Curse of Chucky is the sixth movie in the Child’s Play series,
and the first to be DTV, so I guess the maker (Don Mancini, series
creator and writer, second time director) thought that this is as good a
time as any to go back to its roots. I watched this on the same night
that I rewatched its immediate predecessor Seed of Chucky and experienced the largest tonal whiplash that any movie series has given me. Where Seed of Chucky was a madcap comedy romp where a couple people happen to die, Curse of Chucky is a straight-up horror movie, and it might be the most effective Chucky movie since the first Child’s Play.
In Curse of Chucky,
Chucky abandons Hollywood to be mailed out to a woman and her daughter
who live in an enormous, secluded, poorly-lit house. Some things happen
(murder) and some other characters come to stay awhile in the house, and
then some other things happen (more murder, doll-related intrigue,
non-doll-related intrigue).
Most
of the movie’s tension stems from how so few of the characters seem to
get along. Nica (the daughter, played by Fiona Dourif, Brad “I Voice
Chucky and was also in Deadwood” Dourif’s daughter) is trying to hold on
to the house while her sister Barb (played by Danielle “No Relation to
Brad Dourif” Bisutti) is trying to sell the house for her own personal
gain. Also, there’s a priest, a babysitter, Barb’s husband, and Barb’s
daughter involved in the whole thing. Everyone’s got their tensions and
squabbles, and - most impressively - the human relationships do a great
job distracting from how there’s surprisingly little Chucky in this
Chucky movie.
His
presence is all over the movie from the moment he gets unboxed, but
this is a back-to-the-roots sequel in all the best ways, which for Child’s Play mostly
means a lot of shots of feet scurrying and the doll being found in
unlikely places. Even by regular doll standards, Chucky is
creepy-looking, eyes slightly too small for his head, and just the still
shots of the doll sitting there inanimate are as effective as the
imaginative ways he winds up killing people. The low budget becomes a
blessing, since there’s a visual poetry to situations like a parent
asking a doll, “How’d you get there?” followed immediately by a shot of
rat poison and then a shot of people eating soul.
Originally, the follow up plan for Seed of Chucky had been to do a remake of the original Child’s Play.
I’m guessing a lot of components from that got transported here, since
almost all of the movie seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the
series. That’s a very effective choice, since you don’t get a sense of
Chucky’s motives until the end. Up to that point, he’s just killing up a
family without a clear purpose.
It’s
when that purpose becomes outlined that the movie deflates a little,
since it sets up a bunch of cameos and nods to the past that feel
randomly inserted for the sake of establishing backstory that was
totally unnecessary (one nice touch manages to seal up one plot hole
while opening others). But, I would still say that this a worthwhile
sequel to Child’s Play because
it makes Chucky menacing again after he spent some time trying comedy.
To use a very 2013 analogy, Justin Timberlake was OK at acting, but I’m
glad he’s back to making music even if the music isn’t as great as the
old stuff.
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