CHILD’S PLAY (2019) Reviews and overview

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Child’s Play is a 2019 American horror film directed by Norwegian Lars Klevberg (Polaroid) from a screenplay by Tyler Burton Smith (Kung Fury 2 and Quantum Break and Sleeping Dogs video games). David Katzenberg (IT) and Seth Grahame-Smith (IT)  produced

The Orion Pictures movie stars Aubrey Plaza, Brian Tyree Henryn and Gabriel Bateman (Lights Out).

Plot:
A young mother (Aubrey Plaza) gives her son (Gabriel Bateman) a Buddi toy doll for his birthday, unaware of its more sinister nature…

Reviews:
“Somehow, despite Silence of the Lambs-level carnage, the gore level doesn’t shock, inoculated as we are by being in on the joke. Riffing off that, composer Bear McCreary leans in on Omen-like, ever-building horror music. The film’s tautness comes and goes…” Associated Press

Child’s Play (2019) is sloppy and poorly conceived, but it plays surprisingly well. The cast is uniformly excellent, bestowing a sense of realism unto a film that otherwise wouldn’t have any, and it’s eerily photographed by Brendan Uegama (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina).” Bloody Disgusting

Child’s Play is pure entertaining fun for the horror fan, but it’s also not much else. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, nor does it offer much depth, particularly with its characters. While the cast is amiable enough, they’re mostly surface-level archetypes […] None of them come close to swaying our allegiance away from Chucky.” Consequence of Sound

” …a perfectly average killer doll flick that’s unwilling to take any risks, but retains enough self-awareness and self-respect to deliver a decent time at the movies. If Child’s Play promotes awareness of Chucky to a new generation of horror film fans, more power to the movie.” Ian Sedensky, Culture Crypt

Child’s Play (2019) is gleefully gory at times, which was fun and all, but I am an even bigger fan of the Buddi redesign from Todd Masters and his team at Masters FX, as Chucky is an absolute marvel to watch throughout the film, and it fits perfectly in line with the Buddi doll’s functionality.” Daily Dead

“If the plotting and character beats are a tad obvious, what we do have is a rare beast – a fun, enjoyable rehash of some seemingly tired old horror IP. For their part, Plaza and Bateman have some snappy moments of mother-and-son banter. There’s also a satisfyingly gruesome scene involving a table saw and a creepy, voyeur janitor in a basement.” Den of Geek!

” …the chief issue is in the reimagining of Chucky himself as a robot doll. Removing the supernatural possession element that powered the original is all well and good, and there are nice ideas about Chucky being able to link up with the cloud and other devices, but they’re never fully explored.” Empire

” …one of the main reasons Dourif’s Chucky was so terrifying was that he was just a relentless, unstoppable psychopath. By giving Chucky a reason to kill, the new movie’s arc can’t help but dilute his menace a bit.” Entertainment Weekly

It wasn’t bad at all, which is a lot more than what I was expecting. It’s a darkly funny allegory about technology with awesome practical gore. Chucky as CGI is still weird to me, but it makes sense in a way, I suppose. Mark Hamill really gives a soul and personality to the misunderstood murder doll.” Lorry Kitka, Film Threat

” …Child’s Play is a platonic ideal for a horror remake. It does its own thing and provides entertainment value both connected to and divorced from its source material. It features strong actors and an emphasis on character over plot even amid the violence.” Forbes

“Mancini has made his displeasure with this redo known. And the biggest knock against it is that the idiosyncratic qualities (up, down and in-between) of the other films in the series have been sanded and smoothed. Stem to stern, this 88-minute slasher runs like the clockwork bit of machinery it is, and that baseline competence effectively leeches it of personality.” The Hollywood Reporter

“It’s good enough for a single viewing and maybe even a Blu-ray purchase if you’re a huge fan of the series, but it has a few problems. Chucky looks terrible and you feel sorry for him, but he pulls off a few creepy moments. The film looks high quality and pays massive respect to the original…” Horror Society

“…repudiates Mancini’s franchise by attempting to make it bigger and bolder while falling back on ingredients we’ve seen before and seen better. While it sets out to skewer the algorithms that could destroy the world, the remake hews to a mechanical formula — and winds up a product of the same tendencies it’s trying to indict.” IndieWire

Child’s Play is fine, but it would’ve been far better had it not been packaged in the iconic overalls of the still ongoing horror franchise. The film is always at its strongest when it’s not trying to fit into the world of Child’s Play and could have been a real piece of B-movie magic had it been an original sci-fi horror flick.” IGN

“Director Lars Klevberg manages a proper rollercoaster of gore and shock but works in enough poignant, creepy stuff to set this apart from the run of the mill production line horror.  Remaking Child’s Play, an original which wasn’t all that original, isn’t the sort of enterprise that prompts cries of sacrilege … and this is a quality, gruesome, nasty, slightly sweet horror.” The Kim Newman Web Site

Child’s Play is still more unbelievable than your average episode of Black Mirror, but it works in director Lars Klevberg’s boldly stylized vision in which art flirts with camp. The colors are bright reds and blues, and the rooms are lit like the Metropolitan Opera. Paired with Hamill’s nasal but sympathetic voice, it’s an intoxicating circus.” Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

“In effect, the director Lars Klevberg has delivered a platonic rehash of Fatal Attraction, with a three-foot hunk of plastic in the Glenn Close role. Chucky gets his voice from Mark Hamill, a distinguished vocal actor when not on Jedi duties, which are presumably more fun. This revamped Chucky has a sense of humor, of sorts.” The New York Times

“… one does have to appreciate that the filmmakers eschewed the lazy route of rehashing the Charles Lee Ray scenario and took a shot at something different—one that hits its targets often enough to make their rendition of Child’s Play worth a watch.” Rue Morgue

“Fans should breathe a sigh of relief, because Child’s Play is a fantastic new horror movie that confidently separates itself from Don Mancini’s ongoing series. It is a fresh new spin, with enough originality to carry it onward to its own parallel franchise. Mark Hamill voices the new Chucky with an entirely new personality, remaining robotic and composed throughout.” Screen Realm 

“While fans of the franchise may baulk at this techno Chucky, Klevberg delivers the resulting gore with an old-fashioned, blood-soaked approach. When Chucky starts going mental, the special effects gets practical. Flesh is ripped apart, bones shatter and arteries are severed, all while being delivered with a side of black humour.” South China Morning Post

“Despite all these upgrades, Chucky actually seems less intimidating than before. Part of this can be blamed on the ugly new character design […] when you get down to it, his personality isn’t all that interesting anymore. At least the fact the film doesn’t take itself too seriously can make “Child’s Play” fun to laugh at — a kind of good-bad movie experience…” Variety

Child’s Play is a bizarre combination of Bear McCreary’s vinyl-worthy “toy orchestra” score, Tyler Burton Smith’s wonkily coincidence-based screenplay, death sequences of the highest ick-factor, and so much more – but what’s it all make? A procedurally rigid Child’s Play that doesn’t scare, only shocks through intermittent violence, and begs the question of why this had to be a Chucky reboot in the first place…” We Got This Covered

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