We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
Cody watches a couple horror-related documentaries.
LIVING WITH CHUCKY (2022)
Friday the 13th has Crystal Lake Memories (both the book and the movie). The Nightmare on Elm Street series has the documentary Never Sleep Again. But a lot of the big horror franchises are still waiting to receive their definitive documentaries. Last year, I read the book Reign of Chucky, a film-by-film examination of the Child’s Play / Chucky franchise that was packed with interesting information about the making of the movies. But since it was assembled during the production of season 2 of the Chucky TV series, it was missing one major element: authors Dustin McNeill and Travis Mullins weren’t able to land interviews with some of the most prominent players in the franchise, like Don Mancini, who has written every entry in the series, or actors Brad Dourif, Jennifer Tilly, and Fiona Dourif. Now we have the documentary Living With Chucky, which isn’t comprehensively informative in the way Reign of Chucky was, but does feature interviews with Mancini, Tilly, and the Dourifs. So if you pair Reign of Chucky and Living With Chucky, you could now say that the Child’s Play / Chucky franchise does have its definitive “making of”, the story is just told across two formats. And they’re both lacking when it comes to the TV series, so we’re going to need follow-ups.
A major selling point for Living With Chucky is the fact that it was directed by Kyra Gardner, who happens to be the daughter of special effects artist Tony Gardner, who has been bringing Chucky (and Tiffany and Glen) to life since Seed of Chucky. But that personal aspect doesn’t become clear until late in the 100 minute running time. For the most part, the film is a straightforward documentary on the Child’s Play and Chucky movies. It goes through the series film-by-film, giving information on each installment as it goes. We hear how Mancini’s script Blood Buddy was reworked and rewritten into the film we know as Child’s Play, how the doll Buddy became the serial killer possessed Chucky, the fact that serial killer Charles Lee Ray was named after Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald, and James Earl Ray. The expansion of the story with part 2, the recasting of hero Andy Barclay for part 3, the addition of Chucky’s girlfriend Tiffany in Bride of Chucky, the arrival of Chucky and Tiffany’s child Glen, it’s all covered.
The story of the franchise is told through interviews with Mancini, producer David Kirschner, cast members Brad Dourif, Fiona Dourif, Jennifer Tilly, Alex Vincent, Christine Elise, Billy Boyd, John Waters, Adam Hurtig, and of course the director’s father Tony Gardner. We also hear from Tony Timpone, the former editor of Fangoria magazine; genre icon Lin Shaye; actors / horror fans Abigail Breslin and Elle Lorraine; YouTuber James A. Janisse; voice actor Dan Povenmire; and, the most unexpected interviewee, comedy star Marlon Wayans. Everyone has something interesting to contribute, and the involvement of the people who didn’t have anything to do with any of the Child’s Play / Chucky films or the TV show makes more sense the longer the documentary goes on.
The killer doll action in the first four movies was handled by Kevin Yagher, but a deal couldn’t be made to bring Yagher back for Seed of Chucky. That’s when Tony Gardner entered the picture… and when he reveals that the entire budget of Cult of Chucky was equal to just the puppet building budget on the first movie, you can understand why Yagher got priced out of range. Living With Chucky covers the Gardner era the same way it covered the previous four movies. It goes through the poorly received Seed of Chucky, the lower budgeted Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky. And then things get personal. Kyra Gardner finally introduces herself about 74 minutes into the movie.
Based on the marketing, I figured Kyra Gardner would be introduced right up front and we would be following her as she interviews the people who work on the Chucky projects with her father. But until the 74 minute mark, there’s no hint of a personal connection. Living With Chucky plays like any film documentary. Once the director becomes part of the story, this documentary shifts gears. That’s when we start to find out what it was like for her to grow up with her dad going off to work with Chucky every once in a while. He took the Seed of Chucky job when she was very young, and Chucky became such a prominent part of his career, it started to seem like he was a Gardner family member – with Mancini and the actors also being part of Gardner’s extended family. Kyra had never met some of the people her dad worked with on these movies, so meeting them for this documentary was like meeting Tony’s second family.
There’s a touch of melancholy to the final stretch of Living With Chucky, as it has to face the fact that working on these movies and his other special effects gigs for extended periods of time has forced Tony Gardner to miss moments with his family. He and Kyra both regret the moments they’ve lost with each other… but they don’t let things get too sad, because it was clearly fun for them to be making this documentary together.
Living With Chucky started off as a class assignment Kyra Gardner took on in film school. This was originally supposed to be a documentary short she made to show her class, but it turned into a very interesting, feature-length documentary on one of our most popular horror franchises. 75% of the time, this is exactly the sort of documentary the Child’s Play / Chucky franchise has been lacking up to this point. And for the remaining 25%, it’s a heartwarming look at the personal side of making these films. If you’re a fan of Chucky, it’s highly recommended that you give Living With Chucky a try.
The review of Living With Chucky originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com
BESET BY DEMONS: THE LOU PERRYMAN STORY (2020)
I have been a fan actor Lou Perryman ever since I was a kid, thanks to his endearing performance as the ill-fated L.G. in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 – one of my all-time favorite films. L.G. is just one of more than 20 acting roles Perryman took on over the decades, but it’s also one of his most prominent. With few exceptions, many of his film appearances were quite quick. So I’ve been a fan of Perryman for about as long as I can remember, and my appreciation for him was boosted even more when I had the chance to meet him at a Cinema Wasteland convention in 2006. He was a really nice, entertaining guy, and I was glad to hear he would be returning to Cinema Wasteland for another appearance over the first weekend of April in 2009. Sadly, he never made it to that show. Just hours before he would have been catching a flight to Cleveland, Ohio for the convention, he was murdered in his Austin, Texas home. A person who was experiencing a homicidal mental breakdown just randomly showed up at his door and killed him.
All these years later, it turns out that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre co-writer Kim Henkel and documentarian Brian Huberman had been in the middle of making a documentary about Perryman’s life and times when he was murdered. And they’ve finally started showing the documentary, which they chose to call Beset by Demons: The Lou Perryman Story.
I had heard things about Perryman here and there over the years. That he had been a crew member on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The fact that he spent some time in prison. Small details about his murder. Beset by Demons digs into all of those aspects of his life and much more. We find out that he was surrounded by people suffering from mental illness for most of his life. His parents both heard voices. His mom spent time in a mental institution. His brother spent his final days thinking he was under siege from vampiric beings. So it’s interesting that Perryman somehow avoided suffering issues like that... but ended up being murdered by someone with their own mental issues. Interviews with Perryman guide us through his troubled childhood, and through his time working as a drug smuggler, which resulted in him going to prison for a while. Coincidentally, he was arrested in 1984 and was facing a 25 year sentence, which would have ended in 2009. The year he was killed. But as it turns out, he was out of jail in time to star in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 in 1986. Interviews with some of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre cast members (including some who have passed away in the years since Perryman was killed) reveal that he was a positive presence on that set. Someone who showed kindness in the midst of the insanity. And could sometimes help interpret director Tobe Hooper’s confusing instructions for the actors. The documentary even includes an interview with his incarcerated killer, who tells how and why the murder happened.
Beset by Demons was a fascinating watch for me, as I didn’t know much at all about Perryman before I watched it. He lived a hell of a life, and went out in a horrific way. I remain a huge fan, I’m still mourning him, and now I know a whole lot more about him. A role model he was not, but a likeable guy he definitely was. I wish his killer had went to get help instead of going out to look for someone to kill. That he had passed right by Perryman’s house, and the home of anyone else he could have harmed. That Perryman had been able to catch his flight to Cleveland and had been there with us in April of 2009. That he was still with us today.
I'm glad Beset by Demons exists, so we can hear the Lou Perryman story, with much of it being told by the man himself.
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