In 1988, the horror film “Child’s Play” introduced a red haired, sailor-mouthed, killer-possessed doll named Chucky. The film was a box office hit, spawning six sequels and a Syfy series, positioning Chucky — the monster-child of the writer-director Don Mancini — alongside Jason and Freddy as one of horror’s most enduring one-name antiheroes. There were killer doll movies before, but “Child’s Play” is the ne plus ultra that “M3gan” bows before.
With an influential history to mine, it’s a shame the franchise-spanning documentary “Living With Chucky,” written and directed by Kyra Elise Gardner, feels like hagiographic DVD featurettes meanderingly stitched together. There are flashes of insight, from the actress Jennifer Tilly, who in several films voiced Chucky’s girlfriend, Tiffany; the director John Waters, who praises the films’ queerness; and the actor Alex Vincent, whose performance as Andy, Chucky’s young owner, made the original as heartbreaking as it was heart-pounding. But in the final stretch, Gardner, the daughter of the “Child’s Play” special effects artist Tony Gardner, goes in front of the camera, pausing from documenting the franchise and its impact to placing herself in it, a head-scratching pivot. The film could have used more outsider voices, including fans, to position the character’s legacy.
Chucky aficionados who know this stuff already might still stick around until the end, and the Chucky-curious with 105 minutes to kill might get a kick out of the film’s crash course in Chuckydom. (There are spoilers galore.) But horror agnostics likely won’t last through a dive this deep.
Living with Chucky
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms.
