Even though he’s one of slasher cinema’s most iconic antagonists, Child’s Play‘s Chucky and his movies aren’t always particularly scary. Sometimes this is because the film is intentionally blurring the lines between horror and comedy, with an emphasis on the latter. Other times this is because it’s a straightforward horror film that doesn’t quite stick the landing as often as it should. By this point, the franchise consists of the original trilogy, running from the late ’80s to the early ’90s, two Tiffany-featuring light reboot films, two surprisingly excellent direct to video movies, and a remake that stands pretty far apart in tone and execution. There’s the Chucky show, as well, but here we’re going to be focusing on the movies.
We’re looking at which of the films is the most frightening. Spoiler alert, it’s not the one where Chucky and Tiffany have a kid.
8) Seed of Chucky
This is the one where Chucky and Tiffany have a kid. In spite of The Lord of the Rings‘ Billy Boyd giving the role of Glen/Glenda his all, Seed of Chucky is just flat-out not a particularly good movie. Of course, this isn’t a ranking of overall quality, it’s a ranking of scariness, and even in that regard Seed is a big swing and a miss.
To be fair, it’s really not trying to be scary. It’s mostly trying to a heretofore unseen level of self-aware humor to the franchise. Bride of Chucky was self-aware, but Seed takes it to a new level, and as a result it loses a lot of what made this series one of the slasher subgenre’s most iconic. There really isn’t even a frightening moment in the film. There’s a body count, but no real attempt at building tense scenes.
7) Cult of Chucky
This and the next spot on the list are effectively tied. Cult of Chucky once more proved that Child’s Play could work very well as a direct-to-video franchise. But it’s far goofier than the first movie to do that: Curse of Chucky.
Oddly enough, once you add more Chuckys into the mix, Chucky becomes less scary. It’s more just entertaining to see them bounce off one another. It’s counterintuitive, because you’d imagine multiple little killers are more intimidating than one, especially in the film’s confined hospital setting, but it ends up being more funny than scary.
6) Bride of Chucky
Seed of Chucky outright was a comedy. That was its intention. And, when it hit theaters, the fans couldn’t have cared less about it. Bride of Chucky, however, served as a fairly straightforward reboot of the first three films’ slasher vibes as well as a major step in a different direction.
Here, we see Chucky get humanized a bit. His former self, Charles Lee Ray, had a love interest, and now that love interest has found him. But humanized doesn’t mean the humanized human is a particularly good human. Then again, Tiffany Valentine isn’t a particularly good human, either. And in that morally bankrupt camaraderie do we find the key to Bride of Chucky‘s scare factor. For the most part, it’s funny, because even after Tiffany is “killed” and transferred to doll form, she and Chuck just can’t get along. We enjoy watching them squabble, just as they take sincere cackling pleasure in ending lives. Watching their shared sadism bounce off one another is actually pretty creepy, even if not outright scary enough to make it one of the franchise’s most chill-inducing films.
5) Child’s Play 3
By the time Child’s Play 3 was released, most of the novelty surrounding Chucky had diminished to zero, as had his ability to scare. No matter how strong Dourif’s vocal performance (and his work here is even slightly better than his already excellent work in the first two films), it’s still an antagonist just getting up to his same old tricks.
But Child’s Play 3 is still the last straightforward horror installment of the franchise, at least for a while. It’s riddled with plot holes, but it also has a pretty tense sequence involving a garbage truck. Even still, the scariest part of the movie is the question of why a military academy filled with teens would have live ammunition on campus (short answer: in the real world it absolutely would not).
4) Child’s Play (2019)
2019’s Child’s Play is arguably even more divisive than Seed of Chucky, and for good reason. It’s far more a horror movie about AI than it is a Child’s Play movie. And, while Mark Hamill gives his all to the unenviable task of replacing Brad Dourif as Chucky, the simple truth is that Dourif cannot be removed from the character. Outside the homicidal tendencies and overall jerkiness, Dourif just flat-out is Chucky. The same goes for Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger.
But, if viewed as an entity separate from the franchise’s previous installments, Child’s Play intermittently works. And, to a degree, it makes Chucky scary again, but in a way he never was before. Having a homicidal maniac’s rotten soul within a doll is certain intimidating, especially given that maniac really only enjoys doing one thing. But having the doll be a piece of machinery that’s beginning to think on its own is scary as well. Not to mention, 2019’s Child’s Play also has someone die from a lawnmower, which is a nightmarish concept that’s floated through the mind of anyone who has ever cut the grass.
3) Child’s Play 2
It may be the best Chucky sequel, and arguably the very best installment of the franchise as a whole, but Child’s Play 3 is only the third scariest film of the saga. Chucky was never really above cracking wise with his victims, but Child’s Play 2 is where he really got in the groove of doing so. This is the dawn of one-liner Chucky. For instance, “You’ve been very naughty, Miss Kettlewell!” and “How’s it hanging, Phil?”
But those one-liners are still more threatening than they are plastic tongue in plastic cheek. As always, Chucky enjoys murdering and enjoys getting away with it, but what helps the first two Child’s Play movies stand out as two of the scariest is the fact that his main, true goal is to kill a kid and take over that kid’s body. Andy Barclay’s a nice, likable kid, and we don’t want to see harm come to him. Child’s Play 2 makes that harm still seem like a very real prospect. After all, he’s been placed in a foster home where one parent is both reluctant and highly skeptical while the other has a heart that’s willing to give Andy a chance, but has skepticism take over as the film goes on. That skepticism costs both foster parents their lives, and were it not for Andy’s foster sister, Kyle, he very likely would have died in this movie.
2) Curse of Chucky
Curse of Chucky was the movie which showed not only that an A-list horror property could work as a direct-to-video IP, but it could thrive on that lower-rent market. For the most part, direct-to-video sequels are immense steps down from their theatrical predecessors. For instance, the Starship Troopers sequels. Yet Curse of Chucky isn’t just one of the scariest films of the franchise, it’s flat-out one of the very best.
Curse benefits greatly from its budgetary constraints. It’s 99% confined to a large, dark house, one that’s creepy even without a killer doll within its walls. But there is that doll within the walls, and the scene where the Good Guy Doll’s clean, clear face is peeled back to reveal Chucky’s scars only for him to leap forward is one of the franchise’s most well-paced scenes swiftly followed by its most effective jump scare.
1) Child’s Play
It makes sense the original Child’s Play is the scariest Child’s Play because it’s a movie that owes its existence to one of the scariest The Twilight Zone episodes. What nabs the first movie the number one spot on this list is the simple fact that, at this point, we know very little about Chucky. We only really get to know Charles Lee Ray in the opening scene, and he comes across as a bank robber evading the cops. That’s all. It’s only once he’s been reincarnated, as it were, as Chucky do we learn that he’s homicidal.
A mysterious antagonist is always more intimidating than one we’ve gotten to know, especially when he’s grown comfortable cracking one-liners. There is some cracking wise in the original Child’s Play, but it’s more sporadic. This is more just a killer’s relentless pursuit of a little boy. The first film is where the voodoo stuff was hit the hardest and, admittedly, the voodoo stuff isn’t scary, but more often than not the 1988 movie hits its target when trying to spook the audience. Not to mention, the shots of Chucky where he’s not animatronic but rather an actor in a suit hold a certain creepy power.
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