Orion Pictures recently unveiled Mark Hamill’s official Chucky voice in the Child’s Play reboot, and it sounded, well, a lot like Hamill’s take on The Joker. Indeed, one can hear touches of the Clown Prince of Crime in Hamill’s cackle within a new version of the horror icon, so at least on that note, the reboot should deliver. Whether or not the film’s heavy emphasis on the evils of technology (a theme that’s even been overplayed by Black Mirror at this point) can generate scares is another matter.
Hamill sounded a little nervous in that regard while recently speaking with Den of Geek. The Star Wars actor spoke about Chucky’s new origin story, which is “not [from] the soul of a serial killer” but comes from someone “deliberately altering his operating system and [taking] off the safety measures.” Hamill said that the voice work was as intimdating as taking on the Joker role:
“I felt intimidation like I hadn’t felt since I did the Joker … I didn’t feel that kind of intimidation until it sunk in that I was doing this. I love Brad. It’s a great responsibility, so I’m anxious to see how people react because it’s not the Chucky that we all know from before.”
His trepidation is understandable, given that reboots are so strongly scrutinized these days because there’s so darn many of them. In addition, there’s the unavoidable truth that horror films tend to carry high profit margins, so any box-office failure will stand out. Still, Hamill appears to have done solid voice work (from the sounds of this clip, at least), so he should sufficiently terrorize the hell out of Gabriel Bateman and Aubrey Plaza. Whether or not people will want to watch a doll control a smart home is another matter, and we’ll find out how that goes when Child’s Play cackles into theaters on June 21.
(Via Den of Geek)
