Something to Celebrate
This week’s reasons to celebrate are rife with Halloween cheer, inviting observances like howling at the moon day and night, honoring black cats and eating chocolate.
But perhaps the Halloweeniest of the offerings come on Sunday, Oct. 25, when people are invited to celebrate “Chucky the Notorious Killer Doll Day.”
The “Child’s Play” movie franchise, featuring the creepy, murderous talking doll Chucky, has been offering guts, gore and jump scares since 1988.
Eight films have featured the killer doll, and each is campier than the last.
The original “Child’s Play” centers around Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) as a child who received a Good Guy doll for his 6th birthday.
As bodies pile up, movie watchers come to learn that the innocent looking gift is anything but – and is in fact possessed by a serial killer.
One of the cheesiest of the franchise is “The Cult of Chucky,” released in 2017. The movie brings back an adult Barclay (in a role reprised by Vincent) and Chucky’s wife, a similarly stab-happy doll named Tiffany (voiced by Jennifer Tilly).
Like so many horror movies before it (“Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” for example) “Child’s Play” got a remake in 2019.
Written by Tyler Burton Smith and directed by Lars Klevberg, the new movie also follows the Barclay family, who is terrorized by a high-tech, self-aware Buddi doll.
Aubrey Plaza (“Parks and Recreation,” “Legion”) stars as Karen Barclay, mother to 13-year-old hearing-impaired Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman).
The reboot changed the look of the iconic doll, and was less well-received than the original, according to Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB.
That said, no one really watches horror movies expecting an Oscar-worthy performance. They’re all about the scares – and if that’s what you’d like to celebrate, the full franchise offers nearly 12 full hours of watching on Chucky’s holiday.
If that holiday day doesn’t fit your idea of fun, here are some others you might want to observe this week:
n Oct. 22: National Make a Dog’s Day, National Nut Day, Caps Lock Day
n Oct. 23: National Boston Cream Pie Day, National TV Talk Show Host Day, iPod Day
n Oct. 24: National Bologna Day, National Food Day
n Oct. 25: National Greasy Food Day, Sourest Day, Chucky the Notorious Killer Doll Day
n Oct. 26: National Mule Day, National Pumpkin Day, Howl at the Moon Day and Night
n Oct. 27: National American Beer Day, National Black Cat Day
n Oct. 28: National Chocolate Day