Review: Curse of Chucky

Wheelchair-bound Fiona Dourif lives with her mother, and one day a delivery package comes. Opening it, they find a Chucky doll, and are somewhat confused but put the doll aside and get on with their lives. That night, Dourif finds her mother dead, obvious to us that she was killed by Chucky. Cut to some time later and Dourif is visited by her sister (Danielle Bisutti) and family, as well as the hot young family nanny. Apparently Bisutti wants to sell the family house and get Dourif into a care facility. Meanwhile, the murderous Chucky who killed Dourif’s mother sets about bumping off everyone in the house. A. Martinez plays a visiting priest.

 

Writer-director Don Mancini, the man who wrote the first and brilliant “Child’s Play” (one of my all-time favourite horror films) and helmed the disappointing comedic “Seed of Chucky” is back with this more serious sequel from 2013. Unfortunately, the results may be even worse than “Seed” and Mancini may have gone too far in the other direction, as the film has zero humour worth a damn. Some of the kills are fun, the rest of the film isn’t.

 

Chucky takes forever to start talking (40+ minutes!) and when he does, the normally wonderfully nasty Brad Dourif half-arses it, accompanied by some not very creative dialogue. The characters are boring, the set-up is clichéd, and Mancini’s direction is annoyingly ham-fisted. Aside from an OK-at-best Fiona Dourif, the acting is pretty stiff here. Especially bad is an actress named Danielle Bisutti, who has ironically enough inexpressive doll-like eyes and seems to never blink.

 

It’s all very routine and very subpar, and the Chucky design here sucks almost as badly as the one in the remake. The finale is moronic, featuring a too-late cameo, though the post-credits cameo by another veteran of the series is a bit better. I had heard good things about this film, but I must say I don’t see the big deal. Not scary, not funny, not particularly watchable. About the only nice thing I can say here is that it’s fairly well-lit.

 

Rating: C-

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