Entertainment

Interview with Don Mancini, the creator of "Chucky"

Time to celebrate "Child's Play" 25th anniversary

"Curse of Chucky" just debuted on October 8th on Blu-Ray and DVD. director and creator of Chucky Don Mancini joined us for a quick interview to talk about horror, Chucky and cabage patch kids.

First of all I would love to thank you for traumatizing me when I was a kid with your creation, I think that for most people that grew up with me, Chucky was as horrifiying as anything can get, there was no Jason, no Michael, to us it was Chucky, and second, how does it feel to have created a timeless horror icon?

Well, thanks. It's a dream come true, I really never thought that would happen but I'm glad it did[/u]

You wrote Child's Play or "Chucky" as most of us refer to the first one ,in your spare time while you were a student at UCLA, How did you come up with that idea?

Cabage patch dolls, that was my main inspiration. My father worked in marketing so I guess it was a big influence to me to analize the horrors of marketing on small children, and then Chucky happened.

What films have influenced you as a creator?

The Omen was a big influence on me, I would also have to say some of the horror films from Brian de Palma like Carrie, The Fury. And also de Palma's work was heavily inspired by the films of Hitchcock, so I would have to say they've been a big influence on me too.

How was it like to return Chucky to his horror roots after a couple of dark comedy sequels?

Well it was something that the fans really wanted. It's the 25th anniversary of "Child's Play" and it felt right to bring Chucky to his roots. We had the nostalgia factor going for this movie. Besides, I've only directed "Seed of Chucky" wich was a comedy and I really wanted to try and do a great horror film.

Speaking of which, why did you take a turn into comedy in the first place?

Not to repeat myself I guess. We've been making the same movie since the 90's and I think that Chucky as a charecter has enough absurdity that appeals to that. Also I thought that it would be great to lampoon myself before somebody else did it. I think nobody else had done it before, except maybe James Whale when he did "Bride of Frankenstein" which was basically a remake of his first film but there was a degree of absurdity to it, almost like a parody. So I drew a lot inspiration from.

I think its great that you're back at the director's chair, why did it take you so long to get back to it?

Well, "Seed of Chucky" didn't really do very well so there was some setback from the studio, you know, in the end it's all about money and investments, also Universal had a change in administration so there was also that. Besides, directing any project takes some time and we wanted to make sure we could deliver the best movie we could make. We were also caught up trying to do a remake of the first film in the style of "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" but that really didn't pan out so we made this new film that takes Chucky back to his horror origins and I think it worked out really well.

Why did you guys choose to make this a straight to home video release instead of doing theatrical?

That was the studio's decision, but to be honest the film was always conceived that way.

Speaking of theatrical releases, what do you think about the current wave of horror? Specifically the type of work that James Wan is doing, some people call it a revival of commercial horror.

I think its great, it is a new era of horror as you put it. Personally I'm a big fan of "found footage" films like "Paranormal Activity",

but I think that trend is starting to go away. I really love the type of movies James Wan has been making and I agree this is a new era of stylized horror that does recall some early horror movies, so I think we're on the right track.

What's next for Don Mancini?

I have a couple of non Chucky related projects coming my way, also there is another Chucky movie in the works. But it all depends on how good this one does, so go buy the dvd, tell everyone to watch it, it's really good.

"Curse of Chucky" is already available on DVD and Blu-Ray, it's also available on VoD, so go check it out, it's a classic horror movie with a lot of surprises that won't disappoint.

VIDEO: "Curse of Chucky"

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jorge.guevara@sandiegored.com

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