Bride of Chucky (1998) [SYFY edit]

 

This is where the series really went off the deep end with me personally. Look, I get it that Bride of Chucky (1998) is very popular with a lot of Chucky and even Child's Play series fans. I do. But Chucky, the doll, giving the tongue to another doll possessing the spirit of Jennifer Tilly before the two "consummate their new lease on life" was just a bit too silly to me. Yes, saying that after describing a series about a serial killer who used voodoo to implant his soul into a Good Guy doll at a department store...I get it, the series was already more than a bit far-fetched to begin with. I told my daughter as we were watching Bride of Chucky, I guess after watching Holland's really good first film in the series just last Saturday, this 1998 "reboot" (or refresh of the series), going for dark comedy and meta humor (this wasn't long after "Scream" and during the era of its contemporaries) didn't exactly go over the same as it did in the late 90s when it took the horror community by storm. That opening to the film definitely landed with the community, recalling that moment in 1993 when Freddy's glove reached from hell and dragged Jason's mask down inside the earth with that laugh sparking all kinds of buzz...buzz that would never die no matter how much developmental hell kept Freddy vs. Jason (2003) from eventually getting the greenlight, production, and release. The evidence locker with the glove with knives for fingers, hockey mask, and white Shatner mask certainly got fans to talking. And then later when the wasted John Ritter as a Police Chief always keeping tabs on his niece, Katherine Heigl, has nails stabbed into his face and head, with Chucky commenti about that familiarity, Don Mancini's script and Ronny Yu's direction did everything they could to reiterate that Bride of Chucky was a film not to be taken seriously. This was built as a fun ride, including the ridiculous "birth" at the end as a detective (Lawrence Dane) realizes the burnt Tiffany doll he's poking is very pregnant.

Brad Dourif still has that nasty magic with the voice of Chucky. And that stitch job is badass. I won't dispute these are major benefits in the film's favor. Jennifer Tilly and all of her voluptuous body fits into tight, provocative dresses...she's still a sexy being with superior star power with a voice that tiptoes around squeak and remains sultry. The human Tiffany just picked the wrong guy...Good Guy or Charles Lee Ray.

The easy killing spree Chucky and Tiffany orchestrate under the guise of "star-crossed lovers", Heigl and Nick Stabile, humans at every "crime scene", with so much evidence against them, is clever machinations set in motion by Mancini's script and Yu's direction finds ways for the turn of the screw that would appear to tightly confine the young couple into quite a bind. Really, who would consider killer puppets? How Chuck was in an evidence locker when that doll was thrown into a spinning fan inside a funhouse is anybody's guess, but the Child's Play series isn't particularly well known for how it brings the killer doll back from the dead. I do snicker when Charles quips inside his own dug grave that he always comes back. And, sure enough, Chuck returns again and again. There doesn't seem to be a shelf life. At some point, though, we won't have Dourif any longer. I'll push that thought away because he's an AMAZING actor, whether as a character or by voice. 2.5/5

Alexis Arquette as a victim of Chuck's early on (yanking out the lower lip ring and using a pillow), two honeymooning, grifting pickpockets (who get it real good by way of overhead mirror thanks to Tiffany, the doll, and a properly tossed champagne bottle), an officer named Bailey (Corazza) who picked up Chucky gets a slit throat ("Where's my money?" seems to be a question asked by dump cops who get killed with dolls), another officer nicknamed "Needlenose" is blown up in a car thanks to Chuck's handkerchief and lighter (Bailey's lighter, of course), and a friend of Heigl and Stabile's who gets splattered by a diesel truck after being spooked (as everyone rightfully does when they see dolls talk while holding loaded guns) by Chuck and Tiffany. Quite a roundup of a body count. But that mess left behind by the honeymooning grifters, with mirror shards stabbed in different parts of the body, was especially gruesome. Oh, and the scene that cracked me up was Chuck having trouble removing his ring from the severed finger of the female grifter so he could give it to Tiffany. I need psychiatric help.