Curse of Chucky

     Of the seven Chucky Child's Play movies, Curse of Chucky (2013) is the sixth.  I would've liked to have reviewed Child's Play 3, having reviewed the first two in the series, but I haven't seen it yet.  I figured I could watch Curse of Chucky without much confusion.  I was right.  A red-haired doll possessed by the malevolent spirit of a dead serial killer, Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif, who's provided Chucky's distinctive voice throughout the series) comes into the hands of a new family, the Pierces--mayhem follows.

     Fiona Dourif, Brad's daughter, plays a wheelchair bound young woman, Nica Pierce, daughter of a woman with mental problems.  The mother spends her free time painting one subject: sunflowers.  She was traumatized and terrorized in the past by Charles Lee Ray, a friend of her husband's.  Ray killed him, obsessed with the wife who was nine months pregnant with Nica, kidnapping her and keeping her in a room filled with sunflowers.  Ray's extraction of Nica from her mother's womb, using Chucky's favorite weapon, a knife, permanently damaged Nica, making her live in a wheelchair.

     From this crime, Ray fled the police until he was cornered in a toy store where he transferred his dying spirit, voodoo-wise, into a Good Guys doll, one named Chucky, as seen in the first film.  

     Chucky shows up inside a cardboard box as an anonymous gift to Nica's mother.  That night, she falls to her death inside the high hallway of a large and tall spooky house isolated from other dwellings.  Nica receives condolences from her sister, Barb (Danielle Bisutti), her brother-in-law, Ian (Brennan Elliott), their daughter Alice (Summer H. Howell)--who's given Chucky--and the nanny (Maitland McConnell), a beautiful young blonde desired by both wife and husband.  

     Father Frank (A Martinez) rounds out the mourners.  Fiona doesn't like him.  She's the type of biting atheist who doesn't just deny God's existence, but does so with an acid tongue, as if she's been wronged by religion in the past.  Chucky certainly reveals a contempt for belief in God, while Barb, Nica's older sister, is excessively pious.  

     Everyone in this movie runs afoul of Chucky, who, as is usual in the films, takes a while to begin to reveal his true personality.  Before this, his dopey friendly look covers over the meanness and sadism behind the mask.  

     The animatronic work with this doll is excellent, showing an increased sophistication with this technological art over the twenty-five years since Child's Play.  Chucky walks, knife in hand; his facial expressions perfectly compliment Brad Dourif's voice artistry.  

     Once again, the chief danger for those who survive Chucky is the likelihood that the doll's victim will be regarded by authorities as mentally ill.  Insisting that a walking and talking homicidal doll killed a bunch of people will not be believed by anyone who hasn't laid eyes on this phenomenon.  

     Don Mancini, the writer of all seven Chucky films and the creator of the Chucky character, wrote and directed Curse of Chucky, doing a good job of it, keeping Chucky fresh and hilarious, something not easy to do with so many movies.  I realize I wrote the name Chucky four times in the last sentence, but I feel okay about that.

                                                                                  Vic Neptune