There’s barely a horror franchise in memory that hasn’t been blighted by the law of diminishing returns, but after an absence from our screens that edged closer and closer towards a decade, a lot of fans thought the goose of Child’s Play was well and truly cooked, until 2013’s Curse of Chucky brought the killer doll roaring back from the brink.
The first five entries in the slasher series slowly suffered from worse reviews and lower box office returns, to the extent that 2004’s Seed of Chucky scored the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score and weakest box office haul of the lot. After taking an extended hiatus, though, the red-haired terror returned with a vengeance.
Curse of Chucky may not have seen the inside of a theater, but a 75 percent score on the aforementioned aggregation site set a new benchmark, only for successor Cult of Chucky to land even more in the way of acclaim. A remake and popular TV series that’s recently been renewed for a third season followed, so it’s not an exaggeration to say that the sixth chapter may have saved the entire IP from the scrapheap.
M3GAN might be the one stealing all the headlines and causing the social media scandals, but it’s Curse of Chucky that’s taken a knife to the streaming charts this week, with FlixPatrol naming it to be one of the most-watched features on the Rakuten rankings.
Killer dolls are back in vogue, so it’s fitting that Chucky has taken his place back among the top tier after so long in the wilderness.