Curse of Chucky



 

We were sitting around eating dinner on Thanksgiving, my family on my mother’s side, and I was asked about how many Friday the 13^th films there were in existence. Not sure exactly how the conversation stirred in that direction, but I started counting to them on my fingers all of the films in the series, and it all really spurned from the topic of killer doll Chucky in the Child’s Play series. I had rhetorically offered, “Did you realize there were actually six of these movies?” Faces of perplexity looked over at me. Well, perhaps it was because I was almost out of breath going through the Friday the 13^th films, but I digress…
**½

Thing is, despite the fact that there are six Chucky movies, the last two, much to my surprise, entertained me. Perhaps Seed of Chucky suckled the remaining juices of the Bride of Chucky teet, but I can’t sit here and say it was a totally worthless experience.

I don’t recall some high demand for another Chucky sequel but it seemed to gain word of mouth during Halloween season. It just never made my Halloween month line-up, but I was anxious to eventually get to it just to see if it followed suit of the last two off-shoots of the first trio of films.

The problem this series will always face (even the revered first film, solidly directed with a serious tone and darkness by Tom Holland) is many a viewer’s inability to suspend disbelief in the premise of a doll’s possessed by a devil worshipper (voiced by always-awesome Brad Dourif, with a wicked relish in the evil he dwells), killing humans unaware of this supernatural power. I think the ingredient that always works to me in this series is that in the trappings of a doll, Dourif’s psychopath can play. In human form, it isn’t quite so easy sometimes to continue killing without eventually getting caught—as evident at the beginning of the first film. But as a doll, if you are a lunatic, a maniac, the element of surprise in the form of a doll has to be a vicarious thrill Dourif’s killer can enjoy time and again. Chucky is a classic villain in that he has no preference on why he’d kill. He tried for three films to possess the body of a child (Andy the first two films), and left families broken and bodies piling up during his reign of terror. While the series had went to some rather ridiculous lengths to bring him back (the third film, especially, has an employee at the Good Guy factory taking the remains and rebuilding him; what reason would there be to do so? Yeah, kind of far-fetched.), you just can’t keep a Good Guy down.

I remember as a kid this large billboard with Chucky (for the sequel) about to take the scissors to Jack in the Box with the look of Gumby as he is about to get it real good. This series is definitely one I grew up with and often popped up in my VCR. The second one, for a period of time, was my favorite. I certainly agree with a recent opinion on the imdb horror board that the climax in the toy factory of the second film is that best sequence of the entire series. Chucky tried every way in his little doll body to kill those two in the factory, and receives some serious abuse for his trouble, too.

It’s a doll. What’s the worst that can happen, huh?

This film kind of gets back to basics of a slasher formula that can lend a functionality to Chucky that loses a bit of the self-referential, satirical side so prevalent in the last two films. Sure, there’s some “wink-wink”, tongue-in-cheek, “we’re in on the joke, too” in the script and presented on screen to let us know that despite the absurd idea of a killer doll possessed by a killer’s evil soul there’s plenty of fun to be had if the viewer can go along for the ride.

The plot consists of a package arriving at the door of a long-grieving artist widow and her crippled daughter (in a wheelchair but not helpless or an invalid), containing you know who. Chucky the Doll is alive and well…and ready to play and kill once again. The mother dumps Chucky in the trash and is bled on her nice marble floor accordingly. Leaving behind two daughters, the house of the murdered mother (it is considered a suicide) belongs to the both of them, as says in the will. Wheelchair-stuck Nica (Brad Dourif’s daughter (and a good actress in her own right), Fiona Dourif), treated as some pitiable handicap to put away in a rest home by her greedy, self-absorbed sister, Barb (Danielle Bisutti), must contend with Chucky as he starts to murder those staying in the impressive two story mansion (with a lift inside, even). This includes Barb, her husband, Ian (Brennan Elliot), and the nanny, Jill (Maitland McConnell). Of course, Chucky also wants to play that damned “hide the soul” with Barb and Ian’s daughter, the impressionable Alice (Summer Howell). Chucky can’t help but want to kill off the family priest (played by A Martinez), so he poisons his plate of soup (while Nica’s back was turned during the preparation for the meal) with rat poison. Sickened, the priest decides to drive on home, is in a serious car crash, pinned inside the twisted metal, and perished through a total sever (head from body, with accompanying gushing blood) that leaves him headless, with lopped off hand in the back seat still clutching his rosarie!

The sibling rivalry builds during the initial point of the film. Barb clearly will imply and initiate constant references (subtle or otherwise) towards Nica’s paraplegia. Barb’s greed instigates the plan to sell the house, “get Nica assistance”, and gain some much desired green to get her back to a financially stabilized place. One problem is Chucky (obviously). Nica shouldn’t stress herself. Nica cuts her knee and doesn’t even know it. Nica is far too weak to take care of herself. There are plenty of made-up reasons for Barb to use in her plans. Nica clearly is mentally fine, and the wheelchair doesn’t take away her independence, nor does it totally render her a helpless victim of circumstance. But Barb needs green and will try to send Nica away in order to get what she yearns for.

I lay out the plot so there’s an idea that those who made this new Chucky movie gave a shit. There’s a clear plot set in motion, even if the results of typical murderous Chucky activity follow afterward. Included in a subplot regarding Barb is that her and the nanny (or as she likes to call her “au pair”) are actually secret lesbian lovers! The marriage of Barb’s has been digressing due to financial difficulties. Barb has tired of her husband and so Lily is fulfilling a void not supplied at that present. There’s cool use of “video chat” where Lily and Barb communicate their adoration, while apart in separate rooms, with Chucky utilized well visually. The filmmakers do this odd metamorphosis when Chucky goes from the usual Good Guy doll phase (as made originally by the toy manufacturer) to Charles Lee Ray, having the doll change almost into an androgynous form. Female features seem to arise, although there’s an obvious wickedness that emerges right as the menace is about to be unleashed.

The decision to make Nica a paraplegic is an interesting one. It places her in a difficult predicament in terms of escape or helping others. That coupled with the fact that Chucky is a doll that kills (and possessed by a killer once in love with her mother!) and she is stuck with knowing that proving this to anyone would be met with skepticism and rolling eyes. The end result isn’t too surprising considering Nica is up against a deck stacked so high she can’t possibly overcome it.

This is what adds weight to Chucky’s reign of terror. Charles Lee Ray has been in that damned doll for quite some time so it shouldn’t come as a surprise he might finally be freed from it into the form of a human. Of course, with that happening, the franchise comes to a close. The doll gimmick is what has made the series so lasting. For a spell, though, the third film seemed to be the death knell of the franchise until some rather bright horror filmmakers resuscitated it with Bride of Chucky, thanks to fun casting and a fresh life breathed into its nostrils.

Funny thing happens constantly in the film. The adults keep coming in contact with Chucky despite Nica’s warnings. They just don’t listen. They wind up dead. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have a movie otherwise, would we?

Exploiting the bad heart of Nica, and how she needs her medicinal hypodermic or else kick the bucket, the film pretty much doles out its final nail in her coffin…Ian believes she killed his wife and daughter’s nanny (and perhaps did something with his daughter), and won’t help her inject the medicine so she can recover from eventual collapse. Chuck benefits from being a doll. Plain and simple. Ian isn’t about to listen to such nonsense as a killer doll taking the lives of those close to him (even if the estranged wife and nanny were secret lovers; a heated exchange between husband and wife over the nanny bookends their final words shared to each other) and assumes, to his horror (however wrong), that Nica has slipped into psychosis. It is a fascinating development, I thought, seeing Ian letting Nica just fade. But, being that this was right at the 70 minute mark of a 90 minute film, and Nica’s being set up as the heroine up against it, I don’t believe anyone watching thought she would go out like that.

Ian isn’t much of a character. He’s kind of a prick. He seems like a concerned father demanding Nica tell him Alice’s whereabouts but he turns to camera footage hidden in the pocket of Chucky’s overalls to see what his little spy cam caught. While I think Ian doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, he contributes further to Nica’s improbable survival. She awakens duct-taped to her wheelchair, pleading for Ian to release her and to beware of Chuck to no avail. This is where the film gets real inventive with the use of Chuck as a surprise mechanism. Because the cam is hidden on Chuck’s “person”, Ian can see exactly what the doll does. This is where he realizes that Chuck actually walks on his own. Yep, Ian, the whole “doll that kills” Nica was proclaiming is legit. He learns the hard way. Not only does Ian learn of Chucky’s activity, but the cam tells him (and us) where Alice is. Clever. Real clever.

It gets fun after Ian takes an ax to the face. The ax to the knee in regards to Nica and Chucky’s reaction to her not feeling it is priceless. As is when she takes the ax and pops his head off with it! Of course, beheading a doll doesn’t quite have the same impact as when a human head is severed from neck. I still loved it, though. I just thought it was comic gold. Her prying the ax from the knee cap was surreal, but the one moment where being paraplegic was an advantage made me grin. There's even a scene where Chuck slips on blood and the always cringe-inducing "hand sliding down the blade" when the heroine attempts to grab and pull away the cutting weapon being used to slice her.

Brad Dourif gets to conjure up some of that ole nutty magic that has been somewhat absent over the last ten or so years. Returning to Charles Lee Ray in flashback, Dourif gets to show us how much of a psychopath he was when holding Nica’s mother hostage (while Nica was unborn and in the womb). When Ray holds a hunting knife to the mother’s belly, a demented look in his eyes, and no qualms burying that blade into the unborn child, this sequence tells us exactly what kind of monster he was in human form and what exists in Chucky, the doll.

What I felt this film did successfully was return the evil back to the killer doll evident a bit more effectually in the first two films of the franchise. While he still cracked wise in the second film onward, the killer doll still had enough menace in him to matter. But with the third film feeling the urge to go comedic, the remainder following after delved into satire and black comedy. Like Freddy Krueger, Chuck became a parody. Absurd as a possessed doll killing folks is, thanks to stylish direction, the first two films weren’t hindered by it as so much as they took the plot and milked it for all its worth. I think Curse of Chucky returned the doll to its rightful place by once again emphasizing the evil soul behind the doll and added a revenge angle and background story for the Charles Lee Ray character. This was a surprise. For a little while, why this family was chosen is confusing and bewildering, but, soon, the plot unfurls and Chuck explains the purpose behind the murders, particularly Nica’s mom. Chuck had this delusion about his perfect family, and the woman he “loved” (created in his warped mind) betraying him by somehow calling the police instigated the plot behind Curse of Chucky. It was swell to see some actual thought and care provided to a sequel to a franchise that had went quiet for a few years. Nica gets all this while lying helpless on the floor with Chuck looking at her with a knife just ready to stab.

The film can’t resist tying itself to Bride & Seed, as Tilly’s involvement shows us (it’s kind of a wink and has a bit of dark humor, especially when she arranges him to ship overnight to Alice (staying at her other grandma’s house)), and Chuck seems to finally accomplish a long-term goal at the expense of a little girl. It is a downer ending that allows the villain to get a rare “win” after encountering failure after failure. Tilly certainly helps in that regard, but Charles Lee Ray is a determined bloke, and the trail of bodies left behind him has finally led him to his own twisted version of the promised land.

Full of stylistic touches (some superb camera work on display and inventive shots of Chucky opposite humans he plans to kill), and imaginative ways to place the doll in locations that startle those in his homicidal trajectory, Curse of Chucky is probably one of the surprises of the year for me so far. It is about to come to a close, and so few surprises have been pleasant. The plot has its moments, and while I have seen much better kill-scenes from Chuck, the CGI of today allows directors a better chance to use the doll in scene with adults and actually look not-so-phony. The days when directors had to mask limitations in visual effects through cunning, CGI allows them to get the results that offer less restrictions in time and produce more on screen. I didn't think the violence on screen, the effects, were all that extraordinary, but the damage inflicted by Chucky is emphasized enough, I believe. I can hear the complaints about the effects in the latter Romero zombie films waged against this Chucky movie. Those are the breaks of a low budget franchise horror film. You get Chuck on screen with the characters a great deal, in movement; this wasn't always the case. I consider this a sleeper that might provide some entertainment for fans of the franchise.