When serial killer Charles Lee Ray is mortally wounded in a police shoot-out, he uses a voodoo spell to transfer his soul into Chucky, a "Good Guys" doll. Andy receives the doll as a birthday gift, and Chucky soon resumes his killing spree. However, Charles doesn't want to be trapped in the body of a doll forever. His only escape would be to transfer into the first human he revealed his true identity to... which places Andy in mortal danger.

BD: Nice to meet you... Child’s Play 3 was the first horror movie I ever got to go see in theaters when I was a kid, so this is cool.

DM: Ha! How old were you?

BD: Let’s see.... 11?

DM: (laughs). That’s an.... interesting introduction to that series.

BD: I like it! I think it’s a cool movie.

DM: I would never dissuade anyone from liking any of them. But generally, I’m sure you know, that is thought to be the least of them. But I think it has its moments.

BD: I love the traveling carnival at the end, with the gigantic, multi-million dollar haunted house. How are they going to break that down in an hour on Monday morning?

DM: (laughs)

BD: So the new special edition of the first movie, we finally get it in widescreen! I literally threw the old one across the room when the new one arrived.

DM: Yeah, the problem was the rights were held by MGM, and not Universal, where we did all the subsequent movies. So better late than never I guess. I actually just got a copy of the disc yesterday, I checked some of it out. I myself haven’t seen the movie looking so great for quite a while.

BD: It’s a really good special edition too. A lot of these “Anniversary” DVDs are missing more than half of the key personnel, but you got pretty much everyone on board.*

DM: Yeah, I think they did a really good job putting it together. The documentaries were really good. And I myself, that movie was shot during the writer’s strike in 1988, so I was not on set. So some of that stuff on the documentaries - I had never seen it before! I don’t know if you saw it, there’s a bit where Brad Dourif and Catherine Hicks are rehearsing, and he just suddenly grabs her! That was fantastic. And then Alex Vincent running into the frame and Brad sort of mimes knocking him down (laughs). It’s really funny.

BD: I had to laugh too, there’s an interview with you and David, and you’re both like “We love horror, we don’t condescend...”, and then the very next extra feature is an old EPK from 1988 and the cheesy announcer guy is like “The new SUSPENSE THRILLER from MGM!”

DM: (laughs) That’s a marketing thing, that doesn’t come from the filmmakers. There are a lot of horror movies that still get marketed with that lame-o title. Like The Sixth Sense, it’s a great horror movie, but when they go for their Oscar nominations it’s a “Psychological thriller”.

BD: Did you spearhead the special edition or did they come to you?

DM: I think that since that the home video rights got passed to FOX, I don’t really know the intricacies behind that, but since the 20th anniversary was coming up, internally they decided it was a good time to do one. And the producer, Michelle Gold, we had some mutual friends, so she called me, and then I sort of helped rally the troops. David Kirschner is of course just as integral a driving force behind the series as I am, so he wanted to be involved. We got Brad to come back, and that’s difficult sometimes, because like Brad works a lot, and he is bi-coastal, so he’s not always easy to reach. And I wanted to get Dinah Manoff** to participate as well, but she lives up in Oregon or Washington. We exchanged a few notes but we weren’t able to work it out. But we got everyone else, which was great.

BD: Have they talked about maybe doing special editions of 2 or 3? Those are pretty bare bones. Bride and Seed have pretty decent special editions, but those others have like nothing.

DM: David and I have been talking about it. I personally shot like 70 hours of video footage on the set of those 2 movies, not to mention the other stuff they shot officially. So there’s tons of material that we can use. And now that this one is coming out, David and I want to go to Universal and say “let’s do special editions”. There’s definitely an audience for these movies.

BD: OK, let’s move on to the remake. I guess the big question is: Why a remake? Why not Child’s Play 6?

DM: Well because the main thing is that we want to make it scary again, rather than comedic. And I think that was really the response to Seed, the fans sort of told us that they want it to be scary again. I think if we did a direct sequel to Seed of Chucky, which is a horror comedy, it would be a little tougher to continue the aspects of that story which so inherently absurd. That the bottom line, our main mission was to make it scary again and the best way to do that would be to reboot it. And it’s a remake, but there are a lot of new things in it. None of the details of the murders in the first movie will be repeated. All of the setpieces are going to be completely brand new, and we’re going to do a slight re-design on Chucky himself, although Brad Dourif will absolutely be the voice of Chucky, and will once again play Charles Lee Ray in the flesh. And we’re giving him more to do than he did in the original movie. That’s one of the most exciting things about it, from my perspective as a writer/director, to let this amazing actor sink his teeth into this role, which is one of his signature roles.

BD: Yeah, sometimes you almost forget that he was in the first movie; you’re just so accustomed to it being only his voice. 


DM: Exactly.

BD: Other than the murders though, is the story going to be similar? A kid named Andy Barclay gets a doll...

DM: Absolutely. But, obviously I can’t say too much, but there will be plenty of surprises. And it will definitely be R rated. We definitely want do a hardcore R rated, very scary, somewhat bloody movie.

BD: Even the first one was pretty funny at times, are you completely abandoning the humor?

DM: Of course, no, it will. I like to think the original one has a certain wit about it, and that’s integral to the character of Chucky himself, he just has this gleeful, sadistic wit. And I think that is part of the spirit of the original movie, and we’ll certainly continue that. But we’re certainly not... like, you won’t see Jennifer Tilly or Redman playing themselves, or gender-confused dolls. All that stuff which I personally really enjoy, I love horror comedy, but I also love horror-horror, and that’s what we’re going to do next time out.

BD: So when does production start on the remake?

DM: It’s still early. We’ve had a few meetings with the studio. I pitched my take, gotten their feedback, and now it’s just deal-making time, which will take a while. The rights situation is... there is a co-ownership of this movie between Universal and MGM that has to be worked out. But I am told that is going smoothly. Once that’s done and the deal is signed I will start writing. At this point we are hoping for 2010.

BD: You mentioned Chucky will be getting a slight redesign; will he still have that cool knife? I always dug that knife...

DM: The voodoo knife with the design on it? You know I haven’t even thought about that or discussed that with anyone. It’s interesting you bring it up, I’ll mention that! Do you think it’s something fans feel strongly about?

BD: I don’t know about that, but I personally always thought it was a really interesting knife; most horror movies I had seen were just generic kitchen knives, I think it was the first time I saw one that was actually sort of designed for a film.

DM: I’m glad you brought that up then; I’ll try to see to it. It is a cool knife! In the sequels he just sort of picked up whatever knife was at hand. But I’m sure we can find a way to justify how to work it into the story.

BD: Also, I heard a rumor that it was going to be set on Christmas, is that true?

DM: (laughs). News to me! In the past when we’ve worked on the sequels, we’ve had discussions on occasion about setting it at Christmas, just because there’s something about the imagery of Chucky and Santa and snow that’s kind of appealing. Obviously there was a setpiece in Seed of Chucky where he kills Santa. In one of my earlier drafts of Child’s Play 2 it took place at Christmastime. The specifics of production dictated that we had to move away from that. But I believe we will set it on Andy’s birthday again. Although, the original movie was shot in Chicago during the winter, and it had a really cool look for that movie. I don’t know that we wouldn’t want to repeat that. There’s something really interesting about setting a horror movie in the winter, it’s really creepy. Like The Shining.

BD: Talking about unused ideas, at the beginning of 3, when Chucky is reborn because the blood from his old sort of husk is blended into a new batch of Good Guy dolls, I always had the idea that the blood went into more than one doll...

DM: In fact, that’s exactly how my original script for the first movie ended! My original script for the first movie had that factory sequence which ended up in Child’s Play 2. But what you just described was how my script ended, with the blood going into the vat, and the camera panning over the assembly line, with the implication that there would be this army of killer dolls.

BD: So it WAS a good idea!

(both laugh)

Outside of the movies, there are a lot of Chucky comics; did you have any involvement with those?

DM: None at all. When the Hack/Slash one came out, they did an interview with the guy who did it... his name escapes me, but in the interview he said that he really wanted to get in touch with me, for my blessing or a chat or whatever. And I was a bit confused by that, because I’m not exactly hard to find, I’m not a hermit or anything (laughs). And they are working at Focus, for the Hack/Slash movie, so it wouldn’t have required a whole lot of digging to get my phone number or email. But anyway, no I had no involvement, but I think they are pretty cool.

BD: It’s so strange to think there’s a Chucky property without your involvement... it’s very rare for any horror franchise to have ANYONE involved with every single movie, let alone a writer.

DM: Yeah, and I’ve said this in other interviews, but it bares repeating: David Kirschner and I think of ourselves as the Broccoli’s (the family behind all 20+ James Bond films) of the horror genre. It’s really important to us, and we don’t want to pass it on to people who just want to make a buck off of it. We are really proud of the character and the franchise and we want to see it done the way it should be done.

BD: So is the remake taking up all your time or are you working on something else in the meantime?

DM: I’m actually working on a pilot for the Sci-Fi channel called Kill Switch. Howie Mandel is my fellow executive producer on that.

BD: Can you talk about what it’s about yet?

DM: It’s a one hour suspense dramedy, a drama with comedic elements. I would describe it as Quantum Leap meets Agatha Christie. It’s about a woman who is sentenced to a kind of purgatory where in every episode she is in the body of a different person, and all she knows about that person is that someone is going to try to kill them. So she has to try to prevent the murder from taking place. Instead of a “whodunit?” it’s a “who’s gonna do it?” She’s gotta figure out who the person is, and what the relationships are with the people around them. And of course, everyone has a motive to possibly want to kill her. And sometimes she succeeds, sometimes she doesn’t. It gives the series a sense of unpredictability.

BD: Well, sounds good! Thank you for talking to us.

DM: Thank you! I appreciate all of you guys’ support.

BD: Hey, it’s no problem; Chucky rules.

DM: (Laughs) Thanks! Take care.

* Yes, Tom Holland was not involved with the new DVD, but since it’s a bit of a sore spot I chose not to bring it up.
** When I was a kid, I too wanted to “get” Ms. Manoff. Hottest babysitter ever!