A Cult '80s Horror Franchise Has Found A New Streaming Home On Netflix

Netflix has announced on its website that, beginning on August 1, it will be the proud host of the second through seventh movies in the "Child's Play" film series. As all slasher fans can tell you, Tom Holland's 1988 film "Child's Play" is one of the more notable slashers of its decade, satirizing the Cabbage Patch Kids craze while also providing the horror canon with one of its most popular killers: Chucky, the killer doll. 

"Child's Play" is about a serial killer named Charles Lee "Chucky" Ray (Brad Dourif) who, while on the run from a cop (Chris Sarandon), flees into a warehouse housing thousands of Good Guy dolls, the season's hottest toy. He hastily uses voodoo magic to shunt his soul into the body of a Good Guy doll, eluding the police. The doll then finds its way into the possession of a kid named Andy (Alex Vincent), who hides out with it. Eventually, though, Chucky reveals himself and continues his campaign of murderous mayhem in the body of a friendly, talking "best friend" doll. The film was a modest hit, earning $44 million on a $13 million budget. Sequels inevitably began to follow. 

Like with all good slasher franchises, the central killer was always handily resurrected at the head of every movie, allowing him to take multiple lives before being creatively dispatched once again. Lather, stab, repeat. Netflix will be hosting the first sequel, "Child's Play 2" (1990), all the way through the sixth sequel, "Cult of Chucky" (2017). "Child's Play 2" catches up with Andy two years after the events of the first film, and Chucky is revived after his doll body is salvaged and reassembled after being ripped apart and burned up in the first movie. 

Don Mancini wrote all seven of the "Child's Play" movies and created, wrote, and directed the 2021 "Chucky" TV series, so he has been the real mastermind from the start. The only "Child's Play" project he wasn't creatively involved in was the 2019 remake starring Mark Hamill as the voice of the Chucky doll. The remake and the TV show won't be on Netflix, however, with the former available for rent on Apple TV and Prime Video, and the latter available to stream on Peacock, Shudder, and other services. 

But the main series of "Child's Play" movies should be more than enough to satisfy. John Lafia's "Child's Play 2" might be the slickest in the series, with better animatronic effects on the doll, and a more action-packed story. Andy from the first movie is put into foster care after his mom was institutionalized after his mother kept talking about a living killer doll. He and his new teenage foster sister Kyle (Christine Elise) must fend off Chucky's attacks after the doll is resurrected. In the rules of the series, Chucky can only become a human again by taking possession of Andy's body. Kyle and Andy manage to kill Chucky in a Good Guy doll factory. 

Jack Bender's "Child's Play 3" (1991) is the worst in the series. Andy is now 16 and played by Justin Whalin. Technically, the film takes place in the near future of 1998. Andy is at military school being abused by bullies, and Chucky returns because his blood seeped into the plastic molds of new Good Guy dolls. Oh yes, when Chucky spends too long in a doll body, he begins to form biological organs. The animatronics are first-rate, but the movie stinks.

Beginning in 1998, the "Child's Play" series took a more comedic tack with the release of Ronny Yu's kooky "Bride of Chucky." Chucky's old girlfriend, Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly), locates the chopped-up doll from "Child's Play 3," resurrects it, and hopes she and Chucky can get married. Chucky, not the marrying type, kills Tiffany and shunts her soul into a bride doll. Tiffany plays a major role in the following sequels, which just get wilder as they pass. 

In the absurd, slapstick follow-up, Don Mancini's "Seed of Chucky," audiences meet Chucky's and Tiffany's nonbinary doll-bodied child, Glen/Glenda (Billy Boyd). And, to add to the bizarre metanarrative, Jennifer Tilly also appears as herself. Tiffany aims to possess Jennifer's body. John Waters has a small role as a pervy paparazzo.

After that, the "Child's Play" series went straight-to-video with Mancini's "Curse of Chucky," which scaled back on the silliness. Fiona Dourif, Brad Dourif's daughter, plays Nica, a woman in a wheelchair who randomly receives a Chucky doll in the mail. Naturally, this is the notorious killer lying low for reasons that become clear later on. "Curse" was followed by 2017's "Cult of Chucky," which is set in an insane asylum, still stars Fiona Dourif, and also Jennifer Tilly. Chucky, this time, learns to trifurcate his soul and possess multiple dolls at once. 

Although "Child's Play 3" is bad, and "Seed of Chucky" might be too goofy for its own good (read our ranking here), the "Child's Play" sequels as a whole are bracing, bizarre, and a lot of fun to watch. The funniest aspect is that all of Chucky's victims die with a very confused expression on their faces. No one can quite believe they're being murdered by a killer doll.