Chucky, originally known as Charles Lee Ray, is the main antagonist of the Child's Play franchise. Chucky is initially portrayed as a vicious serial killer who bleeds out from a gunshot wound and becomes Chucky through a soul transfer into a "Good Guy" doll. While originally wishing to return to a human body, Chucky's motivations change after Seed of Chucky. Chucky was created by writer Don Mancini and has been voiced by Brad Dourif in all major movie and TV adaptations, except the 2019 remake of the same name, where he was voiced by Mark Hamill who had previously voiced Chucky on an episode of Robot Chicken.[6]
Chucky first appeared in the 1988 film Child's Play. In the film, a serial killer named Charles Lee Ray, also known as Chucky (Brad Dourif) uses a voodoo ritual inside a toy store to transfer his soul into a Good Guy doll to escape from Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon). Pretending to be an inanimate object, Chucky later is given to young Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) by his mother Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) and begins terrorizing the family. Chucky learns that he must return to his human form by possessing the first person he told his real name to (which is Andy). The Barclays learn that Chucky is possessed and eventually Chucky is killed after being set on fire, having his limbs shot off and then being shot through the heart.[7]
Chucky made his second appearance in the 1990 sequel, Child's Play 2. In the film, Chucky is repaired by Play Pals Inc, leading to his resurrection. Chucky continues his pursuit of Andy, who is now eight and has been placed in foster care after the events of the first film. Andy is terrorised at his new home and at school, leading to the deaths of his teacher Miss Kettlewell (Beth Grant) and his foster parents Joanne (Jenny Agutter) and Phil Simpson (Gerrit Graham). Andy is brought back to foster care by Grace Poole (Grace Zabriskie) who had overseen his fostering with the Simpsons. Andy's foster sister Kyle (Christine Elise) learns of Chucky's possession and is then forced to drive him to the orphanage. Grace is killed by Chucky and Andy is kidnapped by him. Kyle chases Chucky to the Play Pals factory where he fails to transfer his soul into Andy's body. Chucky is killed after being covered with molten plastic and exploded with an air hose.[8]
In Child's Play 3 (1991), Chucky again returns from the dead eight years after the events of the previous film, with Chucky's corpse infecting a batch of molten plastic and causing him to be reconstructed. He finds that a now teenage Andy (Justin Whalin) is currently enrolled at a military academy. Chucky attempts to possess a new body, but is stopped by Andy and Kristin de Silva (Perrey Reeves).[9]
Bride and Seed of Chucky (1998–2004)
Bride of Chucky (1998) continues the story, with Chucky being resurrected by a former accomplice and girlfriend Tiffany Valentine (Jennifer Tilly). After transferring Tiffany's soul into a bride doll, the two terrorize a young couple in an attempt to transfer their souls into human bodies. The movie ends with Chucky and Tiffany's child being born. [10]
Seed of Chucky (2004) follows six years after the previous film when Glen/Glenda (voiced by Billy Boyd), the child of Chucky and Tiffany brings his parents back to life. The trio then set their sights on actress Jennifer Tilly (in a fictionalized version of herself), for whom they have sinister plans. This film importantly sees Chucky renounce his goals to possess a human body.[11]
Direct-to-video films (2013–2017)
The 2013 film Curse of Chucky saw the series return to the straightforward horror elements found in the first three films.[12] The film takes place nine years after the events of the previous film. Chucky arrives at the house of Nica Pierce (Fiona Dourif) and her mother Sarah, a woman with a connection to his past. He ends up killing Sarah and the rest of Nica's family before framing her for the murders.[13]
In Cult of Chucky (2017), Chucky returns to torment a now institutionalized Nica, while a now-adult Andy (Alex Vincent) attempts to stop Chucky's plans once and for all.[14] At one point, Chucky figures out how to split his soul into many bodies at once, thus creating a ‘cult’.
Other Media
In the 2019 reboot of Child's Play, Chucky (voiced by Mark Hamill) is presented as a high-tech artificially-intelligent Buddi doll created by the Kaslan Corporation. Primarily designed to be a life-long companion to its owner by learning from its surroundings and acting accordingly, Buddi dolls can also connect to and operate other Kaslan products. One such doll has its safety precautions disabled by a disgruntled Kaslan employee during the assembly process, and as a result, Chucky gradually develops murderous tendencies as he tries to eliminate anyone or anything who's stopping him and his "best buddy", his owner Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman), from staying best friends forever.
Television
Chucky made his return to television on the October 12, 2021, premiere of Chucky, the sequel to Cult of Chucky. In this TV series, Chucky encounters 14-year-old middle school student Jake Wheeler at a yard sale with his intentions to use him for his art project. After Jake learns who Chucky is and his intentions, Chucky becomes an archenemy of his, as well as his friends, Devon Evons and Lexy Cross, and continuously terrorizes them.
In season two, one Chucky doll gets amnesia and decides to be good, helping Wheeler. A younger version of Chucky as a human also appeared in flashback scenes which were portrayed by David Kohlsmith and Tyler Barish.[15] In flashbacks of the 1980s he's played by Fiona Dourif (who also appears in the present time as Nica Pierce) dubbed by Brad Dourif.
In season three, Chucky begins to age rapidly after he is abandoned by Damballa after the exorcism he was involved with in the previous season, so he chooses to start killing at the White House as a last resort. He briefly appears as a human, still played by Brad Dourif, in the spirit realm after dying. Chucky comes back by possessing the body of Jake, who entered the spirit realm to ask him for Caroline's whereabouts.
Other
On the October 12, 1998, episode of WCW Monday Nitro, Chucky made an appearance as a heel to promote Bride of Chucky and in the process confronting Gene Okerlund and Rick Steiner.[16][17] On October 26, 2021, Chucky co-hosted NXT: Halloween Havoc as a face assisting with the spin the wheel make a deal matches.[18] On October 22, 2022, Chucky returned at NXT Halloween Havoc once again assisting with the spin the wheel make a deal matches and making appearances throughout the event.[19][20]
Chucky has a brief cameo as a program in the OASIS virtual reality simulation in the film adaptation of Ready Player One (2018).
On November 28, 2023, a ChuckyDLC was released for the asymmetrical horror video gameDead by Daylight, with Chucky available as a playable killer character, and Dourif reprising his role.[21]
Zen Studios released Chucky's Killer Pinball, a pinball table for Pinball M on November 30, 2023.[22]
Chucky is a playable character in the 2024 video game Funko Fusion.[23]
Charles Lee Ray was born on May 1, 1958,[25][26] in Hackensack, New Jersey, to Peter and Elizabeth Ray. In contrast to his claims that killing had been in his family for "generations", Charles is shown to have had a loving family growing up.
However, unknown to his parents, Charles suffered from sadistic and homicidal urges. When Charles returned home from trick-or-treating on Halloween in 1964, he noticed a razor blade stuck inside an apple. He bit into it regardless, allowing the razor to his mouth. On his seventh birthday in 1965, Charles behaved aggressively, using a mallet to knock a piñata to the ground and violently smash it.
Sometime later, a local serial killer known as "The Hackensack Slasher" broke into his home and killed his father. Entranced, Charles used a pocketknife to stab his mother to death, happily telling the Hackensack Slasher that he "helped." Impressed by the boy's actions, the Hackensack Slasher gave him advice on always covering his tracks, then wiped the blood off Charles's pocketknife before handing it back to him.[27]
Charles was placed in the Burlington County Home for Wayward Boys. He received therapy from a woman named Dr. Amanda Mixter, who referred to him as "Charlie." Instead of helping young Charles, the psychotic Mixter encouraged him to embrace his homicidal tendencies. She also destroyed the remaining humanity Charles had left, claiming to have found that part of him "boring."
Charles was known for playing with the smaller children and attempted to mold three boys into following his killer footsteps, teaching them swear words and reading them fairy tales twisted to revolve around murder. One day, he murdered a janitor that had earlier yelled at him. Charles presented his body to the children, horrifying all of them with the exception of a young boy named Eddie Caputo. Charles later fled the home, leaving the janitor's severed hand behind as a gift for Eddie.[28]
In 1986, Charles picked up a woman named Delilah and a red-headed woman from a nightclub and brought them back to a hotel. When Charles threatened the red-headed woman by holding a knife to her throat, he was shocked to find her sexually aroused by the action. Ray then chose to kill Delilah instead, stabbing her and passing the knife to the red-head woman to join in. After killing her together, red-headed woman introduced herself as Tiffany.[29] Charles, now going by "Chucky" as suggested by Tiffany, and Tiffany became a couple and later left Hackensack after killing a man that was attempting to sell them a car.
In 1988, Chucky and Tiffany had relocated to Chicago, Illinois. Chucky became an infamous serial killer known as "The Lakeshore Strangler" and began studying Voodoo under the guidance of a named John Bishop. Unbeknownst to John, Chucky perverted his teachings, which were intended to be used for good. Both Tiffany and Eddie Caputo became accomplices to Chucky's murder-spree.
While at a neighborhood barbecue, Chucky was introduced to a woman named Sarah Pierce and her family. He becomes obsessed with Sarah, and wanting her for himself, killed her husband Daniel before kidnapping her. Around the same time, tensions rose between both Chucky and Tiffany when she found out Chucky was killing people without her. After one last argument, Tiffany called the police, telling them Chucky's whereabouts.
The police discovered Chucky holding Sarah hostage. Believing she had somehow turned him in, Chucky stabbed Sarah in the stomach, which would leave her unborn child Nica Pierce paralyzed from the waist down, before fleeing the scene. Police Detective Mike Norris chased Chucky to a nearby Toy Store, where he would be gunned down and transfer his soul into a Good Guy doll.
Development
Design
In the original script for Child's Play, titled Batteries Not Included, a doll named 'Buddy' comes to life after Andy mixed his blood with the doll's fake blood and would have targeted his enemies, being an outlet for Andy's suppressed rage. However, writer John Lafia later rewrote Mancini's original script and created the character of Charles Lee Ray to possess the doll (now named 'Chucky') and have him go after his enemies instead.
Child's Play creator and co-writer Don Mancini explained that Chucky draws heavily from the My Buddy dolls: "In my original script, he was originally called Buddy, and we couldn't use it because of the 'My Buddy' doll. The director went out and got a 'My Buddy' doll, a Raggedy Ann, a Raggedy Andy, and one of those life-size baby infants. What I told [designer] Kevin Yagher was, I wanted something similar to a My Buddy doll. I described "Buddy" in my original script, now "Chucky", as wearing red-buttoned overalls, red sneakers, striped sweater, with red hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Kevin went off and sketched many designs of Chucky until the final was picked. Yagher then built the first doll from those sketches and my details".[30]
Performance
For the first four films, Chucky was controlled by a team of nine puppeteers, led by Brock Winkless, who moved Chucky's mouth via radio control, wearing a rig that captured his mouth movement. The others were in charge of operating the doll's head, face, and limbs. By Curse of Chucky, Chucky's mouth, now performed by lead puppeteer Tony Gardner of Alterian, Inc., was now operated via a radio-control unit without the need for a rig, and the doll himself now required fewer people to bring him to life. For the first film, for scenes where Chucky had to move around in wide shots, a little-person actor in a life-sized costume, Ed Gale, would portray Chucky in scenes where the character is walking, the props on the set enlarged to fit the size of the actor.[2][3]
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