Two people shared videos of their daughters opening their Christmas present to find exactly what they’d been asking for all year: a talking replica of the infamous killer doll, Chucky from Child's Play, complete with Brad Dourif's patented nasally growl issuing his typically snide threats.
Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger, Charles Lee Ray, perhaps better known to audiences as Chucky from the Child's Play movies and the current Chucky series on the Syfy channel. Maybe not what one might expect for a little girl—a little girl with a bright red bow in her hair like Cindy-Lou Who to be exact—to be jumping for joy over when Christmas morning rolls around, but that’s exactly what happened last year.
Elsa from Frozen may have been amongst the top best-selling toys of the past several years, but for a certain demographic, say of the more Wednesday Addams bent, they can't wait to take those types of toys and let them go. In their place is the hottest little number of the season: animatronic Chucky dolls spewing the killer’s famous one-liners and waving around a (thankfully) plastic knife. It’s the type of present that comes from the section of Santa's workshop that James Wan uses for sets on future Saw entries. Now, TikTok users wowitstheraus and Stephanie Jane have shared videos of their daughters receiving Chucky dolls for Christmas, with one of them chasing their brother with it because he hates the killer toy so much.
In his original iteration, Chucky was always one of the more out-there villains when it came to slashers. Audiences had been primed with Halloween in 1978, and the genre exploded first with the Friday the 13th series—featuring Jason Vorheees' mom, Pamela, as the killer in the original, a fact everyone who’s a fan of Scream can’t help but remember. A Nightmare on Elm Street introduced audiences around the world to Freddy Krueger, a serial killer whose unique twist, besides his burned body and knife glove, was slaughtering people in their dreams. Then there was Chucky of the Child's Play franchise, a serial killer who, before he died, put his soul into a child’s toy to come back from beyond the grave.
The killer doll, inspired by the My Buddy doll, seemingly only differs in having red hair rather than the brunette Moe-from-the-Three-Stooges cut sported by the original. Chucky went on to have his own franchise, perhaps only outdone in absurdity by the Leprechaun franchise of the 1990s, and horror fans everywhere have known Brad Dourif's sharp rasp as the doll’s voice since Charles Lee Ray's physical body was killed at the hands of the detective who caught him. The character has gone on to become a pop culture anti-hero and a fan-favorite mascot in his new series, and it’s great to see Chucky still entering the homes—and now the hearts—of children everywhere as they bring replicas home for the holi-slays.
Child's Play is currently available on HBO Max.