Luckily, they didn't. This is a well-made, well-acted film. Brad Dourif became iconic in his role of Chucky in the same way that Robert Englund did for Freddy Krueger. This film really feels like the perfect beginning of Child's Play too, in that, it just gives a taste on the limitless potential of the character. It doesn't play out much like a traditional slasher movie, the violence isn't all that gory and it has a slow-burn approach for what is known as inevitable. It made me really want to see Chucky in-action. The film is helped infinitely by its pacing and tone, however. It never feels too dreary or too scary. That just isn't the dynamic they're going for with this. There's more energy and color, it embraces the novelty of itself and doesn't try to turn itself into something that it isn't. (Curse of Chucky does this.) This film feels silly in a dark way, a serial killer puts himself inside a doll and now he is terrorizing a young boy, the serial killer doesn't make a mess of things, but spouts off cuss-words like no tomorrow, and along the way, you silently cheer for the cute kid and his mom.
This is a good film. Not a great film, but a good one. The logic of it is certainly questionable, but why question it, eh? It's just a fun, straight-forward and dementedly light-heart horror affair.
Rating: 3.4 out of 5.0