June 21 brings two tales of toys to theater screens. In one, Andy’s former toy Woody reunites with an old flame and goes on an adventure to bring a fellow toy back to its kid. In the other, a different Andy discovers that not all toys have such good intentions and childhood games can quickly become nightmares. Take a look below to see Mark Hamill’s Chucky terrorizing Andy in a clip from the new Child’s Play.
Mark Hamill may be best known for playing Luke Skywalker, but here he shows why he is such an accomplished voice actor. Even though we don’t see Chucky in the scene, just through his voice Mark Hamill conveys all of Chucky’s feigned innocence, his true malice and the pleasure he derives from terrorizing poor Andy. This game of Hide-and-Seek is like a cat playing with its terrified food.
Gabriel Bateman’s Andy is super freaked out, frightened and confused by the whole thing, but he puts on a brave face and even picks up a weapon hoping to protect himself. But a wooden bat is a weapon for a more simplistic foe, and Chucky is playing on a different level. This becomes clear to Andy when the TV shows Andy’s feet and the look on his face changes from one of determination in the face of fear to one that says ‘oh shit.’
The whole clip, and the premise of this new Child’s Play, feels like something out of an episode of Black Mirror. Chucky is a toy with smart functionality and he’s able to connect with all the other seemingly innocuous smart household devices that we interact with and allow to listen to us, watch us and control our surroundings. It makes his presence near ubiquitous and gives him a level of omnipotence.
This all makes escaping Chucky far more difficult than simply outrunning a two-foot doll. Maybe older generations really did have it better just using their imaginations and playing with sticks and rocks.
This trailer continues the trend of the marketing so far for Child’s Play by largely focusing on Chucky’s voice versus actually showing the killer doll. CinemaBlend’s own Mike Reyes has wondered about this approach and if we need to see more of Chucky, and although that may be the case, I think less is more works here for this clip.
Mark Hamill’s brilliant voice performance and the premise of the scene put us in Andy’s shoes, where Chucky is more dangerous specifically because we can’t see him. We'll have to wait and see how the film doles out looks at Chucky once he turns evil, but for now, Child's Play is taking a Jaws approach, showing us just enough of the threat to build suspense and tease it out.
Child’s Play opens in theaters on June 21. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of all the biggest movies headed to theaters this summer.
