When late-night locksmith Soung Kang is asked to lock a door forever, he discovers a dark secret that pushes him to extraordinary lengths to secure his five-star online review.
This month we’re having our Halloween Marathon, our “31 Nights of Horror Ghouling”, but we’re also posting Horror Shorts on Sundays as usual! This time we’re taking a look at Five Star, which is a fun horror short about a locksmith who goes a long way for his customer in order to get a five star review online! Poor guy..
Director: Kai Hasson Writer: Brett Konner Country & year: USA, 2025 Actors: Tate Hanyok, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt36685645/
So, who’s this mysterious handsome Warlock guy with that soothing British accent? To quote the star himself, Julian Sands: he’s a man in black and white, who comes from the 17th century to the 20th century downtown Los Angeles. And he’s a malevolent person (and not here to audition for Calvin Klein). Sounds intriguing enough.
It all starts in the year of 1691 in Boston, Massachusetts, where the Warlock is chained at the top of an execution tower. He’s locked in a way that puts his thumbs and big toes together that would make him The Hunchback of Boston if he was stuck in that position long enough. When the witch hunter who caught him, Redferne (Richard E. Grant), comes in to witness the execution, the Warlock casts a spell and gets transformed into a cute little tornado, like in Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, that warps him to present-day California. Redferne manages to jump into the spell at the last second. And a series of weird shit happens from here on.
Warlock swirls and crashes through a window into a house where the cuteface Kassandra (Lori Singer) and her landlord Chas live. They let him stay over for the night, because they are good people. The next morning after Kassandra goes to work, the Warlock spots a ring on Chas’ finger. He cuts off his finger with a kitchen knife before biting off his tongue and makes an omelet of it. Yum. Warlock visits a spiritualist lady whom I’d bet sits on a dildo saddle everytime she “goes into trance“. Warlock tells her to summon Zamiel, who tells him to find all the missing parts of The Grand Grimoire so he can learn to spell God backwards (don’t ask) and unmake Creation…something like that. The reward is to be the son of Satan. I’d just prefer a truckload of cash, but that’s just me. Warlock cuts out her eyes to use them as a compass to find the rest of the pieces.
The compass brings him back to Kassandra’s house, where he finds the first part of the Grimoire in an antique table. What a coincidence. Poor Kassandra, who just gets caught in the middle of this cosplay BS, tries to escape, but instead he does the worst thing you can ever do to a woman: by casting a spell on her that ages her to an ancient 40-year-old! And I find it funny that her “40-year-old hag makeup“ is just her, more or less, without any makeup, where I’d mistake her for being a witch from the Westboro Baptist Church. I’m sorry, that was rude of me to say. She eventually meets Redferne and, after clearing some misunderstandings (to put it lightly), helps him to track down Warlock because she is the one who knows how to drive a car. In return, he helps her to break the age curse. Sounds like a fair deal. So what we basically have here is a cheesy fantasy movie set in real time sprinkled with some mild horror elements, a road movie, and, well, it’s a movie. And the similarities to The Terminator are already obvious.
Warlock is an odd one which was supposed to be more of a horror movie than the final cut was. The story is very ambitious on paper, written by David Twohy (Pitch Black, Below, The Chronicles of Riddick), and with the horror director Steve Miner who did the first two Friday the 13th sequels, there were maybe some expectations. Instead, most of the horror elements got watered down and edited after a failed screen test. Some were cut out due to bad special effects and others because of the pure shock value. And the strained budget really shows in several places, especially the effects of Warlock flying which just looks comical and retarded.
A particular scene that was cut out was where Warlock meets the boy with the rugby ball and kills him. Since this boy was unbaptized, his boiled body fat would give Warlock the upgrade to fly like Superman. I like the dialogue leading up to this when Warlock asks the boy why he isn’t at the church given that it is Sunday. Not all Americans are Christians, believe it or not. Then the boy asks Warlock the same and the conversation goes like this:
– Warlock: No witch can set foot on church ground! – Boy: You’re telling me you’re a witch? You ain’t no witch. Witches are GIRLS. – Warlock: Some are MEN ! – Boy: Yeah..? Where’s your broomstick? Witches fly on broomsticks. – Warlock: I need no broomstick to fly. – Boy: Yeah..? What DO you need?
Then you have a sinister moment where Warlock just looks at him, starts to laugh like the evil super villain he is, and you can only imagine the rest. We see him shortly after drinking his boiled body fat while it got suggested that the boy got killed by the coyotes. Even though this part was cut down, film got blamed six years later for inspiring two Canadian teenage boys for killing and cut the skin off a seven-year-old, who believed they would be able to fly if they made a potion of it. Just too bad they didn’t jump off a cliff to see if it worked.
Despite the campy clumsiness and the weird tone, all the actors plays their roles straight. The one who plays it most straight of them all, is Richard E. Grant, as if his life actually depended on it. His intense and neurotic Shakespearian line-deliveries makes a fun contrast to modern day Kassandra while arguing with cab drivers in Boston. Fun fact: Basil Fawlty himself (John Cleese) was actually considered for the role of the evil Warlock. That would be Something Completely Different indeed, if you take the reference. Julian Sands, who was even hesitant to take a look at the script, plays the role as a slick, charismatic psychopath with the type of confident elegance that could only come from a Brit. Warlock is overall a fun watch, much thanks to our three lead actors who brings a lot of charm and personality to it. It’s not something I’d recommend for everyone, though, It’s feels very dated with schlocky effects, clunky tone and is way more a weird fantasy/action hybrid than horror. But then there’s the sequel.
Director: Steve Miner Writer: David Twohy Country & year: USA, 1989 Actors: Julian Sands, Lori Singer, Richard E. Grant, Mary Woronov, Kevin O’Brien, Richard Kuss, Allan Miller, Anna Thomson, David Carpenter, Kay E. Kuter IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098622/
It’s been nine years since Don Mancini created his feature debut Seed of Chucky, and this time, it seems he’s had enough of the goofy craziness we saw in the previous two films. Having written every single Child’s Play/Chucky film, he now wanted to get back to the basics with turning Chucky into a more sinister presence. Perhaps this decision was a bit aided by the audience’s disapproval for the extremely silly direction the franchise had been led into, with especially the last film. It is still supposed to be in the same universe as the previous films, though, as the story starts with what is supposed to be nine years after the events of Seed of Chucky. And no, Tiffany and Glen/Glenda are no longer in the picture, so they must be living their happy lives somewhere else.
The story here starts with Sarah Pierce and her paraplegic daughter Nica getting a mysterious package. What’s inside? A Good Guy doll, of course! What else. Chucky still knows his old tricks, it seems, as it isn’t the first time he’s shipped himself somewhere. Confused, Sarah decides to just throw the doll away, something she’ll soon regret. Nica is later awakened by hearing Sarah scream, and finds her dead body. It’s ruled a suicide, and Nica soon gets the house filled with family: her older sister Barb, her husband Ian, their daughter Alice, and their nanny Jill (who is of course having an affair with Ian). Alice finds Chucky and bonds with the doll immediately, and during a dinner where a priest has been invited, Chucky manages to poison the priest’s food. Another kill count upcoming, but this one happens after he has left so no one’s the wiser. Nica becomes suspicious about the doll, and Chucky seems determined to take them all out. But why? What’s his deal with Nica and her family?
Curse of Chucky from 2013 is the sixth film in the franchise, this time also written and directed by Don Mancini. And this one went straight to VOD, followed by DVD and Blu-ray releases. And this time the franchise has buried the comedy and over-the-top elements and nailed the coffin shut, going for a straight-forward horror premise. The setting is a creepy and large house, and there’s a good amount of spooky atmosphere to work well with the film’s more serious tone. I enjoyed several of the death scenes, great variation but not as excessive with the blood and gore as the previous entries. Overall a nice Chucky film, especially for those who wanted it to take a more serious route.
Honestly, though, I can’t say I’m a fan of the reveal behind Chucky’s deal with Nica and her family. It is simply too significant to make much sense…especially since the film is trying to take place in the same universe where all the previous films actually happened. All those years, and something that important in Charles Lee Ray’s life suddenly becomes a plot point? Sorry dawg, I’m just not buying it. The movie works pretty well for those who wanted Chucky to return to the more grounded horror levels, and was probably a relief for the fans who felt their favorite killer doll had been “ruined“ by the previous films.
There was also a sequel to this film called Cult of Chucky, where Andy Barclay is reintroduced, and while this movie seems to be rather well regarded among the Chucky fans, it really wasn’t my thing. And I’m probably also the odd one out here when I say I enjoyed Bride and Seed considerably more than Curse. Cult of Chucky was of course not the end of the killer doll, though, there’s since been the Child’s Play remake from 2019 by Lars Klevberg, and the Chucky TV series which is available on Netflix. Chucky just is one of those horror villains that never dies no matter how many times he is killed.
Writer and director: Don Mancini Country & year: USA, 2013 Actors: Chantal Quesnelle, Fiona Dourif, Brad Dourif, Jordan Gavaris, Danielle Bisutti, A Martinez, Maitland McConnell, Brennan Elliott, Summer H. Howell IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2230358/
After the wild ride in the previous film, Bride of Chucky, we are now in for something even more wacky. The child of Chucky and Tiffany has been captured and help captive by a mean ventriloquist called Psychs, who has named the doll “Shitface“. Nice. This doll, however, could definitely be considered a true Good Guy as it’s got a peaceful and kind nature. As if this wasn’t already weird enough, the story continues with how the doll finds out that Chucky and Tiffany are its parents, then manages to escape from Stromboli, er, I mean Psychs, and tracks down the dolls from a prop room in Hollywood. Yeah, because this movie also goes all semi-meta and Chucky movies are a thing here. Voodoo is once again used to resurrect Chucky, and also Tiffany this time. While Chucky is horrified to find out he’s got a child, Tiffany is all over the moon. Then they have to name their child…which becomes somewhat of a problem when Tiffany notices that their child are without genitals (like most normal dolls are). So…is it a boy or a girl..? Not even their child seems to know the answer to that question, the poor thing, who is now stuck in a struggle between mom and dad where Chucky names their child Glen, while Tiffany names it Glenda. And if you didn’t get the reference, it’s to Ed Wood’s cross-dressing cult film Glen or Glenda (1953).
Anyway, Chucky and Tiffany quickly start a new killing spree while Glen/Glenda is confused and just wants them to stop so they can all live as a happy doll family. Aw. And while Tiffany does have an inkling of parental responsibility inside her plastic body, that’s not so much the case with Chucky. And all the stuff that happens from here on is…weird.
Seed of Chucky is the fifth film in the Chucky/Child’s Play franchise, and a direct sequel to the fourth film, Bride of Chucky. And ohh boy…did they decide to go batshit with this one. While Bride had a good balance between the black comedy and the horror elements, always fun, energetic and slightly goofy, this one takes it all several steps further.
It is once again written by Don Mancini, and he’s also directing this time in his directorial debut. And this was the last film from the original continuity to be released in the theaters. Don Mancini, who is gay, wanted to explore some LGBT themes for this film and was in fact inspired by Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda when writing the script including a doll suffering from gender dysphoria. Universal Pictures didn’t want any of this though, and rejected the script with the simple note “This is too gay“. Alright, well fuck them then. The project was later approved by Focus Features and released through Rogue Pictures. It was shot almost entirely in Romania in Castel Studios to keep the costs down, and this time the animatronic and makeup effects were made by Tony Gardner who also had a small cameo in the film.
I’m going to be honest: I get why many Chucky lovers hate this film. Everything has been changed from what was originally a possessed slasher doll into a comedic self-parody. Then again, at this point it was absolutely no surprise. While Bride started it, then Seed definitely took it and ran the entire mile with it. The entire movie is a joke, but it’s supposed to be. I mean, the previous film ended with a crazy doll-birth scene. No need for any clairvoyance to foresee that this would get even weirder and even more over-the-top. It could easily have become a bit too much, but I found the “family issues“ between the dolls somewhat amusing and slightly charming actually. The chemistry between Chucky and Tiffany, now having become parents, is sweet in a kind of messed up way. And the duo killing both while working together and while going solo adds for a lot of fun death scenes and scenarios.
Personally, while I enjoyed Bride of Chucky more, I actually liked Seed of Chucky more than I expected to. It’s cheesy, filled with gore and sick jokes, the kill scenes are as fun as ever, and it’s even got frickin’ John Waters, the “Pope of Trash“ himself. This movie knows exactly what it is. It’s fun and silly, just don’t expect it to be anything else and you just might have a good time. And it kinda has a happy ending too…kinda.
Writer and director: Don Mancini Country & year: USA, 2004 Actors: Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, Billy Boyd, Redman, Hannah Spearritt, John Waters, Keith-Lee Castle, Steve West, Tony Gardner, Jason Flemyng, Nicholas Rowe IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387575/
In the previous film, Child’s Play 3, Chucky died for the third time. Well, we all know that slasher villains never truly stay dead, they are always resurrected in some way or other. This time, his ex-girlfriend Tiffany Valentine bribes a police officer so she can get her hands on the Chucky doll’s remains. She of course murders this guy afterwards. In her trailer (because where else would she live) she stitches the doll up and performs a voodoo ritual to revive him. Aaaand…nothing happens. Botched ritual…or perhaps a delayed delivery? Hmm. In the meantime she gets a visit from a dude named Damien who is madly in love with her, and voila, there’s life in the old doll after all and we get the first kill.
While Tiffany is at first very happy about having her love brought back to life, she soon finds out that he was never really that serious with her after all. What a surprise. She gets angry, and locks him inside a playpen while giving him a bride doll to taunt him. Uh-oh…bad idea. Chucky electrocutes her and uses a voodoo spell to transfer her soul into the bride doll. It’s supposed to be an act of vengeance, but at the same time…he got himself a female counterpart. A Harley to his Joker or something like that. They also kinda fall in love with each other all over again, and they certainly seem to be a perfect duo. Now, we have two killer dolls who want to escape their doll bodies, by finding some humans they can switch with, and they end up choosing Tiffany’s neighbor boy Jesse and his girlfriend Jade.
Bride of Chucky is the fourth film in the Child’s Play/Chucky franchise, and the first to use his name in the title. It was once again written by Don Mancini, and this time directed by Ronny Yu. And this is also where the franchise really swerves into a completely different lane, where it’s pure comedy almost to the point of being self-parodic. And to be honest…I kinda liked this turn, as the shift fits with the goofy foul-mouthed doll who was never really scary to begin with (my opinion). And no matter the reception, it became the highest-grossing film in the series.
Kevin Yahger and his team created many animatronic puppets for this film, where Chucky alone had nine different ones, and each doll required seven puppeteers to control. And yeah, we’re going for practical effects, which of course look great. The acting is actually pretty good too, with Dourif naturally returning as Chucky, but Jennifer Tilly also does a very fun performance as his unhinged and slightly cute-naive girlfriend. Her doll version looks great, a perfect counterpart to Chucky and just as full of life and character as he is. Their love-hate relationship comes off as both cute and funny, and the kill scenes are considerably more gory this time around. The only thing that falls a little flat are the two human characters, Jesse and Jade, who become totally uninteresting compared to the rest, but fortunately the majority of the film delivers on doll action and kills.
Bride of Chucky is, just as Mancini himself said: part horror, part comedy, part romance and part road movie. And it is a such a fun time! It doesn’t take itself seriously for even a split second, it knows exactly what it is. And that ending…yeah, that’s certainly something. Which of course gave the perfect idea for the next film, since obviously they decided to say “fuck it, let’s just have a ton of fun at this point and go even more off the rails“.
Director: Ronny Yu Writer: Don Mancini Country & year: USA, 1998 Actors: Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, Katherine Heigl, Nick Stabile, Alexis Arquette, Gordon Michael Woolvett, John Ritter, Lawrence Dane, Michael Louis Johnson, James Gallanders IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144120/
It has now been 8 years since Chucky’s second death, and the Good Guy dolls company have re-opened their abandoned factory. As Chucky’s “corpse“ is being removed, a drop of his blood falls into the molten plastic which is used to produce the new Good Guy dolls, which of course gives him a new body so he can start killing and cursing once again.
Since 8 years have passed, Andy is now 16 years old, and he has been sent to Kent Military School. And yes, his mother is still in the loony bin. At this military school he befriends an 8 year old boy named Ronald Tyler, another cadet named Harold Aubrey, and the spunky female cadet Kristin De Silva whom of course becomes his love interest. His only struggle so far is the sadistic lieutenant colonel Brett C. Shelton, who bullies the cadets and really has one out for Andy. This not nothing compared to the threat of Chucky, who of course has managed to find out where Andy is and gets himself shipped to him as a package. Chucky is in for a surprise, though, as it isn’t Andy who ends up opening the package, but 8 year old Tyler who really, really wants his own Good Guy doll. Chucky decides to tell Tyler his secret, which will give him the opportunity to use a voodoo soul-swapping ritual to take over the kid’s body. None of this goes exactly after Chucky’s plan, but as always he’s determined enough to do anything to get his way.
Child’s Play 3 from 1991 is the third film in the franchise, once again written by Don Mancini but this time directed by Jack Bender, with David Kirschner as executive producer. And this one received mostly negative reviews from critics, and ended up being the lowest-grossing film in the series. The movie was made very shortly after the second film, giving it a tight schedule. It was filmed at the Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri, while the rest was filmed in California at Los Angeles and the Universal Studios Lot, with the carnival scenes shot in Valencia, California.
It also became somewhat notorious in the UK as it allegedly inspired a real-life murder of a child named James Bulger, where the killers were two ten year olds. It was said that they had imitated a scene where one of Chucky’s victims were splashed with blue paint, but this was just a rumor mainly based on that the father of one of the boys had rented the film some months earlier. The boy in question had most likely not even seen the movie since he had not been living with his father at the time. What can you say…people always try to blame shit on movies, games and other media.
When it comes to franchises, there will always be those movies considered the “better“ and “worse“ ones. Sometimes you have a dip and rise of varying quality, while other times you have a constant nosedive (like what happened to the Hellraiser franchise, where pretty much none of the movies after the third one seemed like they were made to be Hellraiser movies at all, and the Hellraiser elements felt like they had been shoehorned in). I guess we can say that in Chucky’s case, the character definitely feels more important than the story at this point. And I’m going to guess that this is why Child’s Play 3 was the last movie in the franchise to have “Child’s Play“ in the title, and the upcoming ones were always titled Chucky-something-or-other. And that’s very understandable.
What’s mainly different this time around, is that Andy is now closer to becoming an adult. Thus the movie spends some time with how he interacts with the other people, including his love interest, all of which isn’t that much of interest to be honest. You just wanna see Chucky messing around and killing people. The animatronics and effects are still really good, and Chucky looks more menacing than ever. And while the death scenes are a bit mixed (there’s one where a guy literally just gets a heart attack because he’s so scared by seeing Chucky), I loved the mean spirited garbage truck scene.
Many seem to consider Child’s Play 3 to be the “black sheep“ of the franchise, and while I personally find it far from the best, I still had a good time with it.
Director: Jack Bender Writer: Don Mancini Country & year: USA, 1991 Actors: Justin Whalin, Perrey Reeves, Jeremy Sylvers, Travis Fine, Dean Jacobson, Brad Dourif, Peter Haskell, Dakin Matthews, Andrew Robinson, Burke Byrnes IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103956/
It has now been two years since Chucky died, and the manufacturer of the Good Guy dolls are still trying to recover from all the negative publicity. Easier said than done when everyone thinks your product is faulty to the point of becoming a death threat. So, in order to recover from the bad reputation, they decide to “prove“ that nothing was actually wrong with the doll at all, and takes the Chucky doll’s remains and reassemble him into…not exactly as good as new, but at least whole. Sounds like an excellent idea to reassure their stockholders, right? Well, after having made Chucky whole again, a power surge suddenly electrocutes and kills one of the workers, and Chucky comes alive.
Then we’re heading over to Andy who has been in foster care after the Chucky incident, since his mother was institutionalized after she refused to back down from the claim that the doll was alive. He is now trying to live a normal life. That is, as normal as you possibly can when your possessed doll killed people and got your mommy thrown into the loony bin. Chucky, however, still needs Andy to get a proper body, and manages to find out his new living location. He figures out a way to get himself inside the house, and takes the place of another Good Guy doll already there, who is named Tommy. Yes, the Good Guy dolls are produced to come with different names. Andy soon finds out that Chucky has re-entered his life, but the problem is that no one believes him…at least not at first.
Child’s Play 2 from 1990 is the sequel to the first 1988 film, this time written by Don Mancini and directed by John Lafia with Alex Vincent and Brad Dourif reprising their roles. Tom Holland was asked to return as director, but he refused due to conflicts with the film’s producer David Kirschner and United Artists during the making of the first film. While the first film was mostly shot on location in Chicago, this one was shot on Universal Studios Lot, and the toy factory scenes were shot in an abandoned warehouse in Valencia, California.
Kevin Yagher returned to make the special effects for the film, and he even directed some of the scenes too. The puppetry and animatronics look great, and Chucky’s facial expressions are even more wild. He’s just as foul-mouthed as ever, and Brad Dourif’s voice has pretty much merged with the character at this point. Dourif is the only Chucky by now, with it impossible to imagine anyone else in the role.
It is overall an entertaining sequel with some decent kills and great effects, but it is the climax of the film that goes in a really fun direction, and the most impressive part of this sequel. It’s using the toy factory setting, where there’s a maze of who knows how many Good Guy doll boxes. While it was obviously filmed in a way where it was later edited so it looked like the maze was considerably much bigger than it was, it still looked really cool. Then the actual ending of the movie is so goofy and fun, and definitely one of the biggest highlights in the entire franchise! Well, at least in my opinion. Child’s Play 2 offers more of the comedic tone than the first film, but it fits well together with how the movie also goes for a more crazy ride.
Director: John Lafia Writer: Don Mancini Country & year: USA, 1990 Actors: Alex Vincent, Jenny Agutter, Gerrit Graham, Christine Elise, Brad Dourif, Grace Zabriskie, Peter Haskell, Beth Grant, Greg Germann, IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099253/
Charles Lee Ray aka The Lakeshore Strangler is a serial killer who is fleeing from the police in Chicago. Police Detective Mike Norris is at his heels, and inside a toy store Norris manages to shoot him. Before dying from the gunshot wound, Ray invokes the power of Damballa, a serpent spirit in Haitian Voodoo, and asks to have his soul transferred into the “Good Guy“ doll nearby. A lightning strikes the building, and Ray now lies lifeless next to the doll. Looks like the serial killer’s murder spree has come to an end…unless perhaps the voodoo spell had some merit? Yeah, we know his spirit has been successfully transferred into the doll, of course we do.
Ray certainly chose his toy wisely, as the Good Guy talking dolls are very popular. And of course also expensive. Karen Barclay, a widow with a six year old son named Andy, struggles to save up money for one. Her friend from work suggests that she can buy a doll from a homeless peddler outside, who’s gotten his hands on one and sells it cheaply. Wonder why. Well, Karen decides to put her morals to the side for this little occasion in order to make her son happy. And of course Andy is over to moon, who is totally captivated by the doll who presents itself as Chucky. While all seems fine and well, the little boy Andy understands little about all the things the doll is saying to him. How could a little kid possibly know that his favorite toy is possessed by the soul of a dead serial killer? And Ray, now aka Chucky, isn’t too happy with his plastic body. He wants a new one…one made out of real flesh and blood.
Child’s Play is the 1988 killer doll film which doesn’t really need much presentation. We all know who Chucky is. The film was directed by Tom Holland, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Don Mancini and John Lafia. It was based on an original script by Mancini, which was first titled Batteries Not Included, then changed into Blood Buddy, and it was more a whodunit story which left the ending ambiguous as to whether it was the doll or the kid who killed people. Well, in the new script there’s no doubt from the very start that the doll is a serial killer, and a new horror star was thus born. The film has since spun several sequels, a reboot, a series, and tons of merchandise. Chucky, whether you like him or not, is one of the most iconic and popular horror film characters that just never seem to die.
The “Good Guy“ dolls were inspired by the actual My Buddy dolls by Hasbro, and you can definitely see the resemblance. In fact, Chucky’s name was originally Buddy in the script, which the writers decided to change into Chucky instead so they didn’t have to worry about Hasbro getting their lawyers involved. Better play it safe, buddy! And Chucky definitely is a blast to watch on screen, in all his practical glory. The doll was controlled by a whole team of nine puppeteers, led by Brock Winkless. Chucky’s mouth was moved via radio control, and in some scenes Chucky was also played by child actors. There’s no doubt that Chucky’s character is one filled with personality, a foul-mouthed killer doll who definitely slashed his place into the horror community, made at a perfect time when cheesiness could so easily fit into an otherwise serious story. Because yeah, the premise in Child’s Play is laughable and sounds schlocky as hell, but it all just, you know, works. The music for the film also fits really well with the electronic/orchestral mix. It was composed by Joseph Renzetti, using mostly electronic music with some orchestral elements. Originally Holland had planned for the film to have a fully orchestral score, but Renzetti thought the electronic soundtrack would be best.
Performances are overall pretty good, especially Brad Dourif who is voicing Chucky and delivers the perfect maniacal and sardonic performance. This, combined with the effects of the doll with its various facial expressions ironically makes Chucky looking more alive than many of the flesh ‘n blood slashers villains from other horror movies. Auditions for the film’s roles were held at the Hollywood United Methodist Church in 1987, where Tom Holland were quick to cast Chris Sarandon for the role of Detective Norris, as he had previously worked with him in his first feature film Fright Night (1985). As for Andy’s role, hundreds of kids were considered, and the role was given to Alex Vincent, despite the boy’s lack of acting experience compared to several of the other kids. The reason? Apparently their hearts melted a little when Alex pretended to forget his lines because he didn’t want to say any curse words in front of his mother. Aw. How cute and innocent. That being said, the performance does leave a little to be desired, especially when he’s supposed to be scared.
I think Child’s Play is a fun 80’s slasher psycho doll movie, one with that certain amount of charm that only the 80’s (and 90’s, for that matter) could produce. It’s cheesy and energetic, and Chucky and his foul-mouthed character is always fun to watch. I also liked the somewhat cheesy twist of involving the lesser known Voodoo spirit Damballa, rather than going for the usual satanic twist of making a deal with the devil.
Fun Fact: when the film was released, a crowd of worried people protested at the main entrance of MGM because they thought the film would “incite violence in children“, and wanted it to be banned. And it actually got banned in Finland for “excessive graphic violence“, a ban that was lifted in the early 2000’s.
Director: Tom Holland Writers: Don Mancini, John Lafia, Tom Holland Country & year: USA, 1988 Actors: Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Alex Vincent, Brad Dourif, Dinah Manoff, Tommy Swerdlow, Jack Colvin, Neil Giuntoli, Juan Ramírez, Alan Wilder IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094862/
It’s Halloween. Wendy doesn’t have a costume and her Mom won’t get out of bed. Wendy has to rely on her own ingenuity and the help of her imaginary friends to create a costume for her first night of trick-or-treating.
This month we’re having our Halloween Marathon, our “31 Nights of Horror Ghouling”, but we’re also posting Horror Shorts on Sundays as usual! This time we’re taking a look at Wendy, a lonely girl who just wants to have her own Halloween costume…
Director: Michael Oshins Writer: Kevin Kennelly Country & year: USA, 2017 Actors: Juliette Allison Bailey, Alexis Simpson, Trenton Tabak, Zachary Rifkin, Kayla Yap IMDb:www.imdb.com/title/tt6046652/
Your suffering will be legendary ― even on Earth! Yeah, sure, if Earth is such a green-grassed utopia to begin with, especially the Rotten Apple that is New York. And speaking of: the young, douchey pussyhound and goth-nightclub owner, J. P. Monroe (let’s just call him Jay Pee), has bought the grotesque pillar we saw at the end of the previous film, before it would be locked away in Warrens’ Occult Museum. After he fucks some chick, hooked chains flies out of the pillar and rips her skin off, and Pinhead, with only his face popping out of it, eats her. Similar to the previous films, he needs to eat human flesh in order to become whole. Only here though, he’s a demon that would be set free in the real world, in a goth nightclub, even. How fitting. Jay Pee becomes Pinhead’s bitch who gets ordered to serve him more bodysuits to eat. Not the most difficult task since New York has plenty.
Then we meet our protagonist, where the formula began using the reporter/detective trope to slog us through rest of the sequels. Here, however, we have the young news reporter Joey who has recurring nightmares of her dad being killed in Vietnam, and we can say that the plot thickens as much as it gets muddy where we eventually have two Pinheads, one good and one evil. Joey gets in possession of the Puzzle box, thanks to the clubgoer Terri, and finds a videotape of Kirsty (from the first two films) who explains how to use it in order to send Pinhead back to hell. When Pinhead (the evil one) finally gets out, he turns into pure slasher villain-mode and collects more bodycounts than the whole franchise combined. Pinhead goes on a blasphemy spree, enters a church where he mocks the crucifixion of Christ behind the altar before the place explodes. The conservatives in North Carolina, where the film was shot, had a problem with that. So yeah, Pinhead is the man of the hour here where he has the most screentime in the whole franchise and gets his time to really shine, spiced-up with some colorful one-liners.
And then we have our new group of Cenobites, which look more like something from a canceled Hellraiser Saturday morning cartoon show. Say hello to Doc the Cameraface, who has a camera merged in half of his face. And since this is the early 1990s, what could be more cool than DJ the CD face, slicing people with CD’s? So rad! And watch out for Rick the Bartender who fries your face as he spits flames from his cocktail shake beverage. And we can’t have a ’90s film without some big explosions. The comedic and playful tone lingers all over the film, as you’d expect when we have the director of the Waxworks films in the director chair. Not for everybody’s taste, but it at least still manage to feel like a Hellraiser film where there still was some respect for the source material, and is far from boring. The film ends perfectly with the song Hellraiser (of course) performed by Motörhead , and the franchise should also end with that note. The success at the box-office suggested otherwise where the brutal humiliation ritual of the franchise was about to begin.
Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), or Hellraiser in Space if you like, became the final theatrical release of the franchise. That film was directed by Kevin Yagher the legendary Alan Smithee and also the final Hellraiser where Clive Barker was involved before the smell of bullshite got too strong and jumped ship… so that maybe speaks for itself.
What we have next is six more sequels, and…wooooof. This is the worst kind of early, ultra-cheap, soulless 2000s direct-to-video toilet slop imaginable: Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002), Hellraiser: Deader (2005), Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) At this point I’m actually surprised that they just didn’t go for Hellraiser: Hellraiser. Fun fact: Inferno is the directorial debut of Scott Derrickson, but even he couldn’t get Pinhead back on track. Hellworld was the last film where Doug Bradley said fuck this bollox, I’m outta here. But it didn’t stop there, as we got the worst of them all served on a paper plate: Hellraiser: Revelations (2011) ― a baffling amateur show in all aspects and way too boring to be so-bad-it’s-good. Then we have and finally the last one, Hellraiser: Judgement (2018). Have yet to see the Hulu remake from 2021.
So what really went wrong with Hellraiser? Simple and boring answer: the first four since Inferno were originally written as standalone crime/thrillers, not as Hellraiser films. The elements with Pinhead was shoved in at the last five minutes and slammed on the posters, with the Hellraiser title, in order to cash-in and fool us gullible audiences. How they managed to poop out four of these turds with Doug Bradley onboard, is a mystery box of its own. But showbiz is showbiz and there’s always rent to pay. Your suffering will be legendary by watching them all in one sitting without any pauses, unless you’re masochistic enough.
Director: Anthony Hickox Writer: Peter Atkins, Tony Randel Country & year: UK/USA, 1992 Actors: Terry Farrell, Paula Marshall, Kevin Bernhardt, Doug Bradley, Ken Carpenter, Brent Bolthouse, Sharon Percival, Philip Hyland, David Young, Peter Atkins, Ashley Laurence IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095294/
