Child’s Play (2019)

Remaining a die-hard fan of the Child’s Play franchise became increasingly difficult over the years as the later sequels drifted dangerously close to self-parody and bad in-joke territory. By the time the most recent instalments rolled around, enthusiasm had all but evaporated. One particularly dreadful sequel viewed during a late-night world premiere broadcast genuinely seemed like the final nail in the coffin.

So the arrival of Child’s Play in 2019 came as something of a surprise. Expectations, by that stage, were at an all-time low. Surely things could not get much worse than the previous two or three increasingly tired sequels that had managed to crush whatever affection remained for this once-beloved horror series.

Not being someone who reads reviews beforehand, there was nevertheless a noticeable buzz surrounding this reboot that proved difficult to ignore. Against all expectations, the decision was made to give it a fair chance.

Expectations, of course, play a huge role in how one reacts to a film carrying decades of baggage. Expecting a killer doll concept from the late 1980s to have precisely the same impact today is rather like expecting a 40-year-old joke to remain equally relevant in a completely different era. A joke about Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan may not quite hit the same way in the age of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, and similarly, expecting Child’s Play to terrify modern audiences in exactly the same fashion decades later is unrealistic.

What matters is whether a reboot can refresh familiar material while remaining entertaining — and surprisingly, this one succeeds remarkably well.

Initially there was a collective groan at the redesigned appearance of the doll. Buddi simply did not look like the Chucky audiences had grown accustomed to over the years. Yet as the film unfolds, that concern rapidly fades. The movie moves at such a furious pace that there is scarcely time to complain about the altered appearance before the mayhem fully takes hold.

And importantly, this is not pretending to be the original Chucky.

This is Buddi — a modernised nightmare designed for the Alexa and smartphone generation.

The updated premise works rather cleverly. Buddi dolls are manufactured in app-connected, Apple-like factories where a disgruntled worker sabotages the doll’s safety protocols as revenge against the exploitative corporation employing him. It is an effective contemporary update that smoothly shifts the franchise into the modern technological age without feeling forced.

The familiar Child’s Play formula then unfolds with tremendous energy, combining gleeful nastiness, black humour, and an impressive amount of gore. The violence is deliciously excessive while still remaining playful and tongue-in-cheek.

Most importantly, the characters are instantly likeable.

Aubrey Plaza is excellent as the mother, bringing warmth and humour to the role, while the young actor playing Andy delivers a surprisingly strong performance. The supporting cast is equally solid throughout.

Then there is Buddi himself.

Far nastier, more calculating, and more vicious than expected, Buddi quickly establishes his own sinister identity separate from the original Chucky mythology. Horror fans expecting a carbon copy of Brad Dourif’s iconic performance may initially resist the change, but Mark Hamill injects Buddi with his own personality and does so brilliantly.

Buddi is not Chucky — and crucially, the film never tries to pretend otherwise.

The death scenes are staged with tremendous flair and escalating absurdity, culminating in a wonderfully chaotic finale drenched in blood, humour, and carnage. The film captures precisely the balance that made the early Child’s Play movies so enjoyable in the first place: nasty horror delivered with a wicked grin.

Some horror fans dismissed the reboot for failing to reinvent the wheel, but honestly, what exactly were they expecting? A political dissertation? Endless self-referential jokes? The film wisely avoids drowning itself in irony and instead focuses on being entertaining, fast-moving, and outrageously violent.

And that pacing deserves enormous credit.

Unlike some of the painfully sluggish recent sequels, this film never allows the viewer time to become bored, distracted, or tempted to reach for a phone. It barrels forward relentlessly, carrying the audience from one grotesque set-piece to another with admirable confidence.

What could easily have been the final death rattle of an exhausted franchise instead becomes an unexpectedly entertaining resurrection.

Lars Klevberg and his writers deserve enormous credit for breathing life back into material that many believed was beyond saving.

This is quite simply the best Child’s Play film since the original 1988 classic: fast, funny, nasty, energetic, packed with brutal splatter and delivered with exactly the right mischievous spirit.

A whole bunch of laughs, buckets of blood, and one very welcome surprise. Spot on.