Double Feature: Child’s Play, Toy Story 4

I’ve never actually been to a drive-in movie theater, although I certainly hope to before they likely vanish altogether.

Still, I am aware of and intrigued by the double features that continue to grace drive-in screens across the country. And while I could not tell you which cinematic pairings are currently entertaining moviegoers nationwide, I do have a suggestion for the brave entrepreneurs who continue to see the value in watching a movie outdoors with car-radio-quality audio.

This past weekend gifted us with two toy-centric films in Lars Klevberg’s Child’s Play and Josh Cooley’s Toy Story 4. Of course, these movies are markedly different from one another. Child’s Play is a mostly comedic reboot of the horror franchise that provided its central Chucky doll with icon status throughout the late 80’s and early 90’s. Toy Story 4, on the other hand, is the (presumed) conclusion to the legendary Pixar franchise that gained popularity over two decades ago.

Whether it is pure coincidence or a clever attempt at counterprogramming on Child’s Play distributor United Arts Releasing’s part, the fact that these two films debuted the same weekend remains fascinating to me. Just imagine that double feature! The bloody taste of a gory slasher film is washed away with a family-friendly story of growing up and finding yourself. Or should the feel-good nature of Toy Story 4 be deliciously corrupted by the invasive presence of Child’s Play‘s killer doll? The cynic in me tends to love that second option in particular.

Anyway, for as different as these two films are, particularly in their attitudes towards toys, a complex relationship remains. That these are the last two movies I have seen is mostly hilarious, as I’d imagine the overlap between their respective viewerships is mediocre at best, but it has also granted me two very different perspectives on the significance of childhood and play in our contemporary culture.

Or are they that different?

Let’s find out. This is the first in what I hope to make a series: posts putting two seemingly unrelated films into conversation with one another. I have done something similar in the past, but now it has a fancy name!

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I will begin with Child’s Play, only because it likely requires more convincing that this over-the-top remake even carries any meaning at all. In many ways, Klevberg does try to dash any attempts at analysis. He knows he is recreating a story that is, at its core, pretty stupid. But stupidity isn’t always a bad thing, especially when its embraced with adoration.

Whereas the 1988 version of the film dealt with a normal doll imbued with the soul of a serial killer, this revision features a technologically advanced doll, whose “violence inhibitor” is removed by a frustrated factory worker in Vietnam, and who learns to kill by watching scenes from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 2019’s Child’s Play is therefore not a Black Mirror-esque commentary on the invasive or disturbing role technology plays in our lives, although it does welcome such readings in other ways. This version of Chucky, a Buddi doll developed by the fictional Kaslan Corporation, records its owners every word and action, eventually using them against his victims. When Chucky brutally forces Andy’s stepfather’s skull through a tiller, he only does so because he has a recording of Andy saying he hates him, and wishes he would go away.

(Also, yes, that’s right. The central boy in the Child’s Play franchise is named Andy, just like the young boy central to the first three Toy Story films. These films are inviting comparison to one another!)

This updated version of Chucky does offer some intriguing questions that a different film would be more interested in answering. Namely, what will we do when our technology is prepared to take everything we say and do, all the data collected on us, and use it against us? Again, Child’s Play does not bother to dive deeper into this query, but it is still a pretty compelling proposition put forth by a film that is otherwise concerned with strangling kittens and spewing blood onto eleven-year-old girls. The film plants some other seeds for technological interrogation, including a scene that is meant to allude to the nearing age of self-driving cars. Still, while these additions make sense for a reboot in our digital age, they are not what the film, and certainly the franchise at large, concerns itself with.

Several of Chucky’s murders are in the name of preserving, even increasing, Andy’s happiness. The cat scratched Andy? Kill the cat. Andy’s stepfather is a dick? Let’s kill that motherfucker Shane. Like any other Buddi doll, Chucky simply wants to render his owner’s life as efficient and positive as possible. Unlike the others, he understands violence as a means of doing so. And while we can recognize violence as a completely incorrect and flawed way of making someone happy, are Chucky’s desires really all that different from Woody’s in Toy Story 4? 

Toys in the Toy Story universe have always been assigned a unique sort of parental role. They do what parents cannot, entertaining kids primarily during playtime, but also comforting them in moments when their parents may not be able to.  Toy Story 4 sees Woody adapting to life as Bonnie’s toy after spending most of his life with “Andy” on his boot. Whereas Bonnie’s other toys take societal and parental rules very seriously in ensuring Bonnie’s happiness, Woody does not. When Bonnie is afraid to go to kindergarten orientation, Woody insists a toy must go with her. His peers know that is against her parents’ rules, so they make no attempt to do so. Woody, willing to go to extreme lengths to ensure his kid’s happiness, sneaks into Bonnie’s backpack before she leaves. This decision is simultaneously selfless and selfish. Having been ignored by Bonnie in favor of other toys for months, Woody recognizes the moment as an opportunity to gain her affection once more. Outside of Chucky’s penchant for sharp objects, these two dolls prove to be quite similar. Both of them simply want their kid to be comforted and protected. More importantly, they want to be the ones to do it.

Woody obviously has a tighter grasp on what makes a kid happy than Chucky does, which is likely a result of key differences in these two talking-toy universes. Toys in Toy Story are anthropomorphized and sentient, unbeknownst to most humans in the Toy Story universe. Chucky, on the other hand, is essentially a robot, programmed to communicate with Andy and his mom (Aubrey Plaza, cast against type).

Regardless, these characters similarly serve as symbols of childhood, parenthood and companionship.

When Chucky first enters Andy’s life, the impact is purely positive. He becomes Andy’s only friend in a life otherwise characterized by complete isolation. Chucky soon facilitates a friendship between Andy and two other kids in his apartment building, Falyn and Pugg. A Toy Story toy likely would have stopped here, dusting their hands off and exclaiming “my work here is done!” But Chucky senses his waning grasp on Andy’s affection, and thus works hard to maintain it. In a way, Toy Story 4 tells the tale of Woody abandoning his Chucky-like mindset and embracing his role as a lost or forgotten toy.

The two films seem to represent the constant push and pull parents experience in relation to their children. If we are to view toys as parental figures, as I previously suggested, then they too must accept that kids grow up, make friends, and move on. Toy Story 4 sees Woody and the gang wrestle with the possibility of being forgotten entirely, but they eventually reach the conclusion that they are helping kids make memories that will last a lifetime. It has long been essential to the toys in Toy Story that they get to be played with, but as the series comes to its likely end, the toys discover all that really matters is that kids are playing.

But if play is so important, which I think we can all agree it is, then why does a franchise like Child’s Play complicate it by rendering it outright terrifying? As a children’s film, Toy Story strives to remind its viewers, parents and their children alike, that playing is not only permissible, but necessary. I would argue that Child’s Play is not anti-play, but anti-consumerism. It warns viewers to be wary of, maybe even repulsed by, the toys you are entrusting to supervise your children. This warning seems especially obvious in the context of 2019’s technological revamp, but it was also true of the 1988 version.

I am a little surprised, but also relieved, that the Toy Story franchise resisted the urge to ever feature its protagonists combating the increasing presence of technology in serving as entertainment for children. It really makes no difference what children are playing with. I’m not necessarily a proponent of putting a kid in front of an iPad from an early age, but in our current moment, an iPad is a toy much like Buzz Lightyear and Mr. Potato Head. Child’s Play would likely point to any of these items and highlight their status as commodities. Play is important in that it encourages imagination and self-expression, but it also renders children consumers. The anxiety surrounding this child-as-consumer phenomenon most prominently manifests itself in the Child’s Play franchise, but has since gained momentum in other horror films. The Conjuring universe even has a film about a haunted doll releasing this weekend in Annabelle Comes Home. Films such as this one highlight the fragile nature of toys as both playthings and collectibles, something the Toy Story series dealt with in its second installment.

Toy Story 4 cleverly leans into this growing association between terror and toy by featuring an Annabelle-like doll as its main antagonist, a group of creepy marionettes serving as her bodyguards. Seriously, for a children’s film, there is a surprising number of jump scares in Toy Story 4, possibly even more than there are in Child’s Play. The setting for these surprisingly scary antagonists is an antique shop. The shop’s inhabitants do not get to be toys in the conventional sense. They are not played with. Rather, they sit on shelves, collecting dust, waiting to be purchased.

Perhaps Toy Story 4‘s ideology is fairly similar to that of Child’s Play after all. In Pixar’s most popular franchise, value of the monetary variety is deemed insignificant or misguided. It is sentimental value that matters. When antagonist Gabby Gabby finally escapes the antique shop, she finds value in comforting a lost little girl. This reshaping of how we understand value is supported by the fact that Bonnie’s toys are mostly hand-me-downs from Andy. It’s not the buying of toys that gives them value, but the playing with them. Of course, Bonnie, with a little help from Woody, offers the biggest anti-capitalist statement in the film when she creates Forky, a toy hilariously made out of nothing but trash. Our consumer culture has led us to believe that getting is what’s important, rather than doing. Child’s Play very explicitly denounces consumerism by splattering blood all over a department store during the big release of the Buddi 2. Toy Story 4 stops short of gore in getting its message across, but its agenda is largely the same, albeit with a bit more optimism.

When I last wrote about a Pixar film, I took issue with its decidedly capitalist perspective. So while I applaud the Toy Story films for their progressiveness, I do so with hesitation. The very fact that Disney is selling a Forky action figure tells you all you need to know about this company and how seriously it takes its own messaging. The whole point of the character is that he’s a DIY toy!

If that overpriced Forky toy learns how to wield a knife and operate machinery, don’t say I (or Child’s Play) didn’t warn you.

Until next time,

Cory Reid