While it may have been dealt a difficult blow of recent, one iconic horror franchise is going to be able to get some new life on streaming in the near future. As with any genre, horror has always seen ebbs and flows in what proved successful, with the early days requiring original material, while the ’80s and ’90s became best known for franchises with an abundance of sequels that gradually sapped interest from audiences, the more notable being that of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises.
When many franchises remained dormant for some time, certain studios sought to revive interest in them with various reboots and remakes, a trend that became more infamous in the 2000s and early 2010s. There were some highs for the genre during this era, including Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, but also certainly many lows, ranging from the critically panned Nightmare on Elm Street reboot to One Missed Call, which holds a rare 0% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. There have also been some in which the fanbase was split right down the middle.
The Child’s Play Is Coming To Streaming On The Heels Of The Chucky Show’s Cancellation
Both It & The Original Release On Max Next Month
One such franchise to have gotten the remake treatment after some time away was Don Mancini’s Child’s Play, with the 2019 film centering on a new, and older, Andy Barclay, who is gifted a Buddi doll, a high-tech figure whose software malfunction leads to a brutal killing spree. Led by Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza and Mark Hamill as the new voice of Chucky, the Child’s Play remake decisively split both critics and audiences down the middle, with ScreenRant‘s own Sandy Schaefer giving it 5/10 stars and writing the following in their review:
Despite its mixed success as a satire of the Digital Age, Child’s Play is an otherwise entertainingly bloodthirsty re-imagining of the slasher brand.
Some five years after the movie first hit theaters, Max has announced that 2019’s Child’s Play is coming to the streaming platform. The remake, along with the 1988 original, is scheduled to premiere on the streamer on March 1. The news comes on the heels of the announcement that SYFY and the USA Network had cancelled Chucky, the TV expansion of the original franchise, after three successful seasons on the networks.
For fans of:
- The Child’s Play franchise
- Horror movies about creepy dolls
- Horror movies about AI gone wrong
Why You Should Watch 2019’s Child’s Play
It Does Enough To Stand Apart From The Classic Original
While most horror remakes have found themselves dismissed by critics throughout the years, it should be noted that 2019’s Child’s Play is the rare example of one to have landed on the Fresh side of the Rotten Tomatoes spectrum. In addition to the aforementioned ScreenRant review, a calculation of 206 reviews put the film at a 64% approval rating, which is technically only just fresh, but actually fares favorably when compared to other installments in the franchise, which can be seen in the chart below:
|
Title |
Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score |
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score |
|---|---|---|
|
Child’s Play (1988) |
74% |
65% |
|
Child’s Play 2 |
47% |
53% |
|
Child’s Play 3 |
19% |
40% |
|
Bride of Chucky |
45% |
50% |
|
Seed of Chucky |
37% |
43% |
|
Curse of Chucky |
78% |
61% |
|
Cult of Chucky |
81% |
62% |
|
Child’s Play (2019) |
64% |
57% |
Despite some of the movie’s larger tonal and predictability issues, it’s hard to deny that Child’s Play does generally stand out from its predecessor, thanks mostly to its darker sense of humor that the sequels of the original franchise would begin to infuse, though in favor of more overt scares, for which the remake tries to go for. In also bringing in a sci-fi twist with its tech-driven Chucky compared to the supernaturally possessed doll of the original, the remake has enough changes to keep things feeling fresh.
What else ScreenRant has said about the Child’s Play remake:
Of course, this is still Child’s Play, and the movie is ultimately more interested in getting to the moments where Chucky brutally slays people than preaching about kids and their iPhones these days. Downside is, the film’s early attempts to explore the ways that Chucky is corrupted (being mistreated by humans, not understanding their behavior, or consuming violent media without context) ring a bit hollow once the doll starts devising elaborate ways of killing anyone who threatens his “friendship” with Andy.
Other Killer Doll Movies Available To Stream Now
- Chucky (TV Show, Peacock)
- Cult of Chucky (Netflix)
- Annabelle (Netflix)
- Annabelle: Creation (Max)
- Annabelle Comes Home (Max)
Source: Max
Child’s Play
5/10
- Release Date
-
June 21, 2019
- Runtime
-
90 Minutes
- Director
-
Lars Klevberg
- Writers
-
Tyler Burton Smith