It’s hard to see just how anything is going to be ‘preserved’ when a Chucky series hits the airwaves and to be deadly serious the franchise hitting cult status after the second movie was kind of a mistake, to begin with. What it’s done, realistically, is proof that a lot of horror fans aren’t as picky as they claim to be since Childs Play has been a wreck since the third movie and onward. I’m in the minority when it comes to this line of thought, I get it, but Chucky has seriously become a running joke compared to what he was in the first two movies when it was still feasible that he could come back, considering that his soul could have still been trapped in the doll and be subject to remain even through a refurbish and redesign. After the second movie, things just started to get way out of control, to the point that watching was kind of painful given the fact that things were so out of control that even trying to bring them back into line was kind of impossible. So as a result things continued to get crazier until the Seed of Chucky was made after the idea had really gone off the rails.
Now we’re getting a Chucky show? On one hand, the premise isn’t so completely horrible since the spirit within the doll could move about perhaps if the restrictions have been loosened in that manner. Does anyone remember that the killer had to actually perform a ritual to transfer his soul? Yes? No? It wasn’t a simple ‘bippity bop, bippity boo, I need a body and now I’ve got you’ kind of thing. The only feasible way for the killer to move that easily would be is if the controlling spirit was somehow bound to the programming for the doll, as was done in the remake of Child’s Play that went so horribly awry with Mark Hamill as the voice of the murderous doll. A show really begs the question ‘where is this going to go?’ and ‘how far will it/can it go?’. These are serious questions that need to be addressed, even if the confidence level of those pushing the show forward sounds like something that might be inspiring to some people. But really, to those that have a bit of sense when it comes to the idea of the movie as a true horror story and not the unfortunate joke that it’s become, this is a pretty bad idea that will be lucky to move past the first season. If it does, and that’s a big ‘if’ at the moment, it will likely be because we’re not seeing everything or hearing everything about it at this moment, and it could be that the show might blow us away somehow.
I’m saying this with a bit of doubt since the premise of it already sounds like it’s going to be too much like the original movie and yet too far removed to really be something that will impress the fans that much. Remember what happened when Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th tried to create their own shows? They didn’t last that long and they weren’t as embraced by the fans as the movies were. Even the worst Freddy Krueger movie saw more of a return than the TV show, and the Friday the 13th series really didn’t do much for anyone. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to why? A large part of it is that people love to see the horror on the big screen, or at the very least as a movie since it grants them a chance to get into the horror, endure it, live through it, and then be done with it in short order. A horror series just drags on, and on, and on, and without any other elements to bolster it, a horror series is usually doomed to fail unless it has some special quality that can sustain it for a period of time. Trying to keep a horror series running in this manner is not generally a good idea since horror is typically best left on the big screen or in a movie format since it grabs the audience, shakes them around a bit, and then let’s go once the credits start to roll, more often than not anyway.
The idea of making a Child’s Play series feels doomed from the start, but in an effort to stay positive in some way it feels necessary to say that if someone is able to write a killer screenplay, no pun intended, for each episode, and carry the story in a way that will allow it to continue in a manner that doesn’t appear to drag, then maybe it will work. But if it doesn’t, don’t be too surprised.
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