Manifest Media’s Table Read podcast recently released their Fright Night episode, which featured most of the original cast from the 1985 horror camp classic. One big change from the film was Star Wars legend Mark Hamill taking over the role of Peter Vincent, the character originated by the late, great Roddy McDowall. Fright Night director Tom Holland was also in attendance during the reading, but this event wasn’t the only thing the director has in common with Hamill. Holland also helmed the original Child’s Play in 1988 and Hamill voiced Chucky in the 2019 remake. ComicBook was in attendance during the Fright Night reading, and we got the chance to chat with Holland and Hamill together. Turns out, they had never talked about their Chucky connection.
“When they came to me, I said, ‘No, you get Brad Dourif. He is Chucky.’ And they said, ‘Well, this is a reboot that alters the storyline. It’s a very different Chucky. I said, ‘Okay, I’ll read it,’” Hamill explained to ComicBook alongside Holland. “And here’s the intriguing part. Instead of the soul of a serial killer being transferred into his body … This one was an artificial intelligence doll, where a disgruntled employee, angry at the way he was treated, switches off the safety mechanism that controls him for not injuring people or murdering them or anything. And so he’s an innocent at the start.”
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“And then he starts learning, but he learns the wrong things,” Hamill continued. “For instance, he sees a group of teenagers all sitting around and laughing their heads off at a slasher movie. So, in his head, slashing people, that’s good. It makes people happy. He grows from a complete innocent to a monster by the end of the thing. That’s the only reason I did it. I thought I wouldn’t be interested in just doing a remake, especially since nobody can be better than Brad. And I loved the original movie.”
“They messed with the remake,” Holland chimed in. “They made it for Christmas. They set it in Christmas, and then they took Christmas out, but they couldn’t take the Christmas lights out in the third act.”
“Did you do any of the sequels?” Hamill asked Holland. “Hell no. Just Child’s Play,” Holland replied.
“Cause there was Child’s Play 2, 3, 4,” Hamill added. “I’ll tell you, once I agreed to do it, I ordered all of them off of Amazon. And of course, the first one is great. By the time they get to Bride and Chucky and stuff. It’s pretty silly.”
Tom Holland Talks Difficulties of Making Child’s Play:
ComicBook also chatted with Holland on his own during the Fright Night table read, and he spoke more about Child’s Play, and explained why it was a much more difficult movie to make than Fright Night. In fact, he called Fright Night, “The best experience I’ve ever had directing a film.”
“Yeah, Child’s Play was a difficult film, but Child’s Play was difficult because nobody had done the killer doll movie, and it asked a puppet to do what I needed that puppet to do. So I mean, there were a lot of shots. I’d say half to three-quarters of the shots were a terrible fight just to get them. That was nobody’s fault. That was just that my expectations outpaced the technology at the time. So quite often, I had to figure out how to get the shots in different waves, and I was lucky I got them more often than I didn’t, and if I couldn’t get them, I figured out another way to stage the scene. So Child’s Play turned out terrific, but it was much more difficult and intense.”
“Every kid has woken up and looked around his room and at his action toys and his dolls and things and said, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if one of them came alive?’ Well, one does. And his name is Chucky. And you’re in deep sh*t trouble.”
You can listen to the Fright Night episode of the Table Read podcast here.
