Movie Review: CURSE OF CHUCKY

Curse Of Chucky
2013
Director: Don Mancini
Starring: Fiona Dourif, Fiona Dourif, Danielle Bisutti, A Martinez, Brennan Elliott, Chantal Quesnelle
Unrated

It's time to play.
   ~Chucky

I need to start with an apology.  In the last piece i said that Curse of Chucky would be taking Bride and Seed out of continuity.  My intel was old.  Its not doing such a thing.  This is definitely the sixth film in the continuity of the whole series.  Everything counts.  The Chucky series has not been remade, rebooted or retconned.  Its still going.  All this new entry has done is take it back to the basics.  And after the last one, its definitely the right move.

Paraplegic Nica lives at home with her mother in a giant house.  On the night following receiving a mysterious package with a Good Guy doll in it, Nica finds her mother in a pool of her own blood on the floor.  We then find out that her mother had been recovering from suicidal tendencies, but apparently succumbed to them that night.  Nica's, along with her husband, daughter, nanny and a priest come back for the funeral and also urge Nica to sell the house.  The family's feud isn't the worst thing that's about to happen to them, as Chucky is back and sneakier than ever.

A confession, I intentionally did not watch the trailer for this film before viewing it.  I felt that they might try to push to hard that "Chucky is back!" and show too much of the goods in it.  I had read that he looked a bit too CG, but when I watched the film...i gotta be honest...i didn't see any of that.  He looks as good, if not better than his previous incarnations.  I wanted to go into the film blind and not be looking for "this part" and "that part" as it was a low budget film with a small cast so it'd probably easy to deduce too much from a trailer.

Chucky has just come back from his longest absence (9 years).  And surprisingly, he's avoided being remade or rebooted.  Creator Don Mancini returns to direct again and this is night and day from his previous effort.  Curse of Chucky is the most delicately and finely directed film in the entire franchise.  This is super low budget, so this film primarily takes place in one location.  But that location is a pretty awesome old gothic house.  Mancini makes the house almost a character of its own as a playground for Chucky.  Chucky's return is a patient one.  They really build on making us wait to see him in action.  This could work really well for someone who's not seen any of the films. With that said, I must warn: the further down the road we get in the film, the more lost a new observer will be.  This film definitely becomes very Saw-like in its connections to the original film and other chapters in the series.  In fact, my only qualm is it might be too much as the end events seem far away from the original story at hand.  To add on that, Curse of Chucky is the Return of the King in terms of slasher as it ends on about 6 different "hook" endings before its finally over.

The main story of the film works quite well.  We get a drama and positioning of all the characters being there and having their own conflict and not just showing up to be hacked up by a doll.  This movie is surprisingly smart in many areas.  Stuff in the script that seems so damn obvious actually turns you on your head and laughs at you for thinking you were smarter than the movie.  They also actually came up with some fun, graphic kills in this one as well.  While graphic, the slayings are "too much" in terms of being over the top.  They're definitely a bit restrained. I really enjoyed the protagonist, Nica played by Brad Dourif's daughter Fiona.  The script really allows you to take her side and root for her through this thing.  It also helps, in terms of having a 'final girl' scenario that she is in a wheelchair.  Most of the films could be groaners in the "it's a doll, how can you lose the battle" aspect.  This time, our heroin is put at a physical disadvantage when it comes to going head-to-head with the Chuckster.

Curse Of Chucky is suprisingly worth the time for fans and nonfans of the series.  If you enjoyed the first film, you're definitely going to like this one.  I think some of the ties to the previous films and the extended upon extended ending are a bit much, but they are fun for fans.  When looking back, it really shouldn't be there and is out of place, but our main story does have a concise conclusion so I'm ok with the rest.  Chucky returns to his stealthy horror roots and does so quite grandly.  The film oddly works as both a stand-alone and as a 6th addition to the series.

Curse of Chucky is currently available on VOD and will be available on Blu-ray & DVD on October 8th!

Next Time:  Ranking The Chucky Films!

Here's that trailer I avoided...and I was off...there's like zero spoilers here.  Its a very safe one.