Child’s Play 2 (1988)
Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd
Craig: and I’m Craig.
Well, another first of 2024. Here we are with our first theme month. We used to do these more often. I
Craig: know, and we talk about it all the time, but we haven’t committed to one in a really long time. I have so
Todd: many good ideas for theme months.
I have this long ass list. I know you do. I mean, we could have four years of nothing but theme months as far as I’m concerned. I just love the idea. Maybe I’m a little dorky that way. But this last time, I did have a few ideas I wanted to throw out there for theme months. And so a few months ago, I put it to our patrons.
What would you like to see us do a theme month for? And I was actually kind of surprised. I was too. But they chose Child’s Play. We had like werewolves, we had like a lot of interesting things in there. Not that those, that Child’s Play isn’t interesting, but uh, yeah, I know you were probably pretty thrilled though because we had done a minisode, oh somewhere in there, where we had talked about I believe the Chucky series, the TV series, and I am very unfamiliar with the Child’s Play franchise.
I’ve only seen the first one. Only when it came out and then again, when we saw the podcast and I don’t know why it’s so weird that so many of those movies have come and I, I remembered liking the first one. It was kind of an event for a kid that first one. I just remember like, Oh, this awesome looking killer doll movie.
And Chucky became this household name. That’s what I remember anyway. For
Craig: whatever reason, it did really well, and I’m not really sure why, because it wasn’t particularly unique, like, there were several other doll puppet movies, and for whatever reason, the first one just did really well, and everybody saw it, and everybody was talking about it.
And so they went, they went immediately into production for part two, which is something that I will really enjoy because when you’ve got movies centered on kids, you got to keep the production going. Otherwise they’re going to age out like these stranger thing kids in the newest season of stranger things are like.
30.
Todd: And
Craig: they’re still supposed to be playing, like,
Todd: 18. Riding around on bicycles and stuff. Right. You’re not the Goonies anymore, guys. It’s
Craig: insane. But Andy I didn’t Alex something? What’s his name? Andy’s
Todd: name? Andy’s played by, uh, Alex Vincent. That’s what Alex Vincent, that’s what I thought. I
Craig: didn’t write it down, because I’m like, oh, I’ll remember, I know that, but Alex Vincent was virtually the same age, like he doesn’t look much older, and he’s still very much a child, and he’s adorable, so that works really well for this one, but He plays
Todd: Andy throughout, right?
At least some of the later movies, am I right about that? Right,
Craig: okay, so the first three are kind of like a trilogy, this is one of those Movies that’s kind of broken up into trilogies and it’s kind of by and not exactly sometimes they’re pairs or whatever But the first three they made in succession really fast and then three didn’t do so well and I understand why because it wasn’t that great It was fine.
I still liked it, but then they took a big break And then they came back with Bride with a really different tone. They leaned way more into the humor of it. It was still very violent. Lots of kills and creative ones at that. But they leaned a lot more into the humor. And then they did that for Bride and Seed.
And then after that, they stopped for a really long time, and then they came back with Curse, and none of us had, like, a decade later, and none of us had any idea what Curse was. Is it a remake? Is it a reboot? Is it something entirely different? We had no idea. You know, we find out. I won’t spoil it for you, even though I think I already have.
And then they stuck with that for Two movies, Curse and Cult, and then they moved it to the TV show. So they’re like, there’s all these iterations, but they all follow a continuous timeline. And that is so uncommon. Yeah, period. In a franchise that’s been going for over 30
Todd: years. It’s hard to believe. We started, we watched this,
Craig: I watched this movie.
Child’s Play 2. I watched this movie when I was a little kid. And I’ve seen it, oh my gosh, dozens of times. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but I have seen it probably dozens of times. It used to play on, on television, like in the afternoon. You know, a heavily cut version, of course, but, and, and I always liked it.
And in fact And I’ll be, I’m really interested to hear from somebody who’s never seen it before because it’s just kind of consensus across the board with Child’s Play fans that this is the best movie in the franchise. Oh, yeah. Well,
Todd: it’s really funny. I’ll give you, I’ll give you my idea of why Chucky resonated so well back then.
I think it was the first time that the killer puppet thing was done so well and was so Bold and brash, you know before the this the killer puppets kind of mysterious. It’s like, oh he’s in the corner now He’s not they didn’t really have the tack or the the wherewithal to really Like animate them and get good close ups and give that puppet a lot of really deep personality I might be missing a movie or two in there that i’m unaware of or that i’m just that’s not coming to my head right Now, but I remember when this movie came out It was the first time that the killer puppet really had some personality.
You saw him on the screen, he’s talking, he’s cursing, he’s swearing, he’s pissed off. He’s basically a loudmouth version of the slashers that we were getting in the 80s. And so it fit right in there by taking that older concept of the spooky, mysterious killer puppet and updating it with that modern slasher sensibility and then doing such a damn good job with the Animatronics, because I do remember as a kid, there were TV specials, you know, about the animatronics on this movie, it was all over entertainment tonight and stuff, you know, they would pop up and show behind the scenes footage and clips of how this movie was coming together just because it was so groundbreaking with the animatronics and the guy who did the animatronics, I believe was Jaeger, right?
What’s his name? Keith Jaeger. I don’t
Craig: remember, but Are you talking about the guy that, like, managed the puppet? Yeah. Because that was Catherine Hicks husband. The mother from the first movie Kevin Yeager, yeah. Her husband is the guy that ran the animatronic. And, like, there was all this speculation why she didn’t come back.
Because she’s not in this movie. They Relegate her to an insane asylum because she tells people that there is a living doll. And so she’s crazy. So they put her away. I guess there was all kinds of speculation as to why she didn’t come back. And as it turns out, they just wanted to go in a different direction.
And I get that. Like it makes sense. Take it out of the familiar environment. And I also think that it makes sense to remove this kid from the people who trust him, because otherwise. You don’t have that build up. Yeah. Only Andy can know for a while. Yeah. Because if everybody else knows, then the movie’s going to be over really fast.
Yeah,
Todd: exactly. Like, you wouldn’t go through the trouble of resurrecting the doll. This confused me. And maybe I missed a line of dialogue in here somewhere, because there is a bit of explanation at the very beginning. But there’s just, like, There’s all these awesome close ups of this doll being cleaned up, like they’re stripping it’s skin, scrubbing the skull, scrubbing the teeth.
It’s got one good eye that that’s popped up, because he was burned at the end of the first movie. In the fireplace. In the fireplace, uh huh. And so, I’m like, who’s putting this to what kind of evil genius is putting this doll back together who knows about Chucky? And then it You know, there’s just this kind of long hallway talk between the head of the company that makes these good guy dolls and one of his lackeys.
Every supermarket tabloid in the
Craig: country is running headlines about Andy Barclay and his killer good guy
Todd: doll. What about his mother and the police that were on the case? The
police
Craig: were smart. They denied everything, which is fine because now they can’t hurt us, but the mother’s a different matter. She backed up her boy’s story in court, so now she’s under psychiatric observation.
Jesus, where’s the boy
Todd: now? Midtown Children’s Crisis
Craig: Center. Foster custody is pending. Uh, our biggest problem has been the rumors. A lot of people are saying that some joker here at the company must have tampered with the doll’s voice cassette, you know? Uh, Hi, I’m Chucky, I’m the Lakeshore Strangler, now I’m gonna kill you.
Something
Todd: like that. Well, something like that.
Craig: But the good news, Mr. Sullivan, is that
Todd: now we’ve got the doll. And they’re recreating it. They’re restoring it.
Craig: I was like, why? It didn’t make any sense. Like, why would you do that? But they do. They throw in a line of dialogue that explains it because apparently though nothing could be proven.
There were rumors that somebody. At their factory had messed with the voice chip and had had it say terrible things like I’m Charles Lee Ray I’m a murderer and so they restored it so that they could disprove
Todd: that but like what how would they at their own factory? Reconstructing the doll then then handing it to somebody and saying see there’s nothing wrong with it.
How would that prove anything?
Craig: Well, they’re not even going to like that’s the other thing like they’re not even Now that they’ve disproven it for themselves, they’re not even going to tell anybody. Like, it doesn’t make any sense. Like, I love this, I love this opening sequence, but this doll is a f ing Terminator.
They don’t make dolls out of titanium. No, that’s true.
Todd: He has a metal Yeah, like
Craig: it’s great and I’m glad they did it because it looks fantastic. It’s a, it’s an excellent opening, but like it disproves itself in the end. Yeah, he doesn’t have a metal skull.
Todd: You’ve got a good point there, but I love the aesthetic of this.
It is so goofy that I was just like, Oh, so this is the movie we’re in for. And I was just. Warmly because when he goes to the part of the factory where they’re restoring this doll. It looks like a freaking toy Version of a very serious operating room. Yeah.
Craig: Did you ever see that movie toys with Robin Williams?
Yes, I did It’s almost like that, not as whimsical, but painted like very whimsically. And that was a style choice. Like there, this movie on face value is a fairly typical slasher movie. It actually plays almost more like a thriller or. Like a, like a Giallo, except you know who the killer is, um, but that’s kind of the feel of it, like it gives me very like Hitchcockian vibes in the way that it’s shot, and it’s stylistic, and that was one of the stylistic choices that he made, he wanted the factory to be bright in color.
To contrast, you know, what you would typically expect a factory to look like. Other stylistic choices were like, he wanted the whole movie to look like it was being viewed from the perspective of a child. Everything was shot from low angles, so it’s like you’re looking up at people and the shots are broad, they’re wide.
It’s something that I don’t even really notice, but then the instant that it’s brought to my attention, Oh yeah, I see what He’s doing there. And there are lots of other really interesting like close up shots. Those cool. I love these shots. They’re kind of cheesy, but used effectively. Those shots were like, there’s just like a bar of light across the eyes and a really close in a really tight close up.
No talking about like, it’s like the Morticia Adams shot. Like she’s always only lit right across her eyes. There were a couple of times that they did that. Lots of interesting stylistic things going on. Ultimately, yeah. As I’m sitting watching this and I’m thinking, wow, you know, this kind of shows its age and I’m not sure how Todd’s going to feel about it.
And then I’m getting further into it. I’m like, no, this is good. This is
Todd: a good movie. It holds up in a, in a day and age where nobody would bother to do it this way. They’d have CGI on here. They would want the doll to look as realistic as possible. In most of the scenes, it is remarkable. Number one, from a technical perspective, how.
Not distracting. It is that this is obviously, you know, some kind of animatronic. It actually helps, I think, because the guy’s a doll. I think we might have talked about this and during the first, you know, when we did the first movie to it’s been we talked about it a million times. Yeah, but yeah, the guy’s a doll.
And so, of course, he’s his face is not going to be fluid, you know, like a person. He’s not like a magical Creature, right? He’s a doll. And so his face is a little rubbery and his eyes can only kind of move left and right and a little bit up and down, but kind of jerky. And that’s actually adds to it. And it helps fit the illusion.
And so in that way, it’s always going to be timeless, right? They did it just well enough. That the illusion that this guy’s a doll is totally convincing the illusion that he’s talking with the lip syncing and everything is totally convincing And I read in the in the trivia how much effort they took to make sure that they
Craig: were meticulous.
Yeah Yeah, this time around unlike the first time around Brad Dwarf was barely ever on set because he just Pre recorded all of his vocals as so that they could animate The animatronic to match his vocals. So he was never on set. They would just play the audio for the characters to work with. But I also read that they were so meticulous in wanting to make sure that the, the animatronic looked just right.
There’s one scene. About the midpoint of the movie where Chucky follows Andy to school and kills his teacher and there’s like one shot of him walking out of a closet. It’s, it can’t be more than five, seven seconds and it took like all day to shoot. Because they wanted to make sure that they got it.
Right, and I say all day, maybe even longer than that, but they were really, really determined to make it look as good as they could, and I think it looks great, it looks practical, and I like practical effects. I also thought that in this movie, Chucky is particularly brutal, like his face is much Meaner I feel like than in the first movie.
Yeah, slightly more believable I know that one of the problems that you have with these movies is like it’s a doll just grab it and throw it down but in this movie Chucky regularly almost always attacks from the back and is like clinging to somebody’s back and Biting like he’s a major big time biter in this movie.
Yeah, and I can almost Believe that in a commotion it would be very difficult to get something That was clinging to your back like that, off. Oh yeah. Much more difficult than if it were coming at you from the
Todd: front. Honestly, it would be like a cat that had jumped on your back. Yeah. And was grabbing your shoulders and all that.
It’s actually kind of tough. I have had cats. I know what that’s like. So yeah, for sure. I was never taken out of it. And you know me, as you just said, I was, I was looking for this. I was, I was waiting for those moments and they never came. Because, you know, they do struggle with him a little bit, and kind of jump onto the ground and stuff, but he’s, he’s, he’s fighting them quite a, quite a bit from the back, and so.
Craig: And the threat is very real for Andy, because Andy is a small child. I just think that he’s adorable, and I think that he’s great in this role, and a big part of what I think is so great about him is his vulnerability. Like, there are times when he’s just walking around where he will, like, stumble. Or trip over something and I have no idea if that was choreographed.
I kind of suspect that it wasn’t like he’s a child, you know, kids kind of stumble through life, but it made him very vulnerable and I think he’s great. He, he has a lot to carry on his shoulders in this movie and I think he does a really good job. It’s
Todd: remarkable. And also like a God, I felt so bad for this kid.
I felt so much sympathy for him way more than I expected. He’s by himself. He’s at, I believe at an orphanage or is it just a place that’s placing foster kids? I think
Craig: it’s a temporary, it’s like Department of Children’s Services or whatever, but it seems like a lot of children are staying there. Yeah. But yeah, he’s, he’s getting placed with a foster family.
And before that, he talks to a psychiatrist or a counselor or somebody who asks him if he’s still having nightmares about Chucky. And he says yes. And they have kind of a nice back and forth, but ultimately Andy. I guess kind of recaps what happened. He tells us the whole lore about how he was this murderer and then he put himself in this doll, but then he had to get out of the doll because if he didn’t, he would be stuck in there forever, and he has to come in me because I’m the first one that he revealed his secret to.
Now, all of the voodoo stuff, I just learned this, I didn’t know this, but all of the voodoo stuff, Don Mancini didn’t like and didn’t want. I don’t know what his Idea for it was they have stuck with the voodoo stuff throughout like it’s continuous it changes a little bit and Chuckie gets Chuckie gets better at it and other people can use it to
Todd: he’s not so good at it in this movie
Craig: it’s not so good at it but the rules kind of change like eventually I and I I would bet money and we’ll see because we’re going to watch these movies I bet money that they somehow explain it because the whole Chucky can only go into Andy thing just goes away.
Todd: I had kind of forgotten that myself too. I remembered that he was just like it. He wants to be in me, but I wasn’t sure how hard and fast that was. And as we were watching this movie, I was thinking to myself, like, why doesn’t he just go into somebody else? It’d be a lot easier for him. Like one of these people he’s about to kill, just do his little voodoo thing.
But he’s just hell bent on Andy and then I was trying to come up with ideas like is it because he wants to be in a in a man’s body, not a woman’s body and maybe it’s because he wants to be in a kid’s body because it’s like he’s got his whole life ahead of him and you’re going to be like, it’s like the perfect cover.
Really? Everyone’s good. I don’t know. Yeah, I
Craig: guess that’s interesting. That would be interesting to explore. Like he wanted to be able to relive his childhood because I read that there’s an official novelization of this movie where they give a lot of information about Chucky’s backstory. Like he was Autistic, and his father was abusive, and his mother was a little person, and the dad eventually, and he was bullied in school, and the dad eventually left, and the mother was so annoying that he eventually strangled her, and that’s how he became known as the Lakeside Strangler.
All of that backstory is Done away with later because series we get backstory and it’s not that But in the context of this movie if we considered that backstory it maybe would Explain his motivation for wanting to get into a kid like he wants A second chance or whatever that makes sense, but anyway, yeah, so Andy is going to foster care and he gets taken in by these two people and immediately like they’re good cop bad cop.
Like the mom seems super nice and nurturing and the dad just seems like a big jerk.
Todd: Yeah, or I don’t know the guys played by Garrett Graham. And his name is Phil, and we’ve seen him before, probably most notoriously in Terror Vision, he was the swingin father. Oh, I
Craig: couldn’t place him, and I must, I looked at his credits, and I, I must have missed that, and now that you say it.
Oh yeah. A hundred percent.
Todd: He’s been all over TVs and movies for a decade. Well,
Craig: that’s the thing. Most of the people in this movie, you will recognize from somewhere. Oh yeah. The foster care lady, totally recognizable, been in a million things, lots of horror. Yeah,
Todd: Grace Zabriskie. Uh, I
Craig: know for sure she was in, she was in the grudge.
She was the old lady who was like incapacitated in the haunted house. She was in
Todd: Twin Peaks. Yeah. I mean, she’s like 80 or 90 right now. She’s been, She was born in 1940s. I think she’s been acting since the mid sixties.
Craig: Child actor. The lady who plays the mom is still working. I think she’s on a successful television series right now.
She disavows this movie. She hates it. Apparently, they filmed a lot more stuff with her and, and they Cut all of it. And she was, she’s resentful. She feels like they took away all of her good stuff. They took, but she’s still around. The woman that plays the teacher is in everything. If you’ve ever seen a movie or an episode of television, you have seen this woman.
She’s been in everything. She was a semi regular on Seinfeld. She was in too long food. Thanks for everything. She’s literally been in everything and she’s fantastic. I love her. Yeah. She’s a brilliant character actress. She was on The Office. She was, uh, God, she’s been in everything.
Todd: And because all roads lead to Shopping Mall, I just have to point out Garrett Graham was also the technician who gets killed first in Shopping Mall, so.
Okay. Remember
Craig: that? That’s funny. So, yeah, filled with familiar faces, but they specifically did not want to cast big name people. And if you look at some of the other people who were considered, like, the only one that comes to mind is Veronica Cartwright. Like, Veronica Cartwright’s not a huge star, but another very recognizable face.
But they considered a lot Andy McDowell, I think, or somebody, I don’t know. Lots of people who you would recognize were considered for this movie, which is crazy. Right. Because This is a, like a, a little weird slasher. However, I guess I’m failing to consider what year did this come out? 1990. 90. Well, see, this was nearing the end.
Oh, I don’t know. It’s kind of late to the game. It
Todd: is. It is a little, but I mean, we were still getting slashers.
Craig: We’re
Todd: still, yeah. Yeah. Nightmare on Elm Street, part four. So I think maybe around this time, something like
Craig: that, it just kind of blows. I. I’m, I’m boggled by the success, despite the fact that I like them so much.
And despite the fact that I think this one in particular is a very well made movie. This movie is written by, or is directed by the writer of the first movie. Is that correct? John
Todd: LaFia. There’s a whole Torah. He was a co writer with Don Mancini on the first movie, I think, right? On the first, he didn’t direct it.
Tom Holland directed the first movie. Right. But the first movie was Don Mancini, John LaFia, and Tom Hollander. All credited as writers
Craig: on that. And then, when the director of this movie got the job, he brought Don Mancini back on. Which also surprised me because I thought that Don Mancini was just the godfather of all of this from the beginning and apparently he wasn’t.
I guess he just kind of Adopted it. Oh, interesting. No, but this the guy who directed this one, he just had in mind. I know I can do better. You know, we did the first one and I know I can do this one better. And that was his goal. And I think cinematically he accomplished it. And I think that he was really smart in some of the things that he did.
One of those things was giving Andy an ally. A hesitant ally at first, much like his mother, but somebody who eventually gets on notice also that Andy’s stepsister and not stepsister, excuse me, I keep saying that foster sister, Kyle looks very much like Andy’s mother from the first movie, exact same
Todd: hairstyle.
That’s a good point. You’re right. I’m looking at it now.
Craig: And. Kyle is played by Christine Elise, I think is her name. I love her. She’s fantastic. She’s another one of those people who is not an A list star, but has been working for decades, and she’s got a great look. Like, she’s kind of a tough girl. Really, yeah.
Kind of chick. And I really like her, and it’s really interesting to read the other people that were considered for her. I think maybe Jennifer Jason Leigh. Christine
Todd: Swanson. Christy Swanson, right. And she kind of gives off a bit of that vibe, too. It’s, uh Yeah, a little bit. I
Craig: believe Christine Elise. Kind of more as a tough girl than I do.
Christy Swanson, Christy Swanson, for whatever reason, she’s just got a little bit more of an edge to her, but she’s great. And I love her. And from the beginning, like she’s a rebel, she smokes and she, you know, I don’t know, where’s a leather hat or something. So, you know, she’s rebellious, but she’s not disrespectful to her foster family.
No, aside from the fact that she smokes in their house. But she’s not disrespectful to them. She actually tries to be helpful. Like you see scenes of her doing the laundry and stuff like that. But from the get go, she’s kind to Andy, but she also is real with him because she’s been through it, like she’s been, she tells him, I think very early on that she has never stayed in one foster home very long, like just the foster mother asks when.
She’s introducing Andy to Kyle. She says, Kyle, why haven’t you unpacked? And she’s like, well, ’cause I never stay anywhere very long. Now why? This girl would get passed around a lot. I don’t know because she seems lovely. . Yeah, . So she smokes cigarettes. Get over it. She’s 17. . Give her a break. . Um, but she’s kind to him from the beginning.
We have seen that Chucky. Has the, the douchebag lackey to the corporate guy, takes Chucky, and I don’t know, just throws him in the back of his car and is driving around, calls his mistress, this is one of the alternate scenes in the TV version, there’s a TV version that cleans it up a little bit and it, and elongates it to Make for time because they have to cut out some of the gore stuff in this scene in the TV version The guy first calls his wife and says oh no, honey.
Don’t bother holding dinner. I’m gonna have to be late again I know I’m so sorry. I know I promise and then he hangs up the phone and calls his girlfriend So that version makes this guy even douche here And then he has to stop at a liquor store and Chucky gets in his briefcase and finds like Andy’s information and then holds him at Quote unquote gunpoint and forces him to drive to Andy’s neighborhood.
It turns out the gun is just a squirt gun, but he ties the guy up in his car and suffocates him with a plastic bag. Yeah. Chucky or somebody else popping up behind the driver’s seat becomes A motif throughout the series that I love it happens over and over again because
Todd: it happens like three times in this movie alone.
Craig: Oh gosh I love it
Todd: so much at first I was like what in the world is he doing and then I realized that I guess he doesn’t realize he thinks it’s a grown man back there. That
Craig: doesn’t make any sense either. He doesn’t like you would look the first thing you would do would be look in the rearview mirror,
Todd: right?
Yeah, just see who is thing. Yeah
Craig: But he doesn’t so he’s already killed that guy and he knows where Andy is So we know that now Andy goes to his room and like is it’s a room full of toys Like it’s a really nice place. Like ultimately these people seem like decent people. Yeah, but nice home
Todd: But his house the first scene when Andy walks into this house I feel like the house was deliberately painted up and designed to look like a doll house, because Yes, everything about it is
Craig: dolls.
There are little figurines everywhere, there are paintings of dolls, everything is dolls. It has
Todd: this odd, almost like surreal Barbie Dreamhouse pink and blue motif, where the walls are pink and all the accents like the staircase and the borders at the top and bottom and the wainscoting is all this pale blue.
I It struck me, the moment he walked in, I was like This is weird, but like you said, it’s filmed from a child’s perspective and I immediately got that. I was like, Oh, like we’re seeing the ceiling on this, in this, in this house and we’re seeing, you know, this is sweeping around and it, it, it looks like a dollhouse.
It looks larger than life. I thought, Oh man, they’re putting a lot of thought in this movie. Like this isn’t thematically. This is quite cool. Yeah.
Craig: The, the design of that, the design of the. Foster home is intentionally like off kilter and strange. He wanted it to feel unwelcoming and off. And you mentioned seeing the ceilings.
That was a stylistic choice too. He always, the cinematographer director always wanted to be able to see the ceilings because we don’t normally see that, especially on movies that are shot on sets. You know, there’s usually structures for lights and sound and all of that thing up above. So you don’t usually see the ceiling.
He wanted to show that. And again, it’s one of those things. Somebody, somebody not like me, who is well educated, you know, in cinematography, something that they would notice right away. It’s not something that I notice right away, but again, as soon as I’m, my attention is brought to it, I notice it and I understand it does have an impact, it makes a difference.
Todd: It leaves an impression nonetheless, and it also gives you this feeling of a little bit of claustrophobia. Right. That’s why I felt so much sympathy for this kid. I was with him as he walked into a brand new and unfamiliar place right that he was going to have to live with these new and unfamiliar people who he knew were not his parents and he wasn’t going to stay with.
And so it’s Bye. Bye. I just felt so bad for any kid in this situation. Then immediately he becomes a problem for his dad and his mom, because he’s talking about Chucky and he’s got these things and they think he’s a little crazy and he’s got trauma and maybe we need to give him back and well, he’s not my son and anyway, and he’s overhearing them have these discussions about him and it’s heartbreaking.
Craig: It is heartbreaking. And the dad comes off. As such a dick, I will say that in the TV cut, it’s a little bit more clear that part of the reason that the father figure is more distant than the mother is the fact that they are trying to adopt. In the TV cut, she tells him, the adoption people called again, we got turned down again, and he’s like, what?
And she’s like, well, I guess there are just so many kids to go around and they start they’re talking about Andy and Kyle and he says, but they’re eventually gonna leave. They’re not ours. So it’s like he doesn’t want to get too close to these kids because they’re not their kids and they’re just gonna they’re they’re gonna leave and he’s still a butthole.
But I can kind of empathize with that. It’s understandable.
Todd: Yeah. I mean, you know, I get it. This is heavy stuff and it’s deep and it’s emotionally challenging. And to put that in this horror movie and to have it come across and feel real. I thought
Craig: it did. Well, right. And it’s particularly, you know, like we, we skipped over the part when Andy’s.
Exploring his room, he reaches up to the top of the closet to pull down a skateboard, and a good guy doll falls down on him. They just happen to have one, and the mom’s like, Oh, I’m so sorry, I’ll get it out of here, and it’s like, Hi, I’m Tommy, wanna play? But, she takes it and she puts it down at the bottom of the stairs, and she’s gonna get rid of it.
Chucky doesn’t show up quite yet, or he’s there and Andy doesn’t know it yet. But like you said, he overhears the dad saying,
Todd: You know, I gotta tell you, I’m not happy with this whole thing. Having second thoughts? Well You have to admit he’s a very troubled little boy, and he obviously has not come to terms with this whole
Craig: doll thing.
Look, all I’m saying is that he may need more, uh
Todd: attention than we
Craig: can give him. So, to prove that he’s over the doll thing, Andy goes and gets the Tommy doll, flips it over on its back and checks for batteries. Because that’s how the mom figured out that it was alive the first time around. But it’s got its batteries and it seems like it’s cool.
Todd: I think by this time, is it already? It’s already the Chucky doll. Yeah, there’s a whole bit. It is. There’s a whole bit. Chucky shows up at the house because he makes a phone call to the orphanage to get the number, which I don’t think would ever happen today. I doubt it would have even happened in 1990.
But anyway, he gets there, he sneaks into the house, he sees the Tommy doll, he grabs the Tommy doll and bashes its face in.
Craig: In my notes, I have any murderous The Tommy Doll
Todd: because that’s what it looks like. There’s so much comedy in this movie that, that it’s so charming because of that there is just so much dark comedy.
I was giggling throughout it because of things like this. Yeah. See he murders the Tommy Doll and he buries it in the backyard with the plastic toy shovel, and he’s laughing Giddily while he does this, and then he replaces himself with the Tommy Doll and there’s this cute moment where Andy comes down.
He looks at the doll, he’s gonna pick it up like you said for the first time to prove. And, the doll comes to life, like he says, Hi, I’m And then looks to the side for a second, and then looks back, Tommy! Wanna play?
Craig: Yeah, that was really funny. I almost
Todd: fell out of my seat. That was hilarious. It was
Craig: hilarious.
And then, Kyle and Andy have some bonding time. Chucky kills Tommy with this, like, precious tchotchke that belongs to the foster mom, and so when they find it broken in the morning, the dad accuses the two kids and says, I know one of you did it, and they’re both like, no, we didn’t, and he’s like, okay, well, until you do.
Until somebody confesses, you’re both grounded. Kyle acts irritated for a while, but then, like, she doesn’t take it. Then the very next scene is her and Andy in the laundry room, like, hanging out and chatting. It’s fine. And Andy’s, like, joking around with her. He tells her some dumb joke, like, You wanna hear me say your name backwards?
And then he turns, he just turns his back to her and says her name. Like, stupid jokes, but totally something a kid would do. And they’re bonding, and then they’re out, like, outside, and Andy’s swinging, and she’s gardening, and Chucky is sitting in a chair, ominously, in the background, and eventually, Kyle wants to turn on the swing.
And she’s dragging her feet because Andy’s pushing her and she doesn’t want him to and you see that it’s right over the spot where Chucky buried Tommy and it’s starting to unearth him a little bit like Chucky’s eyes get big But they don’t find him at this point What I love about this movie is they don’t pussyfoot around like they get to things like the very next thing that happens is like Andy, well, his, his foster mother, who is very nice, you know, reads him a story.
And then he’s like, my other mom used to sing to me. And I don’t think that this was intentional comedy, but I laughed so hard because he’s like, will you sing to me? And she’s like, okay,
like she doesn’t
Todd: sing a song. She’s just like, starts
Craig: like doing some melodic riffing,
Todd: so
Craig: weird. There are songs in the public domain that you can use, you don’t have to pay, give her something to sing. So weird. But anyway, then he goes to sleep, and then he wakes up bound and gagged with Chucky
Todd: on top of him.
I love it how Chucky’s, uh, ropes of choice for binding anybody together are jump ropes. Yeah, hilarious. So cute. And
Craig: there’s just an unlimited supply of jump ropes. I
Todd: know, there’s at least four tying up his arms and legs right here.
Craig: Did you miss me, Andy? I sure missed you. I told ya, we were gonna be friends to the end.
And now, it’s time to play. I got a new game, sports.
Todd: It’s called Hide
Craig: the Soul and guess what, you’re it.
Ade due dembele. Ade due dembele. Like, it’s the same. I love it. I could do that whole chant for you because It’s the same every time.
Todd: It never changes. Yeah. Well, why
Craig: not? It, it, it eventually gets a little bit fancier, like way, way down the line, like there are like variations on it, but, um, it’s always that ah de do eh dim ba la thing.
And he starts to do it, but Kyle interrupts it. Now, this is one part of the movie that I take issue with. Yeah. Because this child is bound And gag, and Kyle appears to be under the impression that he did it to himself, which would be impossible, and then the parents come in because Kyle comes in because she’s coming through his window because she snuck out to go on her date because they were grounded, and the parents hear something coming on and they come in and they’re like, you tied him up so he wouldn’t tell on you, like, I don’t know.
What? No,
Todd: she did it. And he
Craig: is saying like, it’s Chucky. It’s Chucky. Please, please believe me. If you don’t believe me, he’ll kill you. Another thing that I love about Alex Vincent’s performance is he keeps like, he’s trying to be rational. Like he’s not even as. Erratic as maybe a real child would be. Yeah, for sure.
Guys, I’m serious. Like, he is a killer and
Todd: he will kill you. He’s remarkably adult about this in many ways, actually. Well, he’s matured a lot in the last couple of years. That’s true. He knows things. He’s matured
Craig: a lot, Pat. But the dad’s like, fine, I’ll get rid of it. And he throws it down in the cellar and locks the door.
He’s like, oh, there. See, it’s gone. No. Okay. So then Andy and Kyle go off to school the next day and they have a discussion outside of the or at the bus stop. She drops him off at the bus stop. And he, you know, he’s like, it wasn’t me. It was Chucky. And she brushes them off. And he says, you’re just like everybody else.
Nobody believes me. And I think that gives her pause. I don’t think that she believes him. Necessarily, but I think that it gives her pause. Yeah. You know what I’m saying?
Todd: Like, like, she realizes that this kid has nobody, somebody needs to be on his side in some way, shape, or
Craig: form. Yeah. Right. And then he goes to school, and I love the school scene, but you should talk about it, because I’d be interested to see, I want to hear it from your perspective.
I
Todd: love this scene, though. Oh yeah, this scene is great. You know, some kid’s flicking his head and the teacher’s being your typical douchey teacher as they are on these things. Like, well, I thought that the first thing on your mind, especially as a new kid, would be to get it to my good graces. And there’s this great shot where I guess everybody’s out for recess or something and Chucky’s inside the room and he’s looking through the papers like, where is it?
Where is it? Where is it? Like, what is this dog going to do with these like kids papers? After the teacher finishes bitching Andy out wrongly, She goes back to her desk and is flipping through the papers to hand back, and on Andy’s paper is scrawled in red crayon, Fuck you, bitch.
It was so funny. This movie can get away with this stuff, and it is super humorous, because it’s a doll. And this is just the joy that I found in this movie, and I hope it’s just gonna translate to all the ones that we do. I love this character, because he is like, A super frustrated angry adult stuck in a doll’s body and he just wants to freaking get out of it and it’s just everything is cursing and swearing and he just doesn’t give a shit about anything he just wants to do what he needs to do so he can get on with life and so whenever he’s cursing and he’s swearing and stuff it just comes across as really funny.
Well,
Craig: I, I think it’s blasphemous that we haven’t uttered the words Brad Dourif yet because when you were talking earlier about why you think this one was more successful than the many, many others, you’re right. And I, and, you know, fact check me, I don’t know, but this is the first time that I remember the doll or puppet or whatever having real character and talking and Brad Dourif is great.
It’s an over the top, shouty, maniacal performance, but in the body of a doll. It’s just, it’s just great. It’s fantastic. And Brad Dourif is a brilliant actor. Just brilliant. Oh yeah. Like watch him in one. Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He will break your heart. Oh. And he’s just really good. Anyway, so yeah, so the teacher, so the teacher sees the paper and keeps him, makes him stay, locks him in the room, locks him.
Oh my
Todd: God. I was, I was just shaking my head at this. Did we, did people ever really do this stuff? I guess probably. Maybe like my mom’s era. They
Craig: probably did, but yeah, she, but no, but didn’t that classroom, didn’t that classroom totally ring you back? Like, oh yeah. That’s exactly what my classroom looked like
Todd: when I was that age.
Exactly here. Same thing. The whole school, you know, it’s like this old, really well built old school with multiple floors and the classroom has a closet in it, like a full on walk in closet to keep things in. I was thinking of Invaders from Mars had the same classroom, Goonies, like all these older movies that they actually kind of have the same classroom.
Don’t they so just keep getting brought back to it and back to and back to and it was so much fun. So she tosses the doll inside the closet locks the closet And then she walks out of the room and locks the room and walks on down the hall He can’t get out and but chucky can get out of the closet. We don’t see what happens We just uh hear commotion and she comes into the room and can’t find the boy And she goes to the closet and of course thinks that he’s inside the closet because there’s noise and so she’s unlocks it and spends an Awful lot of time searching this tiny little closet for traces of Andy.
But no, Chucky springs out at her, she falls down and out of the closet. And that is the scene that you’re talking about where he comes storming out with the
Craig: ruler. A yardstick. Oh,
Todd: and I don’t remember what he said, but you know, it’s just, it’s just traces of how teachers would, and this teacher probably for sure, hit kids with rulers or yardsticks to get them to behave.
And what does he say, something like, you need to be taught a lesson or something? I don’t
Craig: remember. She’s on the ground because he knocked her down and he’s just kind of stomping towards her with this yardstick. It’s bold. And then you just. See him, but only like it cuts to outside the school. So you can just see this his silhouette in the window stabbing with this yardstick.
And I guess that they shot more brutal footage of that, but they ended up cutting it for whatever. Did he stab
Todd: her? Did he just hit her so many times?
Craig: I don’t know. I don’t think you could kill somebody by hitting them
Todd: with a yardstick. I don’t know. Maybe if it’s metal. Who knows? I don’t
Craig: know. But Andy shows up and he, he tells the foster parents that Chucky was at school and he had to run away and he ran out the window and he ran home.
And Phil, the dad, shows Andy that Chucky is quote unquote still in the basement. Now somehow, Chucky has gotten himself to and from school and is now back in the basement. It was the bus, I guess. We and Andy overhear another conversation where Phil says he wants to get rid of Andy, and Kyle comforts them.
Andy, I’ve lived with dozens of different families. And they always seem to send me away just when I’m getting comfortable. But you know what? What? Every time it happens, it just makes me stronger. Because it reminds me that the only one I can count on is myself. Okay, and you have to learn that now. And Andy says, it doesn’t matter, wherever I go, Chucky will find me.
It’s so bleak!
Todd: But, but it does, it does change something in him. It kind of like, he does get this notion, and good for him at this young age, like, maybe I do need to take matters into my own hands. I know! So we get this great fake out shot, it’s a point of view. And it’s this little hand that reaches up real fast and opens up the drawers in the kitchen and is closing them and is looking for a knife.
And it was about the third time that it happened that I was like, Wait a minute, that’s not Chucky’s hand. It’s too big. And it turns out, of course, to be Andy’s hand as the camera swoops around at just the right moment. And what Andy finds to use out of all the things in the kitchen It’s, it’s one of those electric knives?
Meat carvers.
Craig: What are the Yeah, it’s like what your, it’s like what your dad would carve
Todd: a turkey with. Like the, you know, normally in my house that thing was in a drawer or in a closet somewhere until maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas. Right. The one time we would have a giant ham, and although it’s perfectly easy to carve it with a regular knife, that’s why you bought that electric thing, you know, 40 years ago when they were in.
Right. These guys, they have it propped up and charging on the middle of the counter like they use it every day. Ha ha ha ha ha! But it’s cool. It’s a cool implement. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this in any of our movies yet. And so, uh, he picks it up and he starts to go to the basement. And sure enough, the Chucky’s not at the bottom of the stairs.
And then we get the creep around the basement looking for the doll scene, which was, uh, really effective. Like Yeah. It was
Craig: tense. Except for there’s all kinds of weird things down there. There’s like a, like, like a spindle, like the thing that Sleeping Beauty like pricked her finger on and there’s like a cigar store Indian down
Todd: there.
There’s all kinds. I did wonder if some of this was supposed to be little Easter eggs or little subliminal cues. I don’t know. That would make us think of other movies. It was that weird. You’re right, but a
Craig: series of events now happens very quickly. I think that Andy and Chucky fight down there for a little while and Chucky kind of gets Andy down on the ground, but then the dad hears something and he comes and when he opens the door.
Chucky skitters away. And so, the dad starts coming down the steps. Of course, Andy’s left there holding this carving knife, so he looks like a lunatic. The dad starts coming down the stairs, and Chucky uses, like, a giant fishing hook
Todd: spear. It’s like a harpoon!
Craig: Yeah. Um, to trip him, which causes him to fall down the stairs and be suspended upside down over the edge of the stairs for a moment.
Well, he’s, he’s deliberately
Todd: hooking his, his ankle with this spear to the
Craig: stair. Right, and then Just long, he’s only suspended there long enough so that he can see Chucky and see that he really is alive. And I think that Chucky says something like, How’s it hanging, Phil? Right. And then he, he removes the hook and so Phil falls directly on his head and he breaks his neck and dies.
I didn’t expect
Todd: that. I did by this, you know, a few minutes before I expected it, but I was, I did not think the father would die so quickly and so abruptly. Well, then everything
Craig: happens really fast because the mom comes down and she’s really upset and she tells Andy to stay away from her and the ambulance shows up and the foster care lady shows up and takes Andy away.
But Andy says to Kyle, he’s still in the basement. Don’t let him get you too. And so, Andy gets taken away, the ambulance and everything leaves, Kyle goes down to the basement, gets Chucky, takes him outside, throws him in the garbage can. Then, she goes and wistfully smokes on the swing. But while she’s swinging, her boot up earths something, and she reaches down and picks it up, and it’s Tommy.
And she, like, she, like, turns. Quickly back and looks at the garbage cans and we, and the music swells. We haven’t mentioned yet the score. The score is amazing. Oh yeah. I don’t know how to pronounce his name, but I think it’s Graham Ravel does the score. This was his first big cinematic score. He had previously done.
Oh, that Nicole Kidman on a boat movie dead calm. Which is another great movie that we should do someday, but probably we’ll never get around to. That was he, he had done that, but that was small. That was with a small ensemble. This he did with a full orchestra and it’s fantastic. Mm-Hmm. like it’s so good.
Like it’s continuous and it’s suit. It just establishes the mo, the tone. So well love this score. But anyway, she goes back up to the trash cans, pulls the lid off, and Chucky’s gone. And so she hears a commotion upstairs, she looks upstairs and sees the light on in the mom’s room and she yells for her, but then she goes up there and all we hear is the sewing machine, she comes around the corner in the room, everything is in disarray.
And the mom is dead. Chuckie has strangled her and killed her with the, with scissors. That one I didn’t see coming. The dad had set himself up as a butthole and buttholes usually get, get their comeuppance, but the mom was nothing but kind. And so that was surprising. Maybe that’s why she was killed off screen and we just saw the aftermath.
I don’t know. But Chuckie attacks, Kyle, they fight a little bit, but the
2025-05-15
