PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Though pint-sized in stature, Chucky has a legacy that is larger than life. Over the course of three-plus decades, which saw the release of seven movies and a television show, this red-headed menace has cemented himself as an icon in the horror space, garnering one of the most diehard fanbases in the genre and pop culture as a whole.
While many of these fans mourned the loss of the Syfy series Chucky, which was canceled earlier this year after three seasons, they’re about to have a whopping five hours of fresh content about their beloved Good Guys doll.
On Nov. 1, Shudder is releasing Doc of Chucky, the ultimate account of the Child’s Play film franchise. Directed by Thommy Hutson, the brains behind Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, Scream: The Inside Story and Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th, this new 295-minute documentary provides an in-depth look at each installment, featuring exclusive cast and crew interviews, including with Don Mancini, Jennifer Tilly (Bound 1996), Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 1975), Catherine Hicks (7th Heaven 1996) and Chris Sarandon (The Nightmare Before Christmas 1993), behind-the-scenes footage and more. Michael Perez and Mark Miller served as producers.
Ahead of the release of Doc of Chucky, PopHorror spoke with Hutson about his latest project that he hopes will have Chucky fans rewatching their favorite movies through fresh eyes.
PopHorror: Obviously you’re no stranger to doing projects like this. You’ve done documentaries for Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street. How and when did the idea for a Chucky one come to be?
Thommy Hutson: This actually came to me. Someone came to me in 2017 and said, “Hey, what about doing something on Child’s Play?” It wasn’t the right time. I wish I could say something really dynamic. I remember it not working, it just wasn’t right for me at the time. So it didn’t happen and I ended up doing some other things. And then Michael Perez and I, the executive producer who we’ve worked together on other things, we started just talking about, “Well, what do we want to do next? We’re running out of franchises.” And that’s when we were like, “OK, do we really start thinking seriously about Child’s Play?” Because there is an anniversary coming up at some point and it’s going to be in the zeitgeist. New movies were coming out and it just seemed right, honestly.
So the first thing we did was, we started just calling people to find out, “Hey, this is what I’ve done, this is what I’m thinking of doing, would you be interested?” And I was so lucky and thrilled that people were like, “Yes, let’s totally do this! Let’s talk about it, it’s time.” So we had that excitement propelling us in terms of, the timing was right, the series had I think been announced at the time we were starting, or it was already in production. Everything felt right. So it was just the last big franchise that hadn’t had this kind of treatment done to it. There had been bonus features, of course, but nothing in that giant continuum of multi-hour movie, movie, movie, movie, through line with as many cast and crew as possible. And it all fell into place, so it was like, “The universe is telling us it’s time.”
PopHorror: It includes interviews with so many people. Every few minutes, I was going, “Oh, my God, they got the Peddler (Juan Ramírez, Backdraft 1991)! They got Miss Kettlewell (Beth Grant, Donny Darko 2001)!” It was so cool to see from a longtime fan’s perspective. What went into coordinating all of that, especially with these actors who have been out of the Chucky world for decades?
Thommy Hutson: It’s always kind of, I call it the “battle.” And it’s not anything to do with any of them. It’s just, you make your wish list, which is this long, and then you start calling people and the dominoes start falling, and then you don’t get people. It really comes down to, you kind of make a list of, who do you absolutely need? My question to myself is, “Who do I need to do this, and who will kill it if I don’t get them?” I go back, I remember when we were doing Elm Street, if we don’t get Wes Craven, it’s dead, right? So in this one, the key to me was Don Mancini and David Kirshner. And I felt like if they were on board, it gives the legitimacy to other people who are like, “Oh, I don’t know if I should, I don’t know if I want to.” So when they said yes and they were really positive about it, that was such a wonderful feeling because it just gives you the fuel to go, “OK, we’re on our way.”
And then it’s just calling lots of agents, lots of managers, and in some cases, “Hey, didn’t you mention that you had a friend who had a friend who worked with so and so who knows so and so?” It’s a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails, a lot of crossing fingers. But ultimately, it worked out. We got some fantastic people who have never really spoken at length about this, especially not recently. So I’m really, really proud of the people that we’ve assembled. I think they absolutely helped us tell the story I wanted to tell.
PopHorror: There are so many cool behind-the-scenes tidbits. Was there anything that you learned in the process of making this documentary that surprised you?
Thommy Hutson: I think the biggest reveal for me that kind of blew my mind and made me rethink everything I thought I knew about Child’s Play 3 was when [Shelton actor] Travis [Fine (Girl, Interrupted 1999)] talks about his inner monologue about his feelings toward Andy (Justin Whalin, Dungeons & Dragons 2000), and how he revealed this otherness, and how that’s coming through, and how it’s not coming through. The idea that there was this incredible subtext and subconscious thing in his mind for his character that I don’t think anyone had ever thought about or knew about or took out of the movie. So for me, that’s what it is, it’s what Travis reveals about his character in part three. That’s really the big one. We were all jaws on the floor, like, “This is amazing. Keep talking, tell us more.” And then you immediately want to rewatch Child’s Play 3 and go, “Oh, yeah, there it is.”
PopHorror: I completely agree! He said that and I tried to find any fan conversations about it online, but couldn’t.
Thommy Hutson: It’s not there. It’s not there because he as an actor created this fantastic inner monologue, these inner feelings, these intentions that he played in such a wonderful way, that it only comes across when you sort of know. And then it changes everything. It really was an “aha” moment. It really was.
PopHorror: Doc of Chucky pushes the 5-hour mark. Was that the original intention, or did it naturally happen as you got more material?
Thommy Hutson: We always knew that it was gonna be long. I feel like all of my shows end up becoming these opuses. We always knew that it was going to be multi-hour. We could’ve made 10 hours. The difficulty, and kind of the fun, in these shows is, you have this much material, but you only have this much time. So we were really lucky that we didn’t necessarily pull out things that didn’t work. It was pulling out things for time, but still keeping in things that tell the story. But no, we always knew it was going to be long. I didn’t want to do something that wasn’t long enough because this franchise, I think, it needs to have justice done to it because there is so much going on. Every movie is different. Every movie is saying something different.
You have Don Mancini as this through line through the whole thing with an idea. From the beginning, he knows where it is, he knows where it’s going. I didn’t want to shortchange any segment, but still keeping in mind the constraints of, “OK, we’re pushing 5 hours, that’s really our limit here.” So I’m just really happy that we were able to get everything that we really wanted to that we think helps tell that story in that multi-hour way.
PopHorror: Chucky fans, 99% of them are so diehard. What do you hope they take out of this project? What do you hope the response is?
Thommy Hutson: Aside from just watching this documentary because you’re a fan and you love the movies, and you want to know how it’s made and hear them tell the stories, I really truly hope — and I hope this with all of my shows — that people watch the documentary or a specific segment, and they come away with not just a deeper understanding of how they did something in the movie and why they did it, but that they want to rewatch that movie with a different lens. They want to rewatch that movie knowing what they know now, as opposed to what they knew then. It’s sort of the old adage, “If I knew then what I know now.” I want people to enjoy the movies on another level because now they do know more about intention, which is really important about why movies are made and what they mean, not just to the audience and what the filmmaker wanted to get across. I’m hoping people are entertained, and that they want to revisit, to rewatch the movies to get a different perspective and enjoy them in an entirely new way. If people do that, then I’ll really be proud and feel like I succeeded beyond my expectations.
Thanks for speaking with us, Thommy! Doc of Chucky is streaming Nov. 1 on Shudder.
