i'd never seen the child's play films after the third entry before now. the first three are great to solid, and the obvious hard left this film takes into camp was something that didn't seem appealing to me. man, was that a mistake. don mancini's reinvigoration of his franchise is an absolute blast, leaning hard into the fun and a very solid set of cinematic references to boot. it's a very self-aware film and it's understandable why heavy devotees of the original trilogy aren't necessarily keen on this, but the way he takes the franchise and spins it anew is admirable and reaps serious rewards. most of those rewards should be credited to jennifer tilly, who is an absolute goddess in this film. tilly is a hoot as the psychopathic tiffany, both before and after her love of chucky gets her turned into a doll. tilly and brad dourif have fantastic chemistry and every scene featuring them is a total delight. of course, on the flip side we have the humans. and they're...fine. katherine heigl and nick stabile are not bad, but they're just flat compared to the hijinks of chucky and tiffany. fortunately mancini knows who to focus on and while jade and jesse aren't superfluous, they're never once even presented as the stars. john ritter, on the other hand, is clearly having a lot of fun in his slightly-too-brief role as jade's corrupt and overprotective cop uncle. listen, like i said i understand why people may not like this. it's definitely a particular type of horror comedy and there is a bit of overly familiar tone with the post-scream era of slashers. but for anyone who loves a good horror comedy, this is a hell of a lot of fun and it may just be my favorite in the franchise yet.