Reign of Chucky: The True Hollywood Story of a Not So Good Guy

by Dustin McNeill

From the authors who brought you TAKING SHAPE comes REIGN OF CHUCKY, an exhaustive new look at the cinematic history of everyone’s favorite Good Guy.

Covering all seven films in the franchise, this is the book that Chucky fans have been waiting for. Go behind the scenes of the first film to learn how Don Mancini’s original Blood Buddy script evolved into Child’s Play as we know it, then listen about how the franchise was continually reinvented across a slew of clever sequels. The authors’ research is backed by over thirty new interviews with the filmmakers including original Child’s Play writer/director Tom Holland.

Each chapter is brimming with untold behind the scenes stories and revelations that will be new to even the most diehard fans. Also featuring rare personal photos from cast and crew, REIGN is sure to delight anyone in the cult of Chucky. So, wanna play?

Genres: Horror, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, Audiobook

Audible Audio

Published November 17, 2023

About the author

Dustin McNeill is the author of eight books released through Harker Press. A lifelong genre fan, he began his writing career in the pages of HorrorHound Magazine before publishing his first book in 2014. Titled Phantasm Exhumed, this franchise companion was warmly received by fans and filmmakers alike, which encouraged the author to continue his writing efforts. In 2019, he teamed with co-author Travis Mullins for the best-selling and critically acclaimed Taking Shape book series, which the pair followed up in 2022 with Reign of Chucky: The True Hollywood Story of a Not So Good Guy. In 2023, Dustin penned yet another solo effort with House of Rejects: The Making of Rob Zombie's Firefly Trilogy. He has contributed supplemental material to multiple Phantasm and Chucky boxsets by Arrow Video and Scream Factory. In 2024, Dustin recorded an official audio commentary for Via Vision Entertainment's Blu-ray release of the original Halloween II.

Reviews

[Justin Gerber · Rating 5 out of 5]

NO ONE makes better behind-the-scenes books on horror franchises than McNeill and Mullins. Would even read a thousand pages on the Chainsaw series if they were behind it.

[Max Tennyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a Chucky fan, this is a must

[William Beck · Rating 5 out of 5]

After 7 films and 3 seasons of a tv show, just how does Chucky manage to feel so fresh and unpredictable despite such a seemingly limited premise? This deep dive into the iconic doll’s career is a must for any fans, not just of Chucky himself, but of that era of horror icons. The highs, the lows and unfortunate controversies are all thoroughly explored here with almost no stone left unturned, but it never feels bogged down in the detail. This absolutely flew by for me and I could not get enough.

The only glaring omission being no interview with Don Mancini himself, due to him being too busy with the 2nd season of the show at time of writing. But the book and interviews with everyone else involved certainly make up for it, it just would have been nice to have those added flourishes from the man himself - particularly when it came to some of his more daring ideas.

[Hayley (Gory B Movie) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative and entertaining behind-the-scenes book covering the movies in the Chucky franchise. The interviews with cast and crew were a nice bonus!

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

FINALLY THE END FRIEND! Listened to this as an audio book and it was so so SO LONG and just so dense in a way that felt like it should be annoying but actually scratched a very specific itch as a fan of the series. I can’t in good conscience recommend it to the casual fan as it’s so ridiculously thorough and it’s sorely missing an interview from Don Mancini. But I liked it!

[Dustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well researched book, this is a fun read with plenty of fun facts that.ypu may or not know about the entire "Child's Play" franchise. It's all presented in a way that makes it fun.

[A Cesspool · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhaustive Child's Play-ip monograph; Alongside Taking Shape and Slash of the Titans, one of the very best Horror filmmaking books.
Dustin McNeill is the J.W. Rinzler-of making genre motion pictures monographs!

Here's what I learned:
Tom Holland is just an arrogant asshat and pirate who owes his livelihood (and residuals) to Don Mancini.
Ronny Yu is a dishonest dilettante hack who ruined Freddy vs. Jason and probably considers Kevin Smith his most influential director.
James Schamus (Focus Features) might be the morally ethically-correct Harvey Weinstein-of-independent filmmaking, but with fantastically-narrow perspective (i.e. if it's not Merchant/Ivory prestige or auteurs with distinction ...then he's totally out of his depths and has no business negotiating media properties).

One requisite of any good making-of book is the multi-faceted deep-dive; Rather, supplemental B-T-S data on composite films (i.e. Erin Carlson's essential making-of A League of Their Own also memorializes productions for Big (1988) and Riding in Cars with Boys (2001).
McNeill's Child Play deep-dive chronology, also covers An American Tail (1986).

Only gripe is the fight(s) over preserving Child's Play's same-sex narrative facets -- which occupies a large segment of the book's latter half (á la over multiple sequels). As much as I appreciate Reign of Chucky, it's technically a DNF (did not finish). The debate just goes on and on (i.e. something ip owners wish to cultivate; but the Studios, distributors, Not so much).
I'm glad McNeill included this thread, but a little goes a long way -- it's almost as if he ran out of content and just padded out the latter sequels with this on-going controversy.
If my 401k were tied to the sequels... moving Child's Play from principle genre to sub-genre? I'd have to agree with distributors -- the market's just not ready for socially-conscience exploitation (specifically with legacy franchise; e.g. and their traditional built-in box-office demographics), imho. Regardless, the only real difference would be A LOT more Chucky-talking; like, Good Pundit Guy Dolls.

[Arthur Malaria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chucky é um livro sobre a produção e bastidores dessa franquia que nos encanta e assusta desde 1988 quando a MGM nos presenteou com uma obra que deveria mudar ou incrementar o futuro dos filmes de terror: Um brinquedo assassino! Possuído pela alma do estrangulador de Lake Shore, Chucky veio à vida para aterrorizar a família Barclay e se vingar daqueles que o traíram. Muito além disso, Chucky veio para aterrorizar a nós, a geração "inocente" que teve o prazer de testemunhar esse crime no momento mais vulnerável de nossas vidas. Sim, estou falando aos que, assim como eu, estão chegando à casa dos quarenta esse ano. A primeira vez que eu vi Chucky foi perto dos meus 5 anos, provavelmente numa tela quente ou algum outro programa da TV aberta, e o medo e curiosidade em assistir algo tão errado me apresentaram para o mundo dos filmes de terror. Acredito ter visto até algum outro filme de terror antes, mas não teve o impacto desse aqui... nos próximos anos eu veria no SBT Chucky aterrorizando o menino Barclay na escola, assim como na escola militar quando adolescente, e esse foi o pavimento para descobrir todos os outros ainda mais famosos que ele, mas tão importantes quanto, além dos muitos sustos que o boneco do fofão me deu nesse período de infância / adolescência. Enfim, por que falar isso tudo? Para dar um background sobre o porque um adulto na casa dos quarenta ter passado tantas horas lendo um livro de quase 700 paginas sobre bastidores de produção de uma franquia de filmes, e o melhor, tive a oportunidade de assistir aos filmes conforme lia cada capítulo, e foi uma viagem fascinante revisitar toda essa aventura e ver com meus próprios olhos tudo o que o livro retrata. A edição desse livro é padrão Darkside: capa dura linda, com fotos e muito bem diagramado, e diferente da versão original em inglês, a versão brasileira trás as entrevistas ao meio dos capítulos, tornando a leitura mais dinâmica (na versão em inglês as entrevistas vem no final de cada capítulo), além de curiosidades presentes apenas nessa edição. Qualquer outra coisa que eu falar sobre esse livro será minha voz de fã tomada pela empolgação em ler algo tão completo sobre esses filmes que tanto gosto. O livro termina junto ao início da produção da segunda temporada da série, então ele não fala da série e não fala muito sobre o remake desnecessário de 2019. 10/10

[SteveL · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of Chucky, the horror movie icon, is a long and twisted tale. This book covers the inception of the first film to the very start of the television series and everything in between. It covers the good, the bad and the ugly in this history of the franchise.

I have listened to a fair number of audio books by Dustin McNeill and Travis Mullins, each dealing with the history of a horror franchise, and this one is very good. It is also my least favorite of the ones I've listened to. It isn't a bad book at all, but the beginning dragged for me and didn't really pick up until the more recent additions to the franchise. It does cover all seven films, along with some details about the attempted reboot and TV series but it did feel like it was missing something that other books they had worked on about other horror franchises.

The book is filled with a lot of fun facts and new information that even longtime Chucky fans would find new. Like all their previous works, it is really a love letter to the series as a whole, even the less than stellar sequels. The history and interviews are comprehensive without over loading you. The chapters can be a bit long in audio form as they can run over an hour a piece. It is still a very good book and a must for any Chucky fan, while also being worth it for horror fans in general.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a celebration of the Child's Play/Chucky film (and media) franchise, Reign of Chucky is effusive in its praise and light on criticism. Well written and researched, the book acts as a wonderfully detail overview of the making of and reception to each movie (sans the remake) in the series. I'd read two previous books from these author(s), Taking Shape and Slash of the Titans, which I found too narrow and specific to ultimately be satisfying. Those books were more interested in exploring the initial development, script process, and pre-production of their respective franchises with lighter details on actual production. This book, with its much larger page count, feels more all-encompassing: if Taking Shape and Slash of the Titans are sub-sections of a Wikipedia page, I'd consider Reign of Chucky an entire Wiki. The book is pretty straight-forward in its presentation, but there is some decent surface level analysis by the writers and some nice editorial points of view, even if I don't always agree. All in all, a highly enjoyable read.

[Sylvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

They did it again! From the authors who gave us a detailed and fascinating breakdown of the Halloween movie franchise this time they step into the world of 'Good guy' Chucky from the Child's play horror movie franchise.

I haven't watched all the Chucky movies but reading this book has made me want to go through all the movies in both the movie and TV series.

Each movie is broken down into great detail with lots of interviews, the highs and lows of each production. It is very in depth but if you love horror movies you will love this book. It's written by people who are genuine fans of the genre.

[Joel B · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the horror genre in both movies and books (books a little more) and love certain franchises.

Although I don't enjoy all the films in the Child's Play franchise I do love certain films involved.....the detail and set out of this book is great.

It's not your standard journalistic approach either, the writers are clearly talented and very passionate about the franchise.

This read may have taken a while but the nostalgia and brilliant writing made it worth it......I already have the Halloween book by the same authors and can't wait to read it.

[Jaclyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

An every Chucky fan must read! It took me a long while to get through it (4 months), but it's broken out by each of the seven films. There's even snippets to comments on the TV series! Occasionally I felt like some of the context [to the movies] during the interviews overlapped, but overall I enjoyed this inside look to Chucky. I have more love and appreciation for Jennifer Tilly and now understand the mind on Don Mancini a little bit more with his inspiration towards the way he did things. Recommend!

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the physical copy in a nice chunky textbook format. Wow, what an essential read for all Chucky fans but also for anyone interested in filmmaking and animatronics / puppetry. There's so much to appreciate here and it inspired me to revisit many of the films. I enjoyed them even more knowing how much time and attention went into the Chucky (and later Tiffany and Glen/Glenda) dolls. Great stuff and I can't wait to check out Taking Shape 1 & 2.

[Oralia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro es un regalo para los fans totalmente, son casi 800 páginas de puro chisme sobre la franquicia.
Estoy encantada, lo leí en digital y definitivo lo quiero en físico para mi colección no solo de libros sino como fanática de terror y coleccionista de Chucky!
Ahora creo que voy tarde en tenerlo jaja

[Ricardo Sarmento · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining and informative.
All of the study and passion behind it make it so worth it even though it's long af.
Not even a big Chucky fan but makes you appreciate every name involved, from the make-up artists to the directors of B-movies.
The interviews are the weakness to me, but if you're a horror fan in general, jump into it

[Paul Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential read

Reign of Chucky is the essential guide to the child's play series, loaded with fascinating insights and interviews galore. Recommended

[HelEinir]

Why am I SO LaTE?

[Keitravis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for Chucky fans. Highly detailed insights on the characters history, impact, and each respective film. Dustin knocks it out the park once again.

[anoca · Rating 5 out of 5]

fiquei mais obcecada com o chucky com esse livro do que ja era, obrigada darkside.
chucky te amo ainda vou comprar vc mas agr eu nao to louca de pagar um rim pra ter tu mas eu vou ter anota