit. Chucky discovers that he must transfer his soul to a human in order to remain alive, or that he’ll be the doll forever and can be killed as the doll as well. The first three films in the franchise focus on Chucky’s intention to transfer his soul into Andy’s body. Beginning with the fourth film, Bride Of Chucky (1998), the franchise takes a more comedic turn and Chucky embraces his “dollness” and takes a wife, has a child, etc.
Chucky uses just about anything to kill people, but seems to favor a traditional knife. The utilization of voodoo and the transference of souls, while not necessarily a new concept in horror, is unique to the Child’s Play franchise as far as slasher films are concerned. I’m pretty sure that impregnating dolls is pretty unique as well. The entire franchise has been something of a trailblazer.
Brad Dourif has voiced Chucky from the beginning. It was only in the 2019 reboot, which featured an AI doll that goes bad, that Dourif did not voice the character. Chucky was voiced by Mark Hamill in that film. Chucky’s wife, Tiffany, is voiced by Jennifer Tilly. Both Tilly and Dourif have portrayed the human versions of their doll characters. Chucky’s gender-fluid spawn, Glen/Glenda, is voiced by Billy Boyd in doll form and portrayed by Lachlan Watson in human form on the Chucky television series. Keeping it all in the family, Dourif’s daughter, Fiona, joined the franchise as Nica Pierce in Curse Of Chucky (2013) and has appeared in both the television series and the last sequel based tied to the original film series, Cult Of Chucky (2017).
With the success of the television series, there seems to be no slowing down the Chuckster. Hopefully, more sequels tied to the original franchise will be released either theatrically or on streaming platforms. Chucky is one of the biggest slashers out there, and I’d hate to see him fade into obscurity. For now, however, that doesn’t seem to be happening any time soon.
Thanks for checking out today’s Thirty-One Days O’Horror post! See you again tomorrow!
Ken's Alternate Universe! 