A near enough 10 year gap and we’re back again with another entry in the ‘Childs Play’/’Chucky’ franchise with ‘Curse of Chucky’ a film that I actually hadnt seen until fairly recently, and actually quite enjoyed for what it is.

The film opens at the home of Nika and her mum. Nicka is wheelchair bound and one night is awoken to the sound of a blood curdling scream, only to find her mother dead in the hallway, the only oddity? A goodguy doll that was delivered earlier that day.

The death prompts Nikas sister and relatives to drop into the house to begin arrangements for the funeral. But a couple of nights before the funeral itself strange happenings occur, mysterious deaths and injuries begin to pop up, and Nikas Niece ‘Alice’ begins to claim that the good guy doll she found at the house is the culprit. But….that cant possibly be true…can it?

And colour me pleasently surprised by this one. After being quite let down by ‘Seed of Chucky’ Don Mancini and co drag the franchise back to its roots with what is probably best described as a soft reboot (spoilers from here on in because I cant really talk about the movie without spoiling it…But if you wanna know my thoughts, I enjoyed it and would recommend it.)

The scripts a bit of a game of two halves, with the first half essentially playing out like a mash up of the first 2 childs play films, with Chucky going on a bit of a rampage and noone believing Alice that its the doll thats doing it. All of this then gets flipped on its head when, around the halfway point, the film pulls its mask off to reveal that it ISNT a reboot really at all, and IS in fact the film thats going to tie ALL the elements of the last 5 movies together into one coherent timeline. And im not going to lie, the first time I saw this I genuinely had a jaw drop moment that they pulled the rug from under me so well.

The childs play series has always had loose ties to one another, but this is the first film to solildly go ‘This is a world. all these films exist in that world and we’re going to be utilizing that now more fully’ and I think its wonderful for that.

‘Curse’ pulls back on the meta humour, its back to basics. Chucky roaming around picking off people in his way, which, given the madness of ‘Bride’ and ‘Seed’ I was grateful for that. It was nice to just get back to basics and see Chucky doing what he does best, with a slightly nastier edge that sits somewhere between how he is in ‘Childs play 2’ and ‘Childs Play 3’

The tone is back to ‘Horror Comedy’ through and through Horror with just a lick of macarbre humour to add a contrast. Which, after two films that tried to be a John Waters tribute act, I REALLY appreciated. the act structuring is a little clunky. Like I say, the first half of the film is a little slower burn than i’d have liked and not a lot happens, but around the 50 minute mark it really gets going, and from there. I loved it. I thought there were enough twists and turns to keep me invested, the characters were detailed enough to have meaning, but under developed enough that theres scope for growth. and the film ends in a genuinely surprising way that made me smirk…I quite enjoyed it honestly.

The directions a little over dark for me personally, I appreciate that was the style of the early 2010’s but it was a little to grim and grimey for my personal taste. This one also seems to be leaning more into CGI than previous entries with VERY mixed results (a shot of PS2 era CG chucky walking down a staircase is burned into my mind honestly) but on the whole its competent solid and creative, with the second half getting a more visual flourish than the first. Which is a bit of a shame as i’d have liked to have seen a bit more of the colour and ‘wow’ factor of the second half pulled into the first.

Direction of the cast is solid, this is probably the best set of performances the sequels has had to date honestly. I will say though as a point of contention I absolutely HATE the design of the ‘cleaned up’ chucky doll in this. he looks bloated and ill in most of the scenes he’s in. I will say though that the ‘Mangled’ chucky varient thats shown is probably my favourite version of that design in the series…So…talk about strong polar opposites!

The cines good, as mentioned the colours a little desatched for my personal taste, but compositions tight, the edit wobbles a little in places…Which is odd given this is a studio picture…but hey, im happy with what its showing, even if *I* personally wasnt happy how it was displayed!

The performances are rock solid with a near perfect turn from Brad and Fiona Dourif. Honestly im a broken record at this point, the rest of the cast are fine and just about cover the delivery and animation required for this kind of film…But those two clearly run away with the show for me.

And the soundtracks killer too! its kind of droney,orchestral stuff. But I dig it, its used really well here and gives the film a strong identity.

‘Curse of Chucky’ isnt my favourite entry in the franchise, while I really liked the second half of this, its a bit of a slog to make it through the first half to get to the good stuff. Definitely recommended non the less however. Its a fine FINE movie and a strong recovery after a long time away.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/curse-of-chucky/