Killer dolls have been around dating back to folklore, and in mainstream movies since 1936’s “The Devil-Doll.” And newer characters like Annabelle and Brahms have carved out their niche. But the king is Chucky, a Good Guy doll possessed by Eighties serial killer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif, who has consistently voiced Chucky in parts of five decades).
While his status as the best killer doll is subjective, it’s undeniable that Chucky – invented by writer Don Mancini for 1988’s “Child’s Play” — is the most prominent. The gleefully nasty orange-haired menace has starred in seven films and three seasons of the legacy TV series “Chucky” under Mancini’s watch, plus an unrelated remake movie. Here are my rankings of the 11 installments.
11. “Child’s Play 3” (1991)
The saga is handcuffed by the slasher genre’s wane and parentally guided censorship in the same year the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lost their weapons. The third film makes poor choices such as jumping to the future and recasting Alex (Justin Whalen takes over for Alex Vincent), having Chucky’s murders happen off-screen, and replacing gleeful urban anarchy with the dour conformity of a boot camp. The film is so scared to be scary that it doesn’t even have memorable kills or gore.
10. “Chucky” Season 3 (2023-24)
Weak acting by the humans and lazy plotting make it feel like the saga has run its course. The show was canceled, with Mancini’s workaround for the former problem coming at the very end: The three teen leads become dolls. The premise is timely for an election year – the season is set in the White House, overseen by an independent president (Devon Sawa, who plays many roles in the series) – but it does little with that premise. The special-effects kills are memorable, though – one of them showing a new use for Dolly Madison’s letter opener.
9. “Chucky” Season 2 (2022)
It has an appealing setting of a religious school, a sort of horror-meets-Hogwarts. And it explores religious persecution against gay kids better than Season 3 lampoons politics, but still pulls its punches. The TV series never knows when to lean into its strengths; a prime example here is the underused Bella Higginbotham as a teen with an actual personality who is fun to watch. When Chucky kills her, the quality immediately plummets. Another standout in this season of multiple personalities is Good Chucky, the first sympathetic version of the doll and further evidence of Dourif’s vocal-acting range.
8. “Child’s Play” (2019)
This remake was legally possible because the studio, rather than Mancini, owns the original film. To its credit, it does a modern sci-fi reimagining, focusing on the tragedy of a robot doll that doesn’t have demonic intentions, but simply doesn’t grasp the nuances of right and wrong. And if you have to replace Dourif, Mark Hamill is a good choice among voice-acting legends. The downside is, ironically, the use of the Chucky brand name; it makes us compare the film to the superior original. It might’ve been better to call it “Buddi” (the name of the Good Guy doll line here). “M3gan” would use this same premise four years later and create a new franchise.
7. “Curse of Chucky” (2013)
The highs are quite high in the sixth film, led by the introduction of a great new lead, Nica (Brad’s daughter Fiona Dourif), who gives us another type of outsider: someone confined to a wheelchair. Mancini gets stylish and even Hitchcockian with the rat-poison dinner-table scene. Mostly, this is a respectable riff on the curse films of the era; in fact, it came out a year before “Annabelle.” (The off-screen “curse” is that “Chucky” had become a cult series, so this movie went straight to video.) The lows are pretty hard to forgive, though, notably Nica being successfully framed for Chucky’s crimes even though she could not have physically committed them.
6. “Chucky” Season 1 (2021)
Though not smoothly plotted, indicating that Mancini struggles with long-form storytelling, the TV show’s debut season is its best simply because it’s fun to see legacy characters – like Andy (Vincent), the boy from the O.G. film — parade across the screen. And in flashbacks, we see the formative years of Charles Lee Ray. Advances in animatronic and CGI effects allow robust screen time for the titular doll, which is wonderful. The decision to focus on three teens played by actors who can’t act (and Mancini’s obsession with reminding us that two of them are a gay couple) is unfortunate, and will consistently be the series’ Achilles heel.
5. “Cult of Chucky” (2017)
Rather than causing viewer frustration with the trope that no one believes the people raving about killer dolls, the seventh (and last, for now) Mancini film gets old-school psych-ward horror out of it by placing Nica in an asylum. She’s joined by other colorfully deranged types and no less than four versions of Chucky running around. Plus, Alex gets genuine character exploration: He survived his childhood horrors, but because he’s famous (or infamous) for them, he struggles to live a life where people treat him normally.
4. “Seed of Chucky” (2004)
For the fifth and most divisive entry, I land slightly on the positive side. Mancini directs for the first time and goes full comedy. Though he’d take this too far later (including a bad “Chucky” Season 2 episode that’s too meta for its own good), at this point it’s a giddy ride. “Seed” skewers Hollywood, with Jennifer Tilly and Redman having a blast playing “themselves” as a desperate actor and producer, respectively. While Mancini’s sympathies for gay characters are so close to his vest that he struggles to laugh about it, he doesn’t have that issue with the trans doll(s) Glen/Glenda, whose gender can’t be determined since they are dolls, and who will eventually give “they” a humorous double meaning.
3. “Child’s Play 2” (1990)
This is the same doll-on-the-loose plot as the original, with Alex now a teenage orphan, teamed up with a cool foster sister, Kyle (Christine Elise), who knows “The only person you can count on is yourself.” Chucky, and voice actor Dourif (also great in “Exorcist III” the same year), become iconic as the doll absolutely cuts loose with violent kills, culminating in a grand finale at a toy factory. Yes, it’s more of the same, but it’s much more of the same. The filmmakers embrace advancements in animatronics, making the first sequel a favorite of those who come for the slasher kills.
2. “Child’s Play” (1988)
Equal parts shlock and innovation, this creation of writer Mancini codifies the killer-doll subgenre. Respected horror director Tom Holland captures wintry Chicago grit that fits the low-budget DIY vibe, including one infamous (yet awesome) scene where the doll is played by a little person. If you’ve never seen the movie, you’ll still know it’s about a killer doll and a boy no one believes, because you’ve absorbed it via pop-culture osmosis. Though it’s most loved by people who experienced it at a formative age, it remains a subversive time-capsule of the Cabbage Patch Kids craze and timelessly crafty entertainment.
1. “Bride of Chucky” (1998)
As happened with many franchises, “Chucky” got a post-“Scream” revival and writer Mancini runs with it, helped by Ronny Yu, who would further show his legacy-directing chops in “Freddy vs. Jason.” We jump from the era where sequels rehash the same plot into an era where creativity is allowed. Chucky and Tiffany (Tilly) make for adorable serial-killer lovebirds, and the horror homages that would go on to litter the saga are still fresh when the human Tiffany gets warped into the doll form via electrocution right after she watches “Bride of Frankenstein.” The human plot is equally engaging in this fourth film, with John Ritter as the overbearing father of Katherine Heigl. The kills (face-full of nails) and one-liners (“I wouldn’t talk if I were you!”) zing, and the “Chucky” saga has never been more fun.