Chucky: A Doll's first steps into TV

Chucky has been a mainstay in horror for almost 30 years and had its own revival just a few years ago with Curse of Chucky. But now the franchise has moved on to a TV series with Chucky Season 1 on SYFY. Let me tell you what I think about it as a horror fan. (With minor spoilers hopefully.)

Chucky has always been a strange franchise to me as I have always personally felt the series change in every movie but that is true for every horror movie from the '80s, I mean look at Friday the 13th, it essentially follows the same formula but continues to be new in an odd way. Chucky has been a comedy-horror and an actual scary movie at times in its long run on the big screen.

Seed of Chucky ended the streak of stupid horror-comedies that the series had become after Child's Play 2. Curse of Chucky became a huge surprise to me as it brought back the creepy and definitely terrifying psychopath that the doll was but it is the perfect Chucky movie and gave a breath of fresh air after the grave it was left in by SoC. This rejuvenation was succeeded by Cult of Chucky which is a grandiose murder happy fest and I loved it. It has one of the best puppets for Chucky, redesigns and gross kills. On its cliffhanger ending, we saw Chucky get a new body in Nica and reunite with Tiffany. This was good for them but Andy and Kyle were ready to end the nightmare.

Now, back in Hackensack, Chucky is ready to wreak havoc on his hometown with a plethora of kills and jokes. A new take on Chucky largely homaging the earlier days of the franchise gives the villain a new motive adding on from his long history and doesn't seem to retcon much, at least not big enough to notice.

New Friends Till The End

A new trio of "Andys" join the franchise but they are neither cute nor fun to watch run around. Zackary Arthur as Jake Wheeler is one of the protagonists of the show and largely focuses on the murders around him. Yet he has given one of the most annoyingly mediocre performances I've seen in this franchise. With crying at every moment and awkwardest awkward acting, he has left me with a bland taste in my mouth but I eagerly wait for his character to return in the next season. 

Alyvia Lind plays Lexy Cross, the daughter of the mayor and an overall bitch. I hate that she is given screen time as she gives me Joffrey vibes sevenfold. I don't like her character and her "growth" throughout the episodes. 

Bjorgvin Arnarson (thank Jebus that I don't make youtube videos) brings home the horror essential as the meta-horror fan, Devon Evans, who is the son of the detective but I like the character as he is fun at times and isn't a conventional horror nerd caught in a horror movie. He is also the love interest for Jake but romance never had an effect on this franchise other than Chucky and Tiffany (if you can call it romance).

They just can't keep a Good Guy(s) down

Tiff and Chucky are back once again. The titular serial killer, Chucky, has a redesigned puppet that looks amazing. I applaud how good it looks and its similarity to the old designs of the original Good Guy. Brad Dourif is joined by Fiona Dourif who both play Chucky in doll form and as Nica respectively. The other actors portraying Charles through the years in the form of flashbacks give a creepy history to the character except for the adult version of the Lakeshore strangler who I felt was very cringe-inducing (Sorry, Fiona).

Jennifer Tilly as Tiffany in Jennifer Tilly's body was normal. Tiffany acts the way she always does, as a bipolar emotional murderer. She was adequate in her performance which could not be bad in any way as her character never really seems to grow.

Fiona as Nica and Chucky is also sub-par as it's just more of her acting the same character that she was at the end of Cult of Chucky. It, at moments, felt like she was putting too much of a "man who gets sexual gratification when murdering someone" or "man who is just all around just weird and fakes being creepy" into her Chucky version of Nica. Nica had nothing to do throughout the story and went almost as unnoticeable as a pet. She spent all her scenes having little to do most times. But this does not seem to be the case in Season 2 after the way this season ended (or will she do anything? You have to watch the series to understand what I'm referring to).

The puppet once again is amazing. It feels like I'm watching a modern version of the Child's play movie which had a reboot in 2019 but we don't talk about that Chucky. The promise of 100% puppetry is what made me watch the show and wow it is done so well. Chucky feels like he is alive and his facial movements are convincing. 

You have a date with Death

When making any slasher, the most important thing to make sure you nail is the kills. The kills are what we watch the show for, so you gotta make us cringe at the gore, the creativity and the uniqueness of the kills. 

Chucky has always been one for utilising some unique ways of murdering his victims and throughout 8 episodes he managed to get a respectable kill count with some normal kills and unique ones. Stabbings are a common of his method his and it doesn't go out of fashion in the show.

There are some off-screen kills for which we get some results as the end product which are gruesome and are given good effects. As someone who loathes CGI blood, this series was nice as everything was mostly done practically (to my knowledge) with little to no CGI.

The frequency of kills is also welcome as it keeps newcomers on their toes and avid fans waiting for the next one. Needless to say, this series did Chucky the killer doll justice.

This is the end, friend

This series was everything I wanted in a Chucky series and not. The story was filled with characters who seemed empty as it probably relied on a season renewal to give these characters deeper personalities in the coming season. The main cast gets the job done but can be better except for the villains, they're good. This show does not flip the genre on its head or give us a new Chucky experience as it is adequate. It knows what it is and what it wants to be thus, making it the perfect version of Chucky we have seen in a while. Give it a watch and you will enjoy it.