Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Chucky’ On Syfy And USA Network, Where The Murderous Doll Terrorizes A New Generation Of Victims

The Child’s Play franchise has had a good, long life — the original film came out way back in 1988. (Raise your hand if you were EVEN ALIVE then.) But it’s also current, with the most recent film — Cult of Chucky — coming out only four years ago. Details from that film will feed into the new USA/Syfy series Chucky, which will be run by Don Mancini, the franchise’s creator. But will Chucky be as scary — or as creepily funny — on a basic cable budget?

CHUCKY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A radio broadcast says “3 bodies were found by the Hackensack Mall last night bringing the total to 11.” Out of someone’s eyes, we hear them breathing as they climb up the stairs and see them looking at a young woman brushing her hair.

The Gist: We then see a Good Guy doll with red hair open its eyes. It’s lying down on a table at a yard sale in Hackensack. Jake Webber (Zackary Arthur) picks up the doll for ten bucks and brings it home as he listens to the “Hackenslash” podcast by his classmate Devon Lopez (Bjorgvin Arnarson) — whom he has a little crush on.

The doll is going to help Jake with his creepy sculpture made from baby doll parts. But he can’t get the head off; then it turns on and introduces himself: “I’m Chucky, wanna play?” His dad Lucas (Devon Sawa) isn’t impressed; but he’s been depressed since Jake’s mom died and his business tanked. When he has his much more successful twin brother Logan (Sawa), his wife Bree (Lexa Doig) and overachieving cousin Junior (Teo Briones) over, the night goes poorly, especially when Junior brings up that Jake is gay. Lucas is so enraged that he bashes the sculpture to pieces.

Jake looks to sell the Chucky doll, and brings it to school for safekeeping; of course, the presence of the massive redheaded doll gives new ammo to the people who already torture him during the school day. One of them is Junior’s girlfriend, Lexy Taylor (Alyvia Alyn Lind), who snidely starts a GoFundMe to help him out of “poverty”. Lexy is the first person to see Chucky move from his spot and stare her down, but biology teacher Miss Fairchild (Annie Briggs) comes in with the principal before anything happens.

Jake has Chucky locked up but then he get a warning from a potential buyer to check the doll’s batteries. He then does an internet search and finds the urban legend of the doll and serial killer Charles Lee Ray. It somehow breaks out of its lockup and returns to Jake’s house; he takes a look and… no batteries.

Jake then finds the doll sitting behind him at a school talent show, with a much deeper voice (Brad Dourif), and Chucky and Jake roast Lexy with her lost cell phone on stage. It’s then when Jake finds out that he and Chucky are “friends to the end,” with everything that implies, even if that includes a “death by misadventure.”

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There is no show or movie Chucky reminds us of other than the Child’s Play movie franchise. What, is there another killer doll series that comes to mind right away?

Our Take: Bringing Chucky to the small screen requires a bit of creativity. The language can be just as harsh, given that basic cable has loosened its language rules over the past few years. But the blood and gore needs to be a little more basic cable friendly. Fortunately, with Child’s Play screenwriter Don Mancini aboard as the showrunner (he also directed the first episode), that bit of creativity is handled well.

Really, the scariest part about Chucky is that it’s a creepy doll that sneaks up on people, murders them in creative ways, then curses them out. And Chucky’s first kill is certainly creative. It doesn’t make a ton of sense, but it’s creative. It is a signal of what Mancini and his writers have in store, which is a scary show that doesn’t take its scares completely seriously. It also helps that Dourif is back as Chucky’s iconic, Danny DeVito-esque New Jersey voice.

Mancini is trying to build a world around Jake, and it’s admirable that he’s made this version of Hackensack a diverse, inclusive place. Jake is probably the least defined of the major characters; he likes Devon, he makes creepy doll part sculptures, but that’s about it. We know Bree has a secret, and Junior pretty much hates his cousin (the feeling is mutual). So the first episode sets up a bunch of story possibilities between Jake and his family and classmates, especially with Chucky there to kill on his behalf.

There’s another piece of this story that will be even more interesting; people in Charles Lee Ray’s life are going to filter back into Chucky’s universe. We’re curious to see how Chucky operates when his alter ego is confronted with the people he thought he escaped by transferring his soul into that weird Good Guy doll.

The Chucky puppetry is pretty well done, given the basic cable budget; we’re not sure how the killings will look, but again, the creativity needed to make them safe for cable will also make them less expensive to create.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: We go back to the scene where the heavy breathing thing is watching a woman brush her hair through his eyes. He sees himself in the mirror and we see it’s Charles Lee Ray as a kid (David Kohlsmith). A graphic says “Hackensack, 1965”.

Sleeper Star: Bjorgvin Arnarson is the wild card as Devon. His fake podcast shows that he’s a pretty poised kid, and it does seem like he’s into Jake. Will Jake protect him against Chucky?

Most Pilot-y Line: The way Jake carries Chucky around, like he’s a small child, is so weird, especially when he brings it to school. He might as well have put a target on his back.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Chucky adds some fun story elements to the “murdering doll” dynamic, bringing the franchise back to it’s earliest days, when we found out how Charles Lee Ray became a belligerent, knife-wielding, redheaded doll.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Chucky On Syfy.com

Stream Chucky On USANetwork.com