Child's Play : La Poupée du mal

Saw the new Child's Play tonight. At first I was like naw, not gonna see it but then I decided to give it a chance. Glad I did, I liked it. It was able to keep the flavor and fun of the original but tell the story in a new way so you don't feel you're just watching a remake. You may actually feel bad for Chucky at times so that right there tells you it's a bit different.

At first I didn't like new Andy because he's older and seemed stupid to give an older kid a doll but the doll is evolved too, with tech that even older kids can find fun. The kid who plays Andy is good as are the other kids. Mom and the detective fit the roles nice and very different from the original characters which I think was smart. If they'd tried to just copy the originals it wouldn't have worked because we'd always compare them.

I don't want to give anything away but I'll just say thanks to the Kasden cloud storage I think we may see sequels, and I'm ok with that.

Buddi is a doll produced by the Kaslan Corporation. It's a high-tech companion that can connect to the myriad of Kaslan products. A disgruntled employee turns off all the safeguards in one of the dolls. Karen Barclay (Aubrey Plaza) is a struggling single mom to hearing impaired Andy. She is desperate to get a Buddi and the store cashier takes a damaged returned doll from her workplace. The doll insists on being called Chucky. Detective Mike Norris (Brian Tyree Henry) is the son of the Barclays' neighbor. Chucky, with the bad programming, starts killing and Detective Mike investigates.

This is NOT Chucky. This is not the franchise. This is all wrong. The doll is ugly AF. Chucky is a beautiful horror icon. If one overlooks those stuff, this is actually a well-made horror movie. It seems to dabble in some camp but mostly, it's a sincere horror. Before watching it, I had full expectation of an ugly mess. The first visual is the ugly mug of the doll and it seems to be well on its way. Somehow, the camp slowly faded and it gets replaced by a competent effort in all areas. The kids are great rooting interest. Aubrey Plaza is a fine mom with an edge. I am struck by the sense that the movie is in good hands. I have never seen anything from this director but maybe I will keep an eye out for him in the future.

One of the best horror movies ever made and my favourite film of the year so far. Having very low expectations for remakes and not watching the trailer gave me very little reasons to be hyped for this film but the end result is complete satisfaction.

In an era where horror movies are released every other week and is now the favourite cake of the town we have seen many reboots, new experiments like Hereditary and also monster horrors like A Quite Place. Child's Play is uniquely great because it doesn't compromise in violence and is strictly made only for adults. Gabriel Bateman is the star of the film and has given an another great performance as a weird child after his role in Lights Out. Audrey Plaza doesn't have much screen time in this film and is mostly just a supporting cast.

Lars Klevberg shows us a possible future of AI takeover and the dangers of too much sophisticated technology. The way children today spend more time in phones rather than playing in grounds or reading books is one of the biggest tragedies of our time, Klevberg subtly shows how it could lead to a collapse of a society. Poor labour rights, Abusive bosses, excessive technology and the flaws of capitalism are well highlighted in the movie and effectively are the reasons we get to the horror part.

A remake, but certainly not in the traditional sense. Sure there is some resemblance with the original, but it has a complete new origin story for Chucky, to name just one thing. This one is Completely able to stand alone, in my opinion! Well done, I enjoyed it!

I wouldn't exactly say this was a remake in the sense of its a direct rehash of the original. It's more the case of the original idea had been given to develop by today's standards. It in fact, greatly improves upon the original. A very clever observation on society today; in how dependant and over exposed to electronic media children are today. How technology has and does develop a crippling (literally) abundance in our everyday life. How we use technology to communicate and not communicate. The most striking details I felt was how Chucky was in fact not evil. He was certainly a 'killer doll' however, had he been given to a young girl obsessed with pink and unicorns. The film would have turned out differently. It is what Chucky learns from his environment that influences him. He learns from what people say and what children watch. Like the scene where the kids are watching Texas chainsaw massacre and laughing; we had been shown that Chucky had been asking "are we having fun?". Please watch this film with an open mind, it deserves to be watched with fresh eyes.