Living with Chucky (2022)

The world has come to know and love Chucky, the psychotic, murderous doll that has now been part of a film series spanning more than thirty years. Director Kyra Gardner, who has a unique connection to the doll, has gathered other individuals who have taken part in the series to get their take on their experiences Living with Chucky. This film captures the time and emotion poured into dozens of hours of content, and the world, for the first time, really gets to understand this deranged little killer.

I’ve never seen a single project that focused on Chucky, and honestly, I’ve never really had any desire to do so. I’ve spent my entire adult life seeing individuals fangirl over the popular series, and I’ve never truly understood the appeal–that’s until now. Gardner creates a film that will, in every way, appeal to long-time fans, but she also develops something that likely lends itself toward finding new viewers. Living with Chucky is a straightforward documentary that sits viewers down with dozens of talents and explores the work that they’ve done around the doll, and those interviews are pieced together with clips from the films in a way that effectively immerses viewers in those films.

I think it’s relatively easy to intrigue fans of the series, but to intrigue those of us that have had no interest in the films, that’s impressive. As I sat here, watching dozens of individuals talk about their experiences, only having good things to say about the process, a lightbulb went off, and I think I finally realized that there was more to these films than just blood and gore. Living with Chucky does a spectacular job of highlighting the love that was poured into each and every second of Chucky’s journey. I understand that, unlike some other horror series, the cinematic value, the expertise present in each and every film, is of high quality. Living with Chucky brings this sentiment to life for everyone to understand.

Seven films and a television series is a lot to cover, a lot to shed light on in less than two hours. One of Gardner’s biggest tasks is finding a way to appropriately pace all of the content present in the film–and I genuinely appreciate that Living with Chucky doesn’t try to give each and project exactly the same amount of time (because the reality is that they don’t all deserve the same amount of time). Gardner moves right past impossible expectations, and determines exactly how much time each project deserves, and with that, Living with Chucky’s pacing is splendid. Every piece of the puzzle is covered effectively–and everything that viewers could have ever wanted to know about the franchise comes to light with great aplomb.

While documentaries as a whole break the veritable fourth wall, Living with Chucky takes it a step further. Viewers are spoken to directly, and that includes them in the film, allowing them to feel like they are being targeted, as if Gardner specifically reached out to them to tell them she and the rest of the team’s story. Living with Chucky captures viewers’ attention in the opening seconds, and by making them part of this multi-tiered story, they become invested, far more entertained–and the documentary as a whole will surely appeal to the masses as a result.

Written & Directed by Kyra Gardner.

Starring Don Mancini, Tony Timpone, Lin Shaye, Marlon Wayans, David Kirschner, Brad Dourif, Dan Povenmire, Alex Vincent, etc.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10