Spoiler-Free Review: Curse of Chucky

Though I consider myself a Chucky fan, I have never seen one of his movies in the theater.  When I was younger, Child’s Play 2 and 3 always seemed to be playing on some basic cable channel, and whenever I came across one of these movies while flipping channels, I would always watch it.  Eventually, I saw every movie in the franchise this way, completely out of order, not that it makes that big of a difference.

When I popped in the dvd for Curse of Chucky, I was asked whether I wanted to watch the theatrical release, or the un-rated version.  Considering this was a direct-to-video movie, this confused me a bit, but when making a movie, I doubt many people’s plan is to have it be direct-to-video, so I guess it makes sense that there is a “theatrical” cut of the movie.  Whenever given a choice of this nature, the correct choice is to always go with the un-rated version, which is exactly what I did 🙂

While Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky clearly went the comedic horror route, Curse of Chucky goes back to the more straight forward horror formula.  Chucky is still Chucky, and cracks a few sick jokes throughout the film, but other than that, fans are treated to an old school Child’s Play movie, about a psychotic puppet racking up a body count.

With no explanation at all, the movie opens with a package containing Chucky being delivered to Nica (long-time Chucky voice-actor Brad Dourif’s real-life daughter, Fiona) a 25 year old paraplegic woman who still lives with her mother.  Neither Nica or her mother have any idea what the doll is or why it was sent to them, and Nica’s mother tosses it in the trash can.

That same evening, Nica’s mother is mysteriously murdered, causing Nica’s remaining family, her sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti), brother-in-law Ian (Brennan Elliott), niece Alice (Summer Howell), and Alice’s live-in nanny, Jill (Maitland McConnell) to come into town and stay at the house for the funeral.  Other than about 5 minutes total, the rest of the movie takes place in Nica’s pretty cool gothic mansion style house.

Unfortunately, the movie is pretty unbalanced.  The un-rated version clocks in at 1 hour and 36 minutes, and it’s about 45 minutes before we even see Chucky move or talk in the real “Chucky” voice.  This 45 minutes is spent fleshing out the characters of Nica’s family, that really have almost nothing to do with the overall plot of the movie.

Once Chucky reveals himself, the last half of the movie is a fun ride.  There’s a handful of creative, gory death scenes that lead up to a surprisingly interesting story of the connection between Chucky and Nica, (which I was wondering about the entire movie), that kind of brings the entire series full circle in a way.  Also, don’t stop the movie once the credits roll, because there’s a post-credits stinger that will put a smile on the face of anyone who knows the series at all.

I had pretty low expectations for Curse of Chucky, and those expectations were met.  It’s not a great movie, but it’s fun, and definitely worth the price of a redbox rental.  Overall, I just enjoyed seeing such a ridiculous character as Chucky on the screen again.  I honestly hope they continue making new ones.