Blumhouse and Universal’s most recent horror movie, M3GAN, has given 2023 a violent start. This weekend’s box office is poised to be slayed by the movie about an evil AI companion owing to a never-endingly amusing marketing campaign and M3GAN’s funny but lethal demeanour. Despite that, many people have compared this new killer doll to the iconic Chucky from the horror genre. Late last year, the two even engaged in a humorous Twitter argument. Now, Chucky creator Don Mancini has welcomed horror’s newest icon to the killer doll family on M3GAN’s opening weekend.
On both Instagram and Twitter Mancini wrote, “Welcome to the dollhouse @meetm3gan A tip of the hat to the new kid in the block on her opening weekend! Can’t wait to see you in action and I know @chuckyisreal feels the same.” Given Mancini’s legendary horror history, it’s nice seeing these two demented dolls finally getting along. Like M3GAN, Chucky spawned from humble low budget horror beginnings. Chucky was first introduced in 1988’s Child’s Play directed by Tom Holland (not that Tom Holland) from a screenplay co-written by Mancini. It was this great horror thriller full of paranoia that made us anxiously wonder if Chucky was really alive or a figment of his owner Andy’s imagination. It truly tapped into a kid’s worst fear of their toys coming to life. However, like we all know by now, Chucky was indeed real and the reincarnation of serial killer Charles Lee Ray played so flawlessly by Brad Dourif.
The first film was a bona fide hit and spawned two Initial sequels, 1990’s Child’s Play 2 and 1991’s Child’s Play 3. By that time Chucky had become such a household name that Mancini decided to drop the Child’s Play title altogether. Since 1998’s more comedic focused Bride of Chucky the series would get three more films in Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky, and Cult of Chucky along with a mega popular Syfy TV series that just finished up its second season in late 2022. There was also a remake of the original Child’s Play in 2019 under MGM, but Mancini wasn’t involved.
