First trailer for the Child's Play reboot comes with a cryptic, clue-filled website
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Not to be confused with the Child’s Play TV show from the original creators, or that other movie about toys come to life that’s opening on the same day, the movie we’re here to discuss is a reboot of Child’s Play that looks much more beholden to its source material than we originally thought. Sure, as the above trailer shows, the doll now scans its owners with a sickly red light before playtime, but he’s still donning stripes, overalls, a mop of stringy red hair, and a dang butcher knife.
He’s also named Chucky, not Buddi, as early glimpses of the film led us to believe. Buddi, it appears, is the toy’s branding, which comes from a futuristic corporation called Kaslan. This tech company is featured heavily in the trailer, which hits some pretty familiar beats as it introduces Aubrey Plaza’s put-upon mother and Brian Tyree Henry’s befuddled detective, but, interestingly, there’s more to see on an accompanying website for the fictional company.
For example, CEO Henry Kaslan (played here by Tim Matheson) appears with a video announcing the creation of Buddi. “We set out to develop the greatest and most interactive toy on the market, but in doing so we did created something far more special,” he begins. “Every child is important to us and every child deserves a companion, a friend that will never let you down. It’s my great honor to introduce you to our most innovative product to date: Buddi. He’s more than a toy, he’s your best friend.”
What the Child’s Play reboot presupposes is, maybe he’s not?
Anyways, a cursory click-through of the Kaslan site reveals the company to be specialists in cloud-based, interactive products, from Roomba-like vacuums to Echo-like digital assistants. As such, expect techno-horror concerns to dwarf any supernatural (or voodoo-based) ones in this reboot.
Still, they’ve got a big-ass mountain to climb without the legendary Brad Dourif voicing the killer doll. Nevertheless, director Lars Klevberg Child’s Play beep-boops its way into theaters on June 21
77 Comments
Aight, is this doll gonna be CG or animatronic? The last little shadowy shot in the trailer seemed to imply the Chuckster would still be bobbling around in all his herky-jerky glory.And I’m definitely not sold on the new take that it’s a laser-shooting robot doll. I guess that increases the number of ways he can violently fuck you up, but the more the filmmakers try to make us take Chucky uber-seriously, the less these movies work. And making him a 100% joke doesn’t work either, as we’ve seen. There’s a balance here, I’m thinking 60% joke, 40% insane violence.
The laser light looked like one of those scan guns you use in retail to scan inventory, or at a register. It seemed almost more like that; not a weaponized laser but more like it was a robotic doll that was scanning the child for information.
And yes, I think there has to be a bit of a balance. I’m not sure it has to be a joke-to-insane-violence ratio, although that seems to have been what works. Something that balances out the horror and violence with the creepy/uncanny valley factor, ala. The Twilight Zone “Living Doll” episode would be a big part. I think the jokes and dark humor of the original works because it’s an absurd premise, however the right voice actor seems important for that. I mean, it should be easy enough to outrun or out-muscle a doll. Even if you’re a kid, and even if it has a knife, physics would be on your side. Brad Dourif did a good job of selling the whole package. And if you go too serious, or at least too straight-forward, the murderous-possessed-doll trope tends to come up lacking. Go slapstick and I think you lose what makes the concept at all compelling? But to me, I think the dark comedy and jokes are best treated as a bit of a smoke screen. Similar to Freddy Krueger and Robert Englund’s use of humor (although I recall the original one was more straight-forward, and after a while they made the character too comedic). When they hit a good balance, the humor worked as a bit of a misdirect or as a counter to the violence inherent in the character. Sort of like in boxing where the jabs set you up by getting you to expect one thing, then you throw in a hook or uppercut to catch you off guard.
By the time Freddy’s dead came out, Freddy puts a kid into a NES game and kills him.
Yeah, I’m going to go out on a limb say that was maybe a little too far over the top.
I really enjoyed Wes Craven’s A New Nightmare. I bring that up because it was more grounded (relatively speaking) and they toned the comedy and shtick down quite a bit.
Really, I think it’s less about the jokes as much as personality. Chucky has been portrayed as having a warped sense of humor that is different yet sort of on the same level as the Joker. They tell jokes that nobody laughs at because they are being told by somebody with intentions to murder them, and yet it adds a dimension to the character. I think the ridiculousness of the set up makes a certain level of comedy more natural in Child’s Play, but go too far and you take a horror movie and turn it into a farce. But Robert Englund’s Freddy works not because of the jokes or the need to push things into farcical territory, but because he injects some personality into him. Ditto with Hannibal Lecter, Dexter, probably most villains. Mindless killing machines tend to be less compelling. I am not sure walking joke factories with sharp objects are inherently better.
Brecken Meyer of all people
This is giving me a ‘Small Soldier’s vibe.Action figures are given a military grade chip by accident.Fast-forwarded through movie on purpose.
Yeah, I suspect you might be right. I do like some of the talent involved in the movie, and the trailer is ambiguous about who or what Chucky is. But that lack of any origin or any sense of the doll’s personality, along with the scanning light, gives me a similar “robotic technology gone wrong” either along the lines of an accidental military upgrade or some sort of programming/AI trope (ala. Terminator/Skynet…in doll form?).
I suppose it could work, but I cannot say that thinking that out in my head that it sounds all that appealing. I guess any optimism over a reboot of Child’s Play is going to rely heavily on my fondness for Aubrey Plaza and Brian Tyree Henry (which, to be fair, is pretty high for both of them).
I’m guessing the scan is facial recognition so the AI doll recognizes his “best friend.” Before killing him.
It’s actually Chucky’s older sister this time
Kimi!?!?
Spoiler: it turns out Chucky’s switch was set to “evil” instead of “good.”
What about the free frogurt that comes with it?
The frogurt is cursed.
The frogurt contains potassium benzoate.
The frogurt is also cursed.
It was cursed, but you got your choice of toppings.
aubrey plaza already down to mom roles. sheesh.
But she’s a cool mom that buys her kid crazy expensive electronic toys she can’t afford from strange looking homeless men in back alleys.
I just want you to know, if you ever need anything, don’t be shy, OK? There are NO rules in the house. I’m not like a regular mom, I’m a cool mom.
I think you quoted that verbatim from the MILF porn I wanked it to this morning.
It’s a quote from Mean Girls! The best comedy of all time
What a coincidence! I recently wanked it to that one, too!
Turns out women in their mid 30’s can have 10 year old kids.
https://youtu.be/JBcKAg4bDQo
Didn’t MTV have 2 TV shows dedicated to that premise?
Yeah, but “Perfectly reasonable age to have a kid” didn’t do so well in ratings compared to “Teen Mom”.
True, and this wouldn’t be much of an issue if Hollywood didn’t have a tradition of relegating actresses over the age of 30 to mom roles.
I’d be more concerned about her being relegated to a “horror movie reboot role”.
She’s 34 years old.
That’s too young to have a 13 year old kid, which is the age of the actor playing Andy.
Look, I understand the concern of someone being cast as a mom, but as you might know, 21 year olds can and often do have kids.
I know young moms exist, it’s just this sort of casting is too much of a pattern (like giving the male main character a female love interest 20 years their junior), to not side my eyes at it.
I’m aware of that pattern, but as of right now, that pattern doesn’t exist here.
We don’t know the age of his character (could be younger) and that’s certainly not too young to have a kid that age anyway. I know a number of 30 something moms with teens/pre-teens. Not everyone waits to have kids (whether on purpose or by surprise). We don’t know the story here so it seems like a weird nitpick.
I’m going to repeat a comment I already made, but, this wouldn’t be much of an issue if Hollywood didn’t have a tradition of relegating actresses over the age of 30 to mom roles.
While generally this is a problem I agree with I’ll again say we don’t know the story here. Maybe Aubrey wanted to play a mom and sought out that kind of role? Maybe the movie specifically explains that she was a young mother who got pregnant earlier than planned. We’ll have to see how it plays out but just because she’s playing a mom role doesn’t mean it’s the same case as the usual “She’s over 30 and can only be mom characters now” type of thinking.
A 34-year-old mom of a 13-year-old would be 21 when she had the kid. That’s not that unusual.Also, 13 is too fucking old to be playing with a Chucky doll, no matter how much A/I is packed into the thing.
Yeah, the kid’s age is a bigger problem. I know the character is supposed to be 10, but that might even be a little old for a doll like that.
If my 10-year-old son REALLY wanted a “Good Guys” doll, I’d consider it (after first making sure it was not possessed by a murderous fugitive), but I’d also have to say to him, “aren’t you too old for dolls? How about some nice action figures, instead?”
Yeah no kidding. Why on earth would this kid want a fucking doll?
Well Chucky, or Buddi, or whatever, is a distinct step up from the original reboot concept, which was to feature a doll named Vipps.
I feel like there’s nothing less encouraging in a trailer than the words “from the producer of…”Hooray, the prudent financiers and managers behind another financially successful movie are back! Rest assured consumers, this movie will likely be good enough to bring in positive returns at the box office!
Right?
We’re getting to the point where a trailer is going to pull some bullshit where it opens with, “From the species who brought you chocolate and pornography, comes a new film…”
I like the idea of pulling horror from the idea of surrogate parenting via technology, if they try to go that route. Hard to tell from the trailer though.
Orion Pictures is back???
Trailer looks … fine, I guess, so I’ll reserve judgment. I’m surprised at how anti-reboot some people are about this—I had no idea the many terrible sequels had such a cult following. I’m glad they’re at least continuing that for those people’s sake, but I’m MUCH more open to the idea of a decent reboot.
Both Curse and Cult of Chucky are pretty positively reviewed and well regarded in the horror community so I don’t necessarily think it’s fair to call them “terrible.”
They’re removing his iconic voice, making him a malfunctioning robot instead of a serial killer, and making it serious rather than a dark comedy. That’s very bad for a reboot, they’re gutting everything Chucky out of it and just making a bad knockoff but using the brand name for some reason. I don’t get why you would think it’s going to be decent.
So wait, now Chucky is a killer robot?
They dont seem to be clear on that yet. The doll is certainly robotic to an extent but we dont know if Chucky will be a robot gone rogue or a possessed toy yet.
That Westworld is so hot right now!
In Chucky 2 this killer robot will be the hero, while the evil one will be made our of liquid metal.It will need a Guns n Roses track
Judging by the scene in the store it’s gonna be like Gremlins attacking the town. The real Chucky is the leader like Stripe.
meh
None of theses 80’s reboots will amount to shit until the writers and producers adopt the true spirit of the time in which the original was made.And by that I mean start taking massive amounts of cocaine.
Killer Dolls is a premise that only works of your a kid. Chucky only works if you were a kid in the 80’s who grew up with My Buddy. I don’t know maybe they have a good idea here…it certainly wasn’t in the trailer.
That’s the thing, Chucky could only be a credible threat to toddlers and babies, I mean, even the kid that’s now playing Andy can take him out; that’s the thing Slappy from Ghostbumps does right, he hides and only attacks children.
I had a My Buddy! I would use him as a body swap at dinner to try and sneak away…4 year old me still has no idea why it never worked lmao. The trailer was fine but Audrey Plaza pretty has it set in stone that I’ll at least go to the $5 matinee first thing one morning.
True enough, Chucky scared the fuckin’ shit out of me as a kid, but only in poster form and on the VHS covers in the video rental store. I didn’t watch the movies until I was 13, and then I finally, easily, put those childhood nightmares to bed for good.
Now the sequel will be a younger, and sometimes fluid, chucky trying to kill the son of the kid in this movie. BUT! Chucky (from this movie) shows up FROM THE FUTURE, and is now a totally good guy. . .and saves the day by sending fluid Chucky into a giant incinerator (similar to that scene in Toy Story 3). . . .Boom. Somebody pay me money.
If Jon Gruden doesn’t cameo in this movie I’ve lost all hope for us.
So is the remake doing away w/the supernatural aspect and making this Chucky more of a murderously malfunctioning A/I?If that’s the case, any sequels need to work in a Haley Joel Osment cameo.
Ugh. Now that IT did well, we are going to start rebooting every old horror movie. Hollywood is at rock bottom when it comes to fresh new ideas.
I checked IMDB to see if the Chucky voice actor is going to be in this (he’s not listed so I guess no), and found out that he has been in a ton of big TV series (Xfiles, Fringe, AOS, Star Trek, and a bunch of others, and was in a LOTR movie too), AND THAT HE IS THE GRUMPY DOCTOR IN DEADWOOD.
I still laugh at this: “It’s f***ing Chuckie!
Lets be honest.If there was a child’s toy that operated off of cloud technology, it would start chanting “Build That Wall” or spouting racist memes within five minutes of booting up.
It would automatically subscribe you to Logan Paul and PewDiePie stuff.
Judging by the scene in the store it’s gonna be like Gremlins attacking the town. The real Chucky is the leader like Stripe.
Ugh another dumb horror reboot that’ll go nowhere.Hollywood if you are listening. No more reboots, no more prequels no more spinoffs. Just do a frikkin sequel!
Oh… Aubrey no. Please no. I love her too much to see her do shit like this.Especially after all her insanely awesome work on Legion.This trailer seriously looks like a boardroom decision come to life.“We need to reboot more franchises because nostalgia sells!” kinda shit. Sigh. It looks fucking awful.
I’m really excited about this. I love the original Child’s Play, but the sequels really didn’t do much for me (I do recall the second being decent, though). Where the first movie had some humor, it played the concept pretty seriously, while the rest of the movies just went way too ridiculous. And the voodoo stuff just hasn’t aged well. This trailer really hit the right notes for me. Excited to see if they can stick the landing.
I agree ..you get it
They were trying to show something above her head going to kill her? Looked like a piece of wood slowly going above her. Nothing to be that concerned about. Maybe they should have shown a bit more there. So why are they Westworlding this franchise?
So it’s like iRobot except with Good Guy Dolls that are robots?
I found the trailer for the new Pet Sematary scary enough to make me want to see the film.This one only seems to promise the blandest run-of-the-mill schlock and bloodbath.
☹ No thanks, i do prefer Seriff Woody as my friend.Jk. Can’t wait to watch it.