Tweet
Released by: Universal Studios
Released on: October 8th, 2013.
Director: Don Mancini, Jack Bender, John Lafia, Ronny Yu, Tom Holland
Cast: Brad Dourif, Alex Vincent, Beth Grand, Chris Sarandon, Jennifer Tilly, Fiona Dourif
Year: Various
Purchase From Amazon
The Movies:
Have you ever lied awake at night pining for the day you could have all of the Child's Play films together in one Blu-ray boxed set? Well, that day has finally come, so you can set your mind at ease. While the first disc might be identical to the single disc release from MGM that came out a few years ago, the rest of the movies are debuting on Blu-ray for the first time in this set (though technically the latest entry, Curse Of Chucky, is being made available on its own with the same street date as this set).
So here's what you'll find tucked away in the surprisingly sturdy boxed set package:
Child's Play:
The first of (so far) the six films in the franchise, Tom Holland's 1988 killer doll film, Child's Play, follows a young boy named Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) who wants nothing more for his birthday than a $100.00 Good Guys doll. His mother, Karen (Catherine Hicks), just can't afford it but Andy isn't good at hiding the disappointment on his face when it comes time to open his gifts.
A day or so later, Karen's friend Maggie (Dinah Manoff) tells her that there's a homeless man behind the department store that they work at who is selling off some toys and that he's got a Good Guys doll in his cart. Five minutes later and thirty dollars poorer, Karen's got the toy her son wants so bad and she takes it home to him before heading back to finish off her shift at work, leaving Maggie to babysit him. When Karen comes home from work that night, Maggie's dead, she fell to her death from the window of Karen and Andy's Chicago apartment.
The cops, lead by Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon), think that Andy might have had something to do with it but Andy keeps telling them that his Good Guy doll, now named Chucky, is the one that's behind it. As more bodies start piling up, Andy keeps telling them that Chucky is the one whose up to no good, and it's starting to look like the cops aren't going to have any choice but give the kid's theories some serious thought, especially once Norris connects the Chucky doll to the death of a voodoo practicing murderer named Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif).
Fast paced and laced with some fantastic black comedy, Child's Play isn't the classic that some have made it out to be but time has been surprisingly kind to the picture and it holds up quite well. Anyone who is susceptible to the natural creepiness inherent in big dopey looking dolls will fast realize where the film is going fairly early on, Holland leaves plenty of hints and foreshadowing in easy to spot areas of the film (the footprints in the flower, Andy's reactions to Chucky early on, etc.). That said, the script, if predictable, gives the effects technicians who created the creepy doll plenty of room to flex their muscles.
And then there's Brad Dourif, in a dual role. Never the A list star he should have been, Dourif has made an interesting career out of playing eccentric types and villains. Playing an interesting dual role here as both Charles Lee Ray and the voice of Chucky, Dourif is all sarcastic menace and really he's the perfect choice to play the part and he completely makes the film. Chris Sarandon, Catherine Hicks, and Alex Vincent are all fine in their respective protagonist roles but it really is Dourif who shines here even if the vessel for his insanity is a two foot doll.
While the movie has lost some of its scare power over the years thanks to a pair unimpressive sequels (though the later efforts, Bride Of Chucky and Seed Of Chucky are good films, they're played more for dark laughs than for scares) imaginatively titled Child's Play 2 and Child's Play 3, the first film in the series remains an effective one. A couple of good jump scares, some impressive special effects, a few moments of honestly eerie atmosphere and a great performance from Dourif have earned the film its rightful place in the hears of horror movie fans around the world.
Click on the images throughout this review for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
Child's Play 2:
After the events that took place in the first film, we find that poor little Andy is being sent to a foster home so that his mother can recover from the trauma and injuries she sustained battling Chucky and saving her son's life. Soon enough, Andy's been whisked off to live with the Simpson's comprised of father Phil, mother Joanne, and their teenage daughter Kyle who is a bit of a brat.
While Andy is settling into his new digs and adjusting to his new housemates, the fine folks at the Good Guys toy company have rebuilt the Chucky doll and managed to revive the once dead killer doll in the process. Once he's revived, he sets his sights on tracking Andy down so that he can transport his soul into Andy's body and avoid being trapped in the doll's body for the rest of eternity. For the rest of the movie, Chucky moves closer and closer to Andy's new home and kills off a few people along the way until the completely predictable showdown finally occurs and this horrible film is brought to a close.
Child's Play 2 is not a very good film. It starts off interestingly enough and the opening kill scene where the freshly re-animated Chucky offs the guy working the eyeball machine is amusing but from there we sit through roughly an hour of what is pretty much filler. It really does take a while for this one to get going and once it does, we don't care about the characters enough for it to really matter.
In the film's defense, there are a few solid kill scenes that'll amuse most of the horror fans who will no doubt comprise the bulk of the film's audience and Brad Dourif is great as always when he provides Chucky's voice, but it's not enough to save what feels like a sequel made on the fast and cheap to cash in on the success of the original film. It doesn't feel like they're even trying to break any new ground here and as such the film just isn't all that interesting.
Child's Play 3:
In this third film, a corporate schmuck decides he can make some fast money by starting the manufacturing of the Good Guys dolls one more time. Of course, by doing this he manages to once more re-animate Chucky, the doll inhabited by the spirit of notorious serial killer, Charles Lee Ray. What does Chucky do once he's been brought back to life? Why he continues his quest to find Andy so that he can make yet another attempt to transfer his soul into his body and leave his life as a killer doll behind him for good.
As luck would have it, Andy has started to grow up and he's no longer the little kid he once was. Enrolled in a military academy, he's gotten tougher and stronger than he was in his younger days although this doesn't stop one of the bigger, older cadets from picking on him. Thankfully he's made a few friends in his stay at the school so he's not completely alone when Chucky shows up, this time with a change in plans. You see, Chucky was delivered not to Andy but to a little kid named Tyler by mistake and Chucky's latest and greatest idea is to swap souls with him instead - he figures it'll be easier than dealing with Andy for a third time. This puts Andy in the awkward position of trying to protect little Tyler while still attending the academy and keeping things under wraps lest everyone around him figure him for a nut job.
Not as bloody or sadistic as the first two films in the series, Child's Play 3: Look Who's Stalking is an improvement over the second film but remains a rather uninspired offering. The finale is a good one and it delivers some inventive ideas and a fun nod to The Terminator but getting there isn't worth the pay off. At this point in time, it seemed like the franchise would either have to be reinvented or laid to rest, which brings us to…
Bride Of Chucky:
It's rare that a later sequel in a franchise tops anything that came before it but this is the case with Bride Of Chucky - it's hands down the best of the five Child's Play films that have been made at the time of this writing. Part of that is thanks to the inclusion of the lovely Jennifer Tilly, and a large portion of the credit has to go to director Ronny Yu, but what really makes this one work is the story.
The film begins with a police officer taking a bag out of the evidence room. As he heads towards his car, a woman comes up behind him, slits his throat, and steals the bad. What's inside it? What's left of the Chucky doll, of course. This woman is Tiffany (the boobtastic Jennifer Tilly) and she likes dolls a little more than she probably should. She takes Chucky back to her trailer and says a few incantations over him in hopes of raising him from the dead but it doesn't work - or at least it seems that way. Surprisingly enough, once she's got her goth boy-toy tied up in the bedroom, Chucky decides to wake up and get back to business. We soon learn that Tiffany is Chucky's ex-girlfriend from before his spirit was put inside the doll.
Meanwhile, Jessie and Jade are two high school kids who are madly in love despite the fact that Jade's dad, the town sheriff (John Ritter) doesn't like Jessie at all. They decide to run off and get married but there's a catch. Jessie lives in the same trailer park as Tiffany and she's offered him some easy money if he takes two dolls to the graveyard where Chucky's body is buried so that they can get the amulet and turn Chucky back. The catch? Chucky and Tiffany get into a fight, one thing leads to another, and soon enough Tiffany has been put inside a doll as well. As Jessie and Jade transport the dolls across the state, the bodies start piling up and it looks like they're the ones responsible for the killings. It all comes to a head in that graveyard but by then it just might be too late for our star crossed lovers as Chucky and Tiffany are definitely on a roll.
A superb mix of really dark humor, creative kill scenes, nice special effects and genuine suspense makes Bride Of Chucky a lot of fun to watch. Ronny Yu, who cut his teeth on such Hong Kong classics as The Bride With White Hair before moving on to Hollywood fare such as Jason Vs. Freddy shows his strengths for pacing and style here and he manages to coax some great performances out of Tilly and Dourif in the process. There are a lot of nods to other horror films in here, from Friday The 13th to The Bride Of Frankenstein that are fun to look out for and some of the interplay between Chucky and Tiffany is pretty amusing as well. The story pulls you in nicely and this is definitely one of the more creative sequels in the series and an endlessly entertaining movie in its own right.
Seed Of Chucky:
The fifth (and so far final) film in the series starts with a strange doll wandering through a home. It's yelled at and called ugly and treated quite poorly and soon enough it snaps and kills the family. Shortly after we realize that this is all a dream being had by the son that he never knew. When he wakes up and sees Chucky and Tiffany on TV (a movie has been made about their lives with Jennifer Tilly playing Tiffany!) he sees the stamp on Chucky's hand matches his own and so he decides to track them down so that they can all be a family again.
While this is all going on, Jennifer Tilly is frustrated with the direction that her career has been headed in lately. She wants a serious role as she's tired of always playing the sex pot. When she finds out that rapper turned director Redman (played by Redman!) is making a biblical epic and that he needs someone to play Mary, she decides that she'll do whatever it takes to get the part even if it means sleeping with the director. While Tilly is courting Redman into giving her the part, the doll from the opening scene has managed to revive Chucky and Tiffany from their dormant state and soon the three of them start going through some fairly serious growing pains as they try to sort out what sex their child is, what to name it, and how to raise it.
Chucky and Tiffany decide that they should make the family human once more and that the best way to do this is to inseminate Jennifer Tilly with Chucky's seed. Through some clever planning they make this happen and the pregnancy advances at an alarming rate while Chucky and Tiffany start squabbling more and more and soon they both snap and prove that old habits really do die hard.
While Seed Of Chucky has its moments, there's just too much goofiness crammed into this one for it to stand up to Bride. Granted, Tilly is great in her role and she shows a real knack for the more comedic elements required of her here but she's not enough to fix the one major problem with the film - the child doll is completely irritating. For a film that focuses on the character so closely, they did a bad job of making him tolerable. S/he wins and carries on and tries to evoke pity but it doesn't work and you end up hoping that Chucky will take care of the problem permanently. That being said, the movie is still worth a look. The kill scenes are surprisingly gory and at times refreshingly mean spirited and Redman, who you'd think would be completely annoying in the role, is actually surprisingly funny. The premise for the film is pretty original and the script is clever what with all the Ed Wood references and self-referential humor from Tilly, so there are definitely reasons to watch the movie, it's just a shame that such a central character had to be so grating.
It should be noted that it is the unrated cut of Seed Of Chucky that is included in this set which includes some added gore, and a few other excised bits including a snippet that was taken out of the R-rated version in which Chucky masturbates.
Curse Of Chucky:
Directed by Don Mancini, the man behind the original Child's Play film, 2013's Curse Of Chucky is a return to the series' roots of sorts, at least when compared to the more experimental Bride Of Chucky and Seed Of Chucky entries. You've got to hand it to Mancini for continuing with the continuity already established in the popular series, rather than taking the easy way out with the all too common remake approach we're seeing done to death in horror movies these days. Though Curse Of Chucky is the first in the run to go straight to video, fans of the series shouldn't let that dissuade them. This movie is actually pretty well done.
The story focuses on a young woman named Nica (Fiona Dourif) who is paralyzed from the waist down and who is bound to a wheelchair. She lives in a creaky old house with her mother, Sara (Chantal Quesnelle), who has some obvious problems of her own. As the movie starts, a delivery man shows up with a large parcel. They open it and low and behold, inside there's a familiar looking Good Guys doll - but who sent this doll here and why? Later that night Nica hears screaming and after making her way downstairs she finds her mother lying dead on the floor in a pool of her own blood.
Shortly after, her money grubbing sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti) shows up with her husband Ian (Brennan Elliott), their daughter Alice (Summer H. Howell), a nanny named Jill (Maitland McConnell) and the local priest (A. Martinez) in tow. Barb is insisting they sell the house and put Nica in a home but she's defiant and wants to stay on her own. When Nica makes them all dinner, we see the doll come back to life and go about its business and before you know it, the priest has had a healthy dose of rat poisoning, enough so that it affects his state of mind and he gets into a fatal car accident on the way home. Alice, however, has taken quite a shining to Chucky and is insisting that not only is he alive but that he's talking to her. As the night goes on, it starts to look like Alice is right and as the family's dysfunction comes to a boil Chucky grabs a knife and gets up to his old tricks…
This installment takes place almost entirely in the old house, which makes it almost as much of a haunted house movie as it does a slasher film. While the movie isn't as gory as some of the earlier films, there are a few creative scenes of carnage here to earn the film it's R-rating (or it's unrating, as both versions are included on the same disc, though really, even the unrated one isn't that strong) but there's a bit more emphasis on atmosphere this time around than on bloodshed. Of course we get a few jump scares too, it's almost like they're required.
When you boil it down this movie simply puts a spooker killer in a house and follows a simple line - kill off the priest first to make it know that the killer is evil, setup the rest of the characters as likeable or unlikable, kill of the unlikeable characters and then in the last half hour or so keep the likeable ones in a constant state of peril. This isn't anything we haven't seen done countless times before but the film builds rather nicely and is quite well shot. The effects are pretty decent and though there are a few moments of dodgy CGI, these are easy to look past in favor of some impressive practical effects. There's good use of shadow and light here, the location works really well and lends itself well to the story while the script keeps things going at a good pace. The changes in Chucky's appearance give him a slightly more human look, he's not quite as we remember him here, but by the time that the story finishes, this is explained in a logical way and actually turns out to be a clever twist.
Performances are good, almost too good in the case of Danielle Bisutti. You're not supposed to like her character (that much is obvious) but she's just flat out irritating and you'll find yourself wanting to be rid of her quickly. Maitland McConnell is fine in her supporting role as are Chantal Quesnelle and Brannan Elliot. Young Summer H. Howell does quite well in her role but the scene stealer is Fiona Dourif who delivers very good work here in the lead. It sort of goes without saying that her old man, Brad Dourif, is great as the voice of Chucky, though in a couple of flashback scenes he actually appears on camera as Charles Lee Ray, the killer who possessed the doll in the first movie that started all of this.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.85.1 AVC encoded 1080p widescreen transfer on the original Child's Play release doesn't compete with more modern offerings on the format but for a film made over two decades ago Child's Play doesn't look bad at all here. There's a healthy coat of grain that might irk some as it makes a few shots look a bit noisy but there's no real print damage and there's a fair bit more detail here than there was on the recent standard definition release. Colors are bolder and more pronounced and there are no problems with any mpeg compression artifacts or macroblocking. Skin tones look good, black levels are decent as is shadow detail, and overall MGM has done a pretty nice job here.
Child's Play 2 and 3 more or less look the same in terms of quality. Child's Play 2 is presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition in 1.85.1 widescreen while gets a VC-1 encode, and while they do sometimes look a little softer than you might want, the upgrade in quality over previous standard definition releases is certainly noticeable. Both movies feature clean, crisp images with good detail and nice color reproduction.
Bride Of Chucky and Seed Of Chucky are more recent than the first three movies and not so surprisingly they look a little nicer in terms of detail and color reproduction, the first presented in VC-1 encoded 1080p high definition in 1.85.1 widescreen and the second in the same aspect ratio with an AVC encode. Detail and color are great, there's enough film grain here that you'll probably notice it but not so much as to really distract and as far as actual print damage goes, nope, nothing to complain about.
Curse Of Chucky looks good on Blu-ray in AVC encoded 1080p high definition widescreen framed at 1.78.1. Detail is nice throughout the presentation. As most of the movie takes place inside an old dimly lit house this isn't the most colorful looking movie you'll ever see but shadow detail is pretty solid as are black levels. The reds and blues of Chucky's outfit look nice and skin tones always look nice and natural. There are no obvious compression artifacts or noise reduction issues nor is there any serious edge enhancement. As the movie was shot on digital video there aren't any problems with print damage or debris either. All in all this is a nice, crisp, clean and detailed presentation, one which fans should appreciate.
For the first movie? The primary mix is an English language DTS-HD 5.1 mix though alternate tracks are provided in English 2.0 Stereo Surround, Spanish 5.1 Surround Sound and French 2.0 Stereo Surround with subtitles available in English SDH and Spanish. Again, this is a noticeable improvement over the standard definition release. The DTS-HD mix opens up the audio a bit and fills the room quite nicely. This isn't a reference quality surround mix but it's a nice one that uses the rears to build atmosphere and help out in the jump scares department. The lower front end is strong enough to matter while the properly balanced levels ensure that the dialogue is always easy to understand and that the sound effects and the score carry enough punch.
Child's Play 2 and 3 get decent quality DTS-HD 2.0 Stereo Master Audio tracks with English closed captioning and Spanish subtitles. Clarity here is fine, the mixes are on par with the first movie in terms of balance and clarity they just don't get the added directionality offered by the surround remix. There aren't any problems, dialogue is clean and clear and the levels are good. Child's Play 2 & # also feature a French language DTS-HD 2.0 mixes.
Bride Of Chucky gets English and French language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio tracks with subtitles in English SDH and Spanish while Seed Of Chucky gets the same treatment less the French mix. There's a lot of good surround activity noticeable in both movies while the levels remain nicely balanced and the tracks free of hiss or distortion. Clean dialogue, nice sounding scores, yeah, this'll do quite nicely.
The English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix is pretty solid for Curse Of Chucky. It doesn't use the rear channels quite as often as you might hope for but there's definitely a lot of fun surround activity here and some appreciable depth to the mix as well. Dialogue is always perfectly easy to understand and as you'd expect from a new movie like this there are no issues with hiss or distortion at all. The score has some good range and power behind it and the sound effects are mixed in nicely and help punctuate a few of the more active set pieces. A Spanish language DTS 5.1 Surround Sound mix is also available as is a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix in French with optional subtitles offered up in English SDH, French and Spanish.
Child's Play gets a pretty stacked release here, but the extras are going to look familiar… all of the extras from the standard definition special edition DVD and previous single disc Blu-ray release have been carried over to this set starting with an audio commentary track courtesy of stars Alex Vincent and Catharine Hicks who are joined by Chucky designer, Kevin Yagher. A second audio commentary comes courtesy of producer David Kirschner and screenwriter Don Mancini. While the track with Kirschner and Mancini is the more enjoyable and fact filled of the two, both tracks lend some insight into what it was like working on this film and squaring off against an evil doll! Mancini dominates his talk as this film really is his baby through and through but the cast commentary is also interesting as it talks about what it was like working on the film from in front of the camera rather than behind it. Both tracks are interesting and don't take themselves too seriously, as such, they're quite a bit of fun to listen to.
If that weren't enough commentary action for you, Brad Dourif provides an in character 'Chucky' commentary for a few select scenes in the picture. You can access these directly from the menu so that you don't have to sift through the film messing with audio options to find it. This is pretty amusing and worth listening to if you enjoy Dourif's character as Chucky rips on what it's like to be a film star and some of his fellow cast members.
Up next is a three part featurette entitled Evil Comes In Small Packages. The three parts are The Birth Of Chucky, Creating The Horror and Unleashed and the titles more or less give away what is covered within. Totaling just over eighteen minutes in length, this well rounded piece includes interviews with most of the people who worked on the film (save for Tom Holland who is mysteriously missing in action throughout most of the supplements on this disc) as it covers the project from pre-production, production, and post-production before moving on and covering the popularity and influence of the film and the franchise that followed in its wake.
A second featurette, Chucky: Building A Nightmare, takes a look at the special effects that were used in the film. This is an interesting and fairly in-depth look at the animatronics that were used and the wealth of behind the scenes footage used in this ten minute segment makes it completely worthwhile and genuinely interesting at that. You'll walk away from this one with some newfound respect for what Kevin Yagher accomplished with this film as the effects work really is quite inventive.
A Monster Convention is a five minute panel discussion that was recorded at a horror convention where Sarandon, Hicks and Vincent all sat around fielding questions from attendees. While this definitely could have been longer and more substantial it's a fairly amusing and off the cuff talk and it's fun to see the stars of the film interact with the people who made them stars in the first place.
Rounding out the extra features is the vintage Introducing Chucky: The Making Of Child's Play promotional featurette (a fairly stale and rather dated look at the production while it was being shot that includes some moderately interesting comments from director Tom Holland), a still gallery, the film's original trailer, animated menus, and chapter selection.
The only extra features for Child's Play 2 and Child's Play 3 are their respective theatrical trailers, menus and chapter selection.
Bride Of Chucky starts off with an audio commentary with director Ronny Yu. This is a pretty interesting discussion although it is very technical and as such it can get a little stale at times. Yu talks about the film stock that he used for the movie and talks about what it was like to work with Dourif and Tilly. He covers how he tried to incorporate his own vision into the Chucky mythos and points out a few interesting shots and explains how they were done along the way.
Also included is a second audio commentary, this time with the two leads from the film - Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif who are joined by writer Don Mancini. This is a more interesting talk than Yu's discussion simply because it's quite humorous and the three participants are obviously having a good time here. They cover what it was like shooting in Canada and some of the difficulties that they ran into with some of the effects work. They point out some interesting character development bits and give us a good, overall impression of what their involvement in the picture entailed and how they feel about the project in hindsight.
Rounding out the extra features for Bride Of Chucky is a Spotlight on Location documentary that over eight minutes or so explores the making of the film. There's some interesting behind the scenes footage in here that show us how the Chucky doll used in the movie was brought to life, in addition to some cast and crew interviews. The original theatrical trailer for the film is also included and we get menus and chapter stops here as well.
Seed Of Chucky starts off with a commentary from Jennifer Tilly and Don Mancini. This is a fun track as the two have a good report with one another and they manage to provide a pretty honest look at the movie. Tilly is humorously critical of herself in the film, making jokes about her weight while Mancini talks about where some of the inspiration for the story came from and how he tried to tie certain things together with a few of the earlier films. There are some fun stories in here and it's refreshing to hear about not only what they feel worked but what they disliked about the movie as well. There's a second commentary here with Mancini and puppeteer Tony Gardner as well that's decent enough but far more technical.
Up next is a Slashed Scene - available with or without commentary from Mancini and Debbie Carrington - that runs three minutes. It's an amusing bit in which the 'little person' actress gets to know Tiffany. We also get a quick two minute piece called Heere's Chucky where everyone's favorite killer doll is interviewed on camera. The Family Hell-iday Slide Show: A Look At The Chucky Family In Paris, New York City And Hollywood is an amusing featurette in which we see mock photographs of Chucky auditioning for various film roles and taking his wife and son across the country and around the world. It's pretty funny and Dourif does a good job with the material.
A second eighteen-minute featurette entitled Conceiving The Seed Of Chucky takes a look at how the series has evolved over the years by way of some interviews with those involved in it. Tilly and Mancini show up here as does Redman and a few of the people who bankrolled the films. It's an interesting and humorous supplement (Redman is pretty funny here) even if it doesn't really go all that in-depth with the material.
Also included here is an amusing clip of Jennifer Tilly on The Tonight Show in which she tells Jay Leno by way of her video diary about her experiences on the shoot. Fuzion Up Close With The Seed Of Chucky Stars runs four and a half minutes and is a TV clip that brings in Tilly, Tiffany and Chucky himself for some amusing interviews. Closing out this disc are some Storyboard Comparisons, a theatrical trailer, a teaser trailer, menus and chapter selection.
Extras for the last film in the set kick off with a commentary track from director Don Mancini, leading lady Fiona Dourif and puppeteer Tony Gardner. This is a decent track with a good amount of activity and given that we get the man in charge, a tech guy and the leading lady involved, it makes sense that this would cover as many bases as it does. Mancini has more to say than everyone else but the other two aren't really ever at a loss for words. We learn about what went into getting the story right, Fiona's character and how she prepared for it and the challenges that this part incurred and what went into getting Chucky 'right' on screen.
From there we a few featurettes starting off with Playing With Dolls: The Making Of Curse Of Chucky, a fifteen minute piece that gives us a look at what it was like on set and which features some cast and crew interviews as well as some clips from the movie. We also get a bit of background info on some of the earlier entries and what the filmmakers were going for with this latest picture. The next featurette is Living Dolls: Bringing Chucky To Life, a nine minute piece that features more cast and crew interviews as well as a bunch of backstage footage that shows off the animatronics used to make Chucky seem alive in the movie. It's interesting to see what all goes into this and the different parts that are required not just for movement but to create expression as well. The scenes that aren't done with animatronics are done with a little guy in a suit too, and we get to check him out in action as well. The third and final featurette is Voodoo Doll: The Chucky Legacy, which runs seven minutes and gives us an overview of the series from the beginning to this current installment with some cast and crew interviews in there to add context..
Rounding out the formal extras are six deleted scenes (Getting Dress, Taking A Break, Looking For Chucky, Dad Gets A Ride, Burned and Ancient Egypt - six minutes or so in total), a one and a half minute gag reel and storyboard comparisons for four scenes (Electrocution, The Attic, Ian's Death and Nica Vs. Chucky).
The disc also includes animated menus and chapter selection and the set includes a download code for an Ultra Violet digital copy of Curse Of Chucky only.
The Final Word:
Some may take issue with Universal not releasing all of the sequels individually but outside of that, there's not whole lot of room to complain here. All six of the movies in the set look quite nice and there's a pretty decent array of supplemental material included in the set as well. If you're not already a fan of the series, a boxed set release isn't going to get you to change your mind even if it is presented in HD, but fans of the Child's Play series should definitely appreciate the upgrade that this set provides.