As the daughter of Chucky franchise special effects artist Tony Gardner, director Kyra Elise Gardner offers a unique perspective on the killer doll’s lasting impact in the SCREAMBOX Original documentary Living with Chucky.
Child’s Play creator Don Mancini and franchise alumni Brad Dourif, Jennifer Tilly, Fiona Dourif, Alex Vincent, Christine Elise, Billy Boyd, John Waters, Tony Gardner, David Kirschner, and more spill their guts along with such notable fans as Marlon Wayans, Abigail Breslin, Lin Shaye, and Dan Povenmire, among others.
Here are 9 things I learned from Living with Chucky.
1. Gremlins helped pave the way for Child’s Play.
A lifelong horror fan, Don Mancini wrote the first Child’s Play script — originally titled Batteries Not Included, then Blood Buddy — while attending UCLA. “I realized that no one had ever done the living doll thing as a full-fledged feature where you treat the doll as a character who can actually emote and you can give him pages of dialogue,” he recalls.
Mancini was motivated by the Cabbage Patch Kids craze, consumerism targeted at children, and the animatronic work in Gremlins. He also drew inspiration from the horror movies he grew up watching. “I especially loved Brian De Palma movies, like Carrie and Dressed to Kill and The Fury. And I gravitated to writing because it was cheaper.”
2. Producer David Kirshner gave Chucky his name and backstory.
While vacationing in London, producer David Kirshner bought Betty Ren Wright’s 1948 novel, The Dollhouse Murders. “The idea of dolls coming to life scared me to death when I was a little kid,” he notes, citing Talky Tina from the classic The Twilight Zone episode, “Living Doll.”
Looking for a change of pace after working on Don Bluth’s animated classic, An American Tail, Kirshner opted to pursue a doll-based horror movie. He purchased the rights to Mancini’s script, despite several studios having already passed on it. He then worked on the script himself before John Lafia and director Tom Holland each did a pass.
It was Kirshner who introduced the voodoo possession backstory. Inspired by the real-life killers who haunted his childhood — notorious cult leader Charles Manson, John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, and Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray — he named the antagonist Charles Lee Ray. From there, Chucky was born.
3. Fairy tales and Jack Nicholson influenced Chucky’s look.
Mancini wrote Chucky’s red hair into the script, based on the archetype that redheads are evil. “Of course we know redheads are the nicest people in the world, but in fairy tales, they are harbingers of evil!” he laughs.
As Chucky becomes more human over the course of the first movie, so too do the doll’s features. “He kind of changed from the mop-haired guy to a bit of a receding hairline,” Kirshner explains. “A lot of Jack Nicholson, honestly, was my inspiration, from The Shining, for that face.”
4. Alex Vincent has complicated feelings about Child’s Play 3.
Child’s Play 3 was greenlit before Child’s Play 2 had wrapped principal photography. “When I heard that we were making a third one, I assumed that I would be in it,” remarks Alex Vincent, who starred as Andy Barclay in the first two films.
Much to fans’ dismay, that was not the case. “I wasn’t old enough. I was only 10 at the time. They wanted him to be 16 and have a girlfriend and be in military school.” Justin Whalin was cast in the role, which Vincent describes as “a bit of a tough pill to swallow” for a child actor.
“I saw it when it came out and I thought, “Yeah, okay, maybe I’ll look like that when I’m 16,'” says Vincent. The two have never met, but Vincent thinks Whalin did “a fine job” and calls the threequel “fun.”
5. Tony Gardner used VHS freeze frames to replicate Chucky.
Kevin Yagher is the special effects technician responsible for crafting Chucky for Child’s Play (on which he met his wife, actress Catherine Hicks) and its first three sequels. When it came time to make Seed of Chucky on a lower budget than the previous installment, however, he was unable to reach a deal with Universal to return.
“[The studio] wouldn’t budge,” Kirshner laments. “They were unfair to someone who had been really loyal and had done a great job.” Kirshner turned to Tony Gardner — with whom he had previously worked on Hocus Pocus — to fill the imperative position. Despite an initial hesitancy, Gardner signed on and never looked back, continuing to work on the franchise to this day.
“It was sort of an odd start for us, because we were supposed to copy Kevin Yagher’s puppets, but we had no resources from Universal or from Kevin,” Gardner explains. “All we had to go from was VHS copies of the movie. We would freeze the VHS copy of the movie and we would take stills off of the TV, and that was our point of reference.”
Gardner and his team had three months to build Chucky, Tiffany, and the new Glen/Glenda character before heading to Romania for the shoot. Tony was able to bring four of his puppeteers from the US to team up with another 15 from the UK in order to bring Chucky to life on set.
6. LGBTQ+ viewers have embraced the franchise’s queer themes.
Mancini, an openly gay creator, introduced the franchise’s first character gay character in Bride of Chucky. Beyond the “write what you know” adage, Mancini was amused by “the idea of turning what had become a cultural icon on its head and making the franchise be almost like an ambassador for gay horror fans.”
When it came time to write Seed of Chucky, Mancini was interested in further exploring queer themes with Chucky and Tiffany’s transgender kid, Glen/Glenda. “In my mission to make the franchise gayer,” he chuckles, “we address this in a movie that maybe the audience wasn’t ready for. Now, people are more interested in that.” Indeed, the LGBTQ+ community has embraced the once-maligned sequel’s ahead-of-its-time representation as well as its campy charms.
“I really love Glen. I think he’s really funny, but I also find him poignant in a way. When we were making the movie, there were times where I’d be like, ‘Oh, this is kind of sad,'” Mancini says, mentioning the scene in which Glen “kills” Chucky.
“Don, in a strange way through the Chucky movies, he sort of educates and makes people feel compassion for people that are not like themselves,” Tilly testifies. “I think gay people always liked horror movies because they’re drama queens,” laughs Waters.
7. Fiona Dourif auditioned for a different Curse of Chucky character.
Following in her father’s footsteps, Fiona Dourif had established herself as a budding actress by the time Curse of Chucky came around. She originally read for the role of Barb, the catty older sister ultimately played by Danielle Bisutti, but Mancini thought she could pull off the lead role of Nica Pierce. After three auditions, she earned the part.
“When I was cast in [Curse of Chucky], I was nervous that I wasn’t going to take it seriously, because on set there’s this moving, walking puppet, and they play my dad’s voice,” Fiona explains. “I was like, ‘I think you guys are just going to have to say the words, ’cause he sounds like my dad.'”
Mancini decided to use the recording of Brad’s voice, as is tradition, which ended up being for the best. “There was something so unnerving about it,” the actress divulges. “Having my dad’s voice was helpful, ultimately. It was really creepy.”
“Thank you,” the Dourif patriarch deadpans.
8. Christine Elise was considered for a different part in Curse of Chucky.
Before reprising her role as Kyle from Child’s Play 2 in Cult of Chucky‘s post-credit scene, Christine Elise nearly played a different part in the prior installment. Mancini had considered casting her as Nica’s mother, Sarah, ultimately played by Chantal Quesnelle in Curse of Chucky.
After the overwhelmingly positive fan reaction to Vincent returning in Curse of Chucky‘s post-credit sequence, Mancini decided to bring Elise back as Kyle. “I’m glad it didn’t work out, because I’m really happy to have come back as Kyle,” Elise comments. “It’s a character that I am fond of. That part of my life is something I was super nostalgic about.”
The actress even brought back the black leather hat she wore in Child’s Play 2 from her personal wardrobe. She has also worn it in other productions, including her stint on Beverly Hills, 90210. “It’s the single most important memorabilia from my career that I have, and it’s weird because I owned it before I was an actor.”
9. Chucky is a family.
The theme of family runs throughout Living with Chucky, from literal relatives like the Dourifs and Gardners to the familial bonds formed among cast and crew members, with Don Mancini serving as the figurehead.
Atypical for a horror franchise and virtually unheard of at a studio level, the Child’s Play series has been shepherded by the same creative force since the beginning in Mancini. Kirshner has been right beside him for 35 years, and the two have remained loyal through all the ups and downs.
After the poor reception to Seed of Chucky, Chucky laid dormant for until returning with the direct-to-video quasi-reboot, Curse of Chucky. Mancini notes, “It would have been absolutely de rigueur for the people in charge to say, ‘Okay, it’s time to get some new blood in here now, ’cause that didn’t work out so well.’ But David didn’t. He stayed loyal to me.”
Mancini describes making a Chucky movie as “constantly traumatic, but that’s a bonding experience.” The feeling is mutual with Kirshner, who praises Mancini every chance he gets. “He works so hard. He cares so much. I’ve never worked with a director that does not lose his cool. There is very much a wonderful familial flavor to it.”
Watch Living With Chucky on SCREAMBOX now.
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