Chucky #1: Deth By Misadventure

Article by Sean Wilkinson,
a.k.a. The Ticketmaster

I have been a long-time follower of the Child's Play/[insert "ominous" noun] of Chucky franchise. It hasn't always been good, but it's been more interesting than some of the better known horror franchises out there. I've already covered the movies in previous posts (I refuse to tarnish my mental image of the franchise by watching the reboot, though, even with Mark Hamill involved in the project), which you can check out at the following links:
Welcome to the Dead Parade #12: Chucky Gets Chyerminaydit (Child's Play 1-3, Bride, and Seed)
Just the Ticket #69: Breaking The Curse of Chucky, Sequel-itis Cured? (Curse) NICE!
Welcome To the Dead Parade #14: Chucky's Cult Following (Cult)

New episodes will be simulcast Tuesday nights at 9pm PST on the USA and SyFy networks (ask your local provider), or you can stream them via the respective network apps at the link above. Chucky is also available to stream with Hulu's Live TV package (but the network apps are free, and the Hulu package is over sixty dollars a month of not free, so choose wisely). Spoilers after the image; wanna play?

"Oh; someone took the butcher knife."

In a New Jersey town that sounds like it was named after castration--and where Charles Lee Ray (Brad Douriff) was born as both a human and a killer--a teenage boy named Jake Wheeler (Zackary Arthur, Transparent) buys a Good Guy doll at a yard sale. Immediately, one can hear detractors (and spend the entire episode hearing the adult--and some of the teenaged--characters) complaining about why a teenage boy would be interested in dolls. But the series has a quick, plausible (yet creepy) answer for this: Jake is following in his deceased (?) mother's footsteps as a sculpture artist, and for easily speculated (but not yet confirmed) reasons, his sculptures are made by dismembering and fusing together doll parts into something that Alien artist H.R. Geiger and Sid from Toy Story might design for the Creeper from Jeepers Creepers after watching a Human Centipede marathon.
We are also introduced to the Wheeler family cat, who has some foreshadowing interactions with the Chucky doll, Lucas Wheeler (Jake's grieving, abusive father, played by Final Destination star Devon Sawa, who also plays Lucas' twin brother, Logan; where else have we seen twins in this franchise?), Jake's homophobic cousin, Junior (Teo Briones, Ratched), and Junior's bitch of a girlfriend, Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind, who sells seashells by the seashore, and starred in Daybreak on Netflix). Detractors of the LGBTQ+phobic persuasion will also note podcaster Devon Evans (Björgvin Arnarson, whose editorial acting is as bad as that kid from the Betty Brant news show in Spider-Man: Homecoming). On top of having a stupid name straight out of a Golden Age comic book, Devon Evans is Jake's best friend, whom Jake has a crush on. Yep, this series has a gay teen romance subplot, folks! And franchise creator Don Mancini is also gay. In fact, word has it that Mancini based the character of Jake Wheeler on himself as a teenager. So accept the "weirdness," or go watch something else. I don't care one way or the other (I mean, guy-on-guy makes me uncomfortable, but I'm not going to shave my head and burn a church over it), and I appreciate the franchise for what it is, so I'm watching....
Also, did anyone else notice that the school they all go to has the initials PMS, and the hallway floors are red? I'd hate to see what everyone is doing for first period...or any period. Period. There isn't enough padding in this show yet.
While you are pondering that Tampax Pearl of wisdom, the typical first act Chucky mechanics ensue (things go missing, things move, the doll moves, stuff happens between shots, people get blamed for things they didn't do and/or blatantly demonstrate how murderable they are going to be later, etc.) until Jake gets a call from recurring protagonist Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), telling him to "check the batteries." A quick Google search later, and the cast and crew do recreate the battery scene from the original Child's Play, but instead of young Andy's mother, it's Jake making the discovery here. They even reference Glen's childhood and the franchise's Living Dummy connections when Chucky forces Jake to do a ventriloquism routine at the school talent show. After a savage exchange between Jake and his father, Chucky kills Lucas in hilarious horror movie fashion that uses alcohol to defiy the laws of electrical engineering. The local authorities rule the murder a title drop, and Jake is taken in by his uncle Logan, where Chucky fully reveals his true nature to Jake and proposes to kill Lexy for him.

So far, Chucky has that SyFy..."charm" to it that isn't quite good enough to be good, but isn't bad enough to rage-quit over, either. Brand recognition does most of the heavy lifting, which makes the aforementioned "SyFy 'charm'" pretty inconsequential, and for the better. The Chucky effects are still done practically after all these years, which is a huge plus for me, and the prospect of seeing Andy, Kyle, Tiffany, and possibly Glen/da, in action after Cult Of Chucky's disappointing showing is a definite draw. Haters will always hate, but true fans are your friend 'til the end, and I definitely wanna play.

Stay Tuned and save those Ticket Stubs for more Chucky content coming soon!

Ticketmaster,
'til the end,
out.
Heh, heh, heh.