Chucky is a Smart Device Gone Bad in New 'Child’s Play' Trailer
The second trailer for the reboot of the horror film series Child's Play dropped Thursday morning, with Mark Hamill voicing the role of the murderous doll Chucky. But the doll isn't just possessed by the spirit of a serial killer. It has a modern upgrade
In the trailer, Aubrey Plaza plays a single mother worried about her son, played by Gabriel Bateman, making friends after they move to a new city. In order to help, she buys a robotic doll named Buddi to access and control a line of smart home devices.
Things start to go awry when the doll begins acting on its own accord and it's made clear that its intentions are murderous.
The trailer follows the doll as it goes on a rampage, terrorizing his family and people across the city. We see shots of the doll taking control of home devices, smart cars, and even a drone which, naturally, it uses to inflict copious amounts of violence with.
As smart devices in people's homes become more of a given than a novelty, it's only natural that the shift will become fodder for horror movies. But short of murder, smart devices like Amazon's Echo have been cause for real concern for making people susceptible to personal data leaks, becoming potential tools of surveillance, and making it easier for companies to collect data on you.
It's unclear if Child's Play actually addresses those very real issues, which at least from my perspective, are much scarier than a killer doll.