In 1988 a child doll was called Chucky was possessed by the soul of a serial killer. With eight films and a television series since then, Chucky has been a cultural icon for horror fanatics and is now the focus of Kyra Elise Gardner’s new documentary Living with Chuckywhich recently played at Fantastic Fest 2022.
“I really hope people take away how much of a family this franchise is, and how many people put themselves and their whole hearts into these movies so you guys can keep watching them at home,” Gardner said.
Gardner grew up with a Chucky doll, as you’d expect, considering she’s the daughter of one of Chucky’s longtime special effects makeup artists. “It was an interesting childhood. Not everyone came home to like fake dead bodies in their living room or to have a helicopter called at their house because a corpse was left outside and someone thought it was real, and things like that,” she continued. “I thought, ‘Okay, this is a weird facet of my life. I think I want to explore that a little further.’”
The Making of Living with Chucky
“It started out as a short film in college,” Gardner explained, “and then I started making it into a feature film while I was still a college graduate. So it was hard to try and do interviews while I was still was making my own films and my thesis film, and then COVID really put a damper on things and decided who we could interview and who couldn’t. There were people I didn’t know very well, and I didn’t want to say, ‘Hello , let me come to your house during the pandemic.’ And really the big challenge was editing, you know, how do you fit 30 years of hard work that everyone has put into this franchise, as well as talking about CGI versus usability, or the personal aspects of it… and making it cohesive and touching so many things which I know Chucky fans would like us to do.
What the documentary made includes interviews about the balance of horror and comedy that has emerged in the Chucky franchise over time, with mentions of some kickbacks from horror fans, while others welcomed it.
“I wasn’t really alive then to see people really react to that, but I think that’s really what a lot of horror movies do these days. You have to have the comedy to balance the suspense and the suspense and the horror. And I think Brad [Dourif] is just so good you can’t think some things are funny when he says them especially in Child’s play 3 where he says, ‘Presto, you’re dead’ and things like that. I think going more comical was a natural term for the franchise.”
Cultural Impact of Chucky & Future of the Franchise
“I was just at Fright Fest, and I’m taking a good dude’s pop from Cult of Chucky come with me to all the festivals, and I don’t have a duffel bag for him or anything. So I just wear it like a toddler, and it was crazy to walk and have so many people I can hear around me screaming, ‘Chucky! That’s Chucky!’” Gardner said of the franchise’s cultural impact. “To not be in the US and see how much it affected people, it was like, ‘Wow.’ I knew it passed the US and North America and everything and it has had this impact but to see it in person I would be so proud if I was Don [Mancini] and David Kirschner who made this thing that has been around for decades. “
As the franchise progresses, there’s still plenty of room for Chucky to explore, especially with a second season of the series coming out in October. “There’s been so many roads that it’s gone down,” Gardner said, “and I can’t say anything about season two because there’s some crazy stuff going down… but it would be interesting to see if a crossover movie with Chucky and another killer icon I know so many people are always like”Freddy vs. Chucky,’ and this and that, but I’d like to see that in the future. I don’t think it will happen, but that would be my quiet hope.”
Living with Chucky comes to us from Chucky Documentary.