It takes a weird twist and a stellar performance to lure some of us into a horror movie, most recently Lupita Nyong’o’s startling performance in Jordan Peele’s Us, and the weird vibe of offshoots like The Cabin in the Woods and the comedy Tucker & Dale vs. Evil — but given the new twist in the second trailer for the Child’s Play reboot, we just might be intrigued.
See, Chucky’s new tool to kill you is your own smart home. Sleep tight.
We see a few of the details in the second trailer for the remake-slash-reboot written by Tyler Burton Smith and directed by Lars Klevberg. Apparently, the vicious little creature that’s been haunting our dreams since the character was originated in 1988 — spoiler: The doll is inhabited by the soul of a serial killer — now has access to some kind of offshoot smart home platform that’s meant to seem similar to Alexa or Google Home. It’s called, creepily, “Buddi,” but unlike most of the smart home control platforms that we write about here at Digital Trends, it can connect to just about anything, apparently.
You can think about that the next time you ask your digital assistant about the weather or to order a pizza. In the trailer, Buddi can take over not only semi-benign devices like smart home thermostats but also autonomous cars and, according to the rather grisly trailer, a Wi-Fi-connected lawnmower.
The horror movie posits that Chucky’s connection to Buddi is enabled through a parent company that is making all the interconnected smart home devices called Kaslan. The functions listed in the Buddi app that are barely glimpsed in the trailer include a game, art, video, cloud, phone and perhaps most distressingly, drone.
While the movie’s premise of a doll gone wrong is familiar, the creators’ notion of a smart home turned deadly is rather novel. The producers of the hit Stephen King adaptation It are on board and they’ve recruited a talented cast that includes Aubrey Plaza as the kid’s (Gabriel Bateman) mom and some cameos from a few famous figures like David Thewlis (the Harry Potter franchise) and Tim Matheson, well known for Animal House.
The most unsettling part of the reboot may be a startling performance by Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, as Chucky. While Hamill is famous for his performance in the Star Wars films, he’s been doing brilliant voice performances as, among other projects, the Joker in the Arkham Asylum video games and a huge variety of animated films, among other voice acting projects. Hamill announced his participation in the bloody horror fest during a video message at WonderCon earlier this year.
You’ll be able to experience Chucky’s latest bloody rampage starting on June 21.
