Previously posted on blog and written by B. Demeter
Curse of Chucky (2013) is the direct to DVD, sixth film in the Child’s Play franchise. While I am not a huge fan of Chucky, I do not fundamentally dislike remakes and reboots. I actually tend to enjoy re-imaginings. With a love of remakes and a hate of Chucky, this ought to be a fair and balanced review… but (Spoiler Alert) it won’t be!
From the start, Curse of Chucky appears to be a straight up reboot. Wheelchair bound Nica lives with her mother in a rural, abandoned looking mansion. Unexpectedly a package arrives with a seemingly normal Good Guy doll named Chucky. This is the sixth freaking movie- we all know where this is going.
Nica’s mother *cough* “commits suicide” which draws Nica’s sister, brother-in-law, niece, and niece’s nanny out to the mansion for the funeral. Now that there are some lambs to slaughter, the movie can proceed.
People get killed; none of the deaths are notable. A priest dies horribly in a car crash which is the result of Chucky putting rat poison in his dinner; although it is one of the more gruesome deaths in the movie, I can’t really give it to Chucky because there is no way he could have orchestrated the crash. The rest are just your average stabbings, hackings, and electrocutions. Nothing fancy or otherwise memorable.
Where the movie really lost me were the doll effects. Screw the uncanny valley, there is an uncanny Grand Canyon between normal Chucky and going-to-kill-you-now Chucky. In one scene, a person is tentatively reaching for the doll’s mouth when it is clearly rubber; cut to a close up shot of the actress then back to the doll and it’s got a fucking full set of creepy baby teeth. Good luck getting jump-scared when you can see the jump from a mile away.
Also, the proportions of the doll gets stupid when they are setting up a shot of a little person in a costume. And don’t get me started on full-body, walking CGI Chucky. This film could be a sample reel of how may different ways special effects can be used to create a movie monster.
This movie was a bit of a rollercoaster. When I thought it was a re-boot of the franchise stemming off of the third film, I was really into it. Then they tie in the fourth and fifth film and I was ready to write it off; however, they use the proposed cannon of Bride and Seed sparingly and it brought me back in (Redman doesn’t pop up and there is no mention of the Glen/Glenda doll, thank Jesus). The real surprise here is the lead role of Nica is played by Fiona Dourif; the real life daughter of Brad Dourif, the voice of Chucky in all six movies. She and the rest of the cast all perform admirably as horror movie characters. The movie’s atmosphere was cheesy but adequate. There are some twists, not just in the ending, that I found interesting and elevated the movie above some of its predecessors. All in all, I’d say that I enjoyed watching Curse of Chucky and I think you would too.
And for fans of closure, there is a real fun stinger after the credits that ties a nice bow around the franchise. So make sure you stay tuned for that. Happy watching!
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