Movie Review: "Curse of Chucky"

- by Ninja Ross, 16 October 2013

It’s been a while since we had a film with everyone’s favourite Good Guy Doll. Nine years, to be precise. And the last one, "Seed of Chucky", was kind of a disappointment. So, horror fans like myself were excited but wary, especially since Don Mancini, the director of "Seed of Chucky", was returning to direct.

Chucky in a box. (click to enlarge)

The protagonist, wheelchair bound Nica, lives with her mother in a big, creepy looking mansion, where she dreams of a life outside of her over protective mother’s influence. The mother isn’t an abusive dictator, of course, but there’s clearly a history that makes her especially wary of the outside world, causing her to keep her daughter close.

With the arrival of a strange, familiar doll from an anonymous source, her mother “commits suicide,” which is blamed on her history with depression. Nica’s sister, Barbie, brings her husband, daughter and the daughter’s nanny to help comfort her and try to convince her to sell the house. And, since Barbie’s a big fan of the church, a priest is brought along to be an extra bit of cannon fodder for our antagonist.

And then the film proceeds how you’d expect; power cuts, bad mobile phone service, grisly murders and so on, with Chucky trying to kill everyone off so he can switch souls with Alice, the young girl. But it essentially follows the typical slasher formula.

There are occasional twists to the formula here and there, most notably with the character’s relationships to each other, but everyone pretty much dies on cue in amusingly gruesome ways. It’s not especially creative in the violence department, but it’s fun to watch all the same.

All in the family: Fiona Dourif (Nica), Chucky, Brad Dourif (voice of Chucky)

The acting was pretty superb. No one’s winning any Oscar’s here but they were convincing and managed to look genuinely terrified of a doll. Fiona Dourif, daughter of Brad Dourif (Chucky), stands out in particular for her portrayal of Nica. She made Nica a very interesting, strong character.

Of course, the best thing about any Chucky film is Chucky himself. He is, in my opinion, one of thebest slashers in the horror genre. Sure Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees are fine and do their job. They’re scary and such. But Charles Lee Ray has always been more interesting to me. We see a lot more personality in him than we do in characters like Voorhees or Leather Face.

In this film he’s less of the comedian that we saw in Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky and more like the original Chucky. He’s written as more of a threat. This, unfortunately, means we get to see and hear less of him. So, there’s less jokes but he still keeps things interesting and his personality shines through, as always.

The most interesting thing about the film, though, is the fact that it’s not only back to its roots in terms of style and horror but it also explains exactly what Chucky was doing before he was shot, before he put his soul into a Good Guy Doll. Without giving too much away, he IS in that house, with that family, for a reason. The references to previous films gives you the perfect excuse to go back on watch the previous ones. Except Seed of Chucky... That one’s not needed.

Nica

So, Mancini makes up for his previous failure on the series by giving us a well directed, well written Chucky movie that ties up the original films nicely. This is why you give bad directors second chances! I mean second chances, not fourth and fifth; Michael Bay and M. Night Shyamalan have proven their inability to make good films...

I also need to tell you that you NEED to watch the end credits. Heck, thanks to Marvel films, you probably already do that now, right? Do so here, too. It’s well worth the wait.


Have you seen "Curse of Chucky"? Enjoyed the review? Let us know in the comments!

Tagged: movies & TV, Reviews.

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