The Chucky Series Has Cast A Legendary Filmmaker As The Creator Of The Cursed Doll

Tom Holland's 1988 film "Child's Play" was about a serial killer named Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) who was fatally wounded by a cop (Chris Sarandon) during a shootout in a toy warehouse. As he lay dying, Charles, a.k.a. Chucky, used voodoo magic to shunt his consciousness into a nearby Good Guy doll, a talking plastic child about a foot tall. In the body of the doll, Chucky continues his reign of terror. "Child's Play" was clearly a spoof of the Cabbage Patch Kids phenomenon a few years previous, positing that the year's difficult-to-obtain ultra-hot Christmas toy could possibly contain the soul of a murderer. 

To date, there have been six sequels to "Child's Play," a remake, and a spinoff series called "Chucky," which concluded part one of its third season in October of 2023. The series became increasingly wild as it went on, tilting heavily into camp and comedy. It also eventually became very open about its queer themes, and the series features multiple queer characters. Chucky ended up fathering a child with his wife Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) when they were both in doll bodies, and their doll-shaped progeny was named Glen or Glenda (Billy Boyd), depending on their gender journey. Chucky, despite being a murderer, was very loving toward his non-binary child. 

In the 2004 film "Seed of Chucky," celebrated Baltimorian filmmaker John Waters had a small role as a tabloid journalist who takes secret pictures of Chucky engaged in an act of onanism. Later in the film, his face is melted off with sulfuric acid. As reported by Entertainment Weekly, the second part of the third season of "Chucky" will see the return of Waters, this time as the original creator of the Good Guy dolls that started this whole mishegoss. 

Waters, for the uninitiated, is the writer and director behind some of the most notorious underground cult movies of the 1970s. Early in his career, he and his outsider friends — happy to call themselves perverts and freaks — made deliberately disgusting movies like "Multiple Maniacs," "Pink Flamingos," "Female Trouble," and "Desperate Living." In 1988, Waters sidled into the mainstream with his 1960s-set musical "Hairspray," a film that was eventually adapted into a Tony-winning musical. He also directed "Cry-Baby," "Serial Mom," and "Pecker." His last film was 2004's "A Dirty Shame," an NC-17-rated comedy about whimsical sex addicts. 

In an EW interview, Waters noted that his cameo in "Seed of Chucky" still gets him recognized on subways. His character, incidentally, was named Pete Peters, which is most certainly meant to be a ribald, adolescent joke. Waters doesn't act much, but he regularly does speaking engagements and interviews, so his look and personality are well-known in the film world. Waters appeared briefly in "Hairspray," played a minister in Herschell Gordon Lewis' "Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat," and cameoed as himself in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip." 

His character in season three of "Chucky" will be called Wendell Wilkins. Little is known about the character, although it will be interesting to know how the Good Guys inventor feels about his creation becoming associated with a serial killer.

Waters has said on the record that he no longer wants to make movies, finding the fundraising phase to be far too difficult at his age (Waters is 77). His planned Christmas movie "Fruitcake" never got the cash. Instead, Waters wrote his first novel, "Liarmouth," in 2022, and it was optioned for a film adaptation. There is no release date yet planned.