The Curse of Chucky is a 2013 American supernatural slasher film and the sixth installment of the Child's Play franchise. The film was written and directed by Don Mancini, who created the franchise and wrote all films to date. It stars Brad Dourif as Chucky and Fiona Dourif as Nica Pierce, as well as Danielle Bisutti, A Martinez and Brennan Elliott. The film grossed $3.4 million in DVD sales.
The film sees the return to the franchise's source material and bringing back the straightforward horror elements found in the first three Child's Play films as well as Chucky's classic appearance. The film, which went into production in September 2012, is the first direct-to-video installment of the series. Curse of Chucky is the first film to be distributed by Universal Studios since Bride of Chucky, and debuted via VOD, September 24, 2013. This was followed by a DVD and Blu-ray Disc release, October 8, 2013, in the United States. The film was also turned into a scare zone for 2013's annual Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood. Though the film was made with the intention of being released direct-to-video, it also was released theatrically in some countries as Mexico and Brazil. The film was followed by Cult of Chucky in 2017.
Plot
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Nine years after the events of Seed of Chucky, Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) mysteriously arrives in the mail at the home of paraplegic Nica Pierce (Fiona Dourif) and her mother Sarah (Chantal Quesnel). Later that night, Sarah is found dead from a stab wound, and her death is ruled as a suicide. Later, Nica is visited by her domineering older sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti), accompanied by her husband Ian (Brennan Elliott), their six-year-old daughter Alice (Summer H. Howell), live-in nanny Jill (Maitland McConnell), and Father Frank (A Martinez). Alice finds Chucky and is allowed to keep him.
Later that evening, while Alice and Nica are making soup, Chucky secretly pours rat poison into one of the dinner bowls. Father Frank eats the poison and, after leaving the house, is decapitated in a car accident. That night, Nica investigates Chucky on the Internet and finds news articles about the murders tied to both the doll and Charles Lee Ray. Elsewhere, Chucky kicks a bucket of rainwater onto the floor's power outlets, electrocuting Jill and causing a blackout. Barb gets up to check on Alice and is attacked by Chucky, who stabs her in the eye with a kitchen knife. Nica hears Barb's cries but has to crawl up the stairs. Once upstairs, Nica discovers that Barb is dead and Chucky is alive. When Chucky flees, Nica wakes Ian up in a panic.
Ian takes Nica to the garage but is unable to find Alice. He disarms Nica, believing her to be responsible for the murders. Nica tries to explain that Chucky is alive, but Chucky acts like a lifeless doll when Ian looks at him. Ian decides to review the footage from a hidden camera that he planted on Chucky earlier (to get evidence of Barb's affair with Jill) and learns that Alice is locked in a closet and that Chucky truly is alive. Exposed, Chucky kills Ian by chopping off his lower jaw with a hatchet before he can act. Nica manages to break out of her restraints and avoids an axe to the chest by blocking it with her numb legs. The axe gets stuck, allowing Nica to stun Chucky into dropping the axe, and she pulls it out of her legs and beheads him. Chucky reattaches his head as her attention lapses, and pushes her over a balcony onto the ground floor.
When Nica asks why Chucky is doing this, he explains through flashbacks that as Charles Lee Ray, he was a friend of her family and in love with Sarah. Ray killed Nica's father and kidnapped Sarah while she was pregnant with Nica. When Sarah betrayed him, he stabbed her in the stomach (which resulted in Nica being born paraplegic) and escaped. Ray's flight from the police ultimately led to his death as a human, which is why he came back to Sarah for revenge. Nica manages to retreat into her elevator and disarm Chucky and plunge the dagger into his torso. Officer Stanton (Adam Hurtig) arrives at the house but sees Nica holding the bloody knife after finding Barb's body. A motionless Chucky watches from a nearby chair.
Sometime later, Nica is sent to a mental asylum for the criminally insane. Chucky is retained by the police as an exhibit for her trial. The arresting officer gets in his car and sees Chucky breathing in the bag. Just before he opens the bag, Tiffany, who had been hiding in the backseat and returned in her human form, slits his throat with a nail file, killing him. Tiffany collects Chucky and asks, "Who's next?" before closing the bag.
Meanwhile, Alice, now living with her grandmother, comes home from school to find Chucky waiting for her. Chucky persuades Alice to play "Hide The Soul", and starts the infamous voodoo chant to transfer his soul into Alice's body. The grandmother, who Chucky has attacked but did not kill, sits up suddenly, suffocating in a plastic bag, shortly after Chucky begins the chant.
In a post-credits scene set six months later, Chucky, still in his doll body, is delivered to the now-adult Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent). When Andy turns his back to answer a phone call from his mother, Chucky cuts his way out of the package with a knife. "Play with this" was all Andy had said to Chucky before shooting him in the head, which leads to the events of the seventh film.
Cast
- Brad Dourif as Charles Lee Ray / Chucky
- Fiona Dourif as Nica Pierce
- Danielle Bisutti as Barb Pierce
- Brennan Elliott as Ian
- Maitland McConnell as Jill
- Chantal Quesnel as Sarah Pierce
- Summer H. Howell as Alice Pierce
- A Martinez as Father Frank
- Jennifer Tilly as Tiffany
- Alex Vincent as Andy Barclay
- Adam Hurtig as Officer Stanton
- Jordan Gavaris as Ex-Delivery guy
- Catherine Hicks as Karen Barclay (Photograph, during post-credits scene)
- Chris Sarandon as Detective Mike Norris (Archive Footage)
- Christine Elise as Kyle (Photograph, during post-credits scene)
Production
In an August 2008 interview, Don Mancini and David Kirschner spoke of a planned reboot of the Chucky franchise to be written and directed by Mancini. They described their choice of a remake over a sequel as a response to the will of the fans, who "want to see a scary Chucky movie again", and "want to go back to the straightforward horror rather than the horror comedy." They indicated that Brad Dourif would return as the voice of Chucky.
In a subsequent interview, Mancini described the remake as a darker and scarier retelling of the original movie, but one that, while having new twists and turns, will not stray too far from the original concept. At a 2009 horror convention, Brad Dourif confirmed his role in the remake. At a reunion panel at the Mad Monster Party horror and sci-fi convention, the cast and crew from the original film confirmed both a remake and a spin-off are in development. Writer Don Mancini and producer David Kirschner were working on a sequel titled Revenge of Chucky.
In June 2012, it was confirmed that a sequel would enter production, entitled Curse of Chucky and be released direct-to-video.
Filming
The film began production in early September 2012 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada and ended in mid-October. In November 2012, Don Mancini announced that filming for Curse of Chucky had been completed and he planned to release it Halloween 2013.
Release and marketing
In May 2013, Fiona Dourif released the first image of Chucky through her Instagram. The image is from the film's soundtrack cover and shows Chucky looking more like the doll from the first three films rather than the previous two films. The official trailer was released on July 8, 2013. The film's official Red band trailer was released August 1, 2013. The film received its world premiere on August 2, 2013, at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal. The film also received its European premiere at the London FrightFest Film Festival on August 22, 2013, accompanied with a screening of the original trilogy of Child's Play films. The DVD was released on October 8, 2013, and grossed $3.4 million in the US.
Reception
The film holds an 83% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 18 reviews. An early review posted on Bloody Disgusting on August 2, 2013, was very favorable of the film. Brad Miska stated, "Curse of Chucky may just be the best home video sequel since Wrong Turn 2. It's alarmingly good, which puts pressure on Universal to answer as to why they didn't let Mancini shoot this for theaters". He continued to say, "Chucky fans should rejoice, though, as Curse of Chucky is clearly going to re-ignite the franchise for years to come." Ryan Larson of Shock Till You Drop also had mostly positive things to say about it, stating that "the movie does so much right that it’s easy to overlook the very few flaws it has. The pacing and writing coincide to create a fun blood-soaked jaunt that never gets boring or dull." He goes on to praise the director, pointing out that "Mancini (pulling double duty as writer as well as director) does a great job at introducing and ushering off characters in a fashion that doesn’t bog the film down with a bunch of characters who get three minutes of film time before getting the axe, or butcher knife in this case. The kills are kitschy, but in the best way possible, waxing nostalgic of the slasher films of the late eighties and early nineties."
At the film's world premiere at the Montreal Fantasia Festival, it received a Gold Award for Best International Feature.
Halloween Horror Nights
Curse of Chucky received its own scarezone in the 2013 lineup at Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights.
This is not the first time Chucky has been featured at Halloween Horror Nights. In 2009, the franchise received its own maze, entitled Chucky's Fun House in Hollywood, a seasonal re-themeing of Universal Studios Hollywood's year-round attraction Universal's House of Horrors and Chucky: Friends Till the End at Universal Studios Florida, themed around the Good Guys factory and scenes featuring Chucky and other childhood toys gone bad. Since 1992, Chucky has starred in his own shows Hollywood, Chucky's In-Your-Face Insults and Chucky's Insult Emporium. In 2010, Chucky was featured in the "20 Years of Fear" scarezone in Florida.
Sequel
The film was followed by Cult of Chucky in 2017.
References
External links
- Curse of Chucky at AllMovie
- Curse of Chucky at Rotten Tomatoes
- Curse of Chucky on IMDb