Curse of Chucky
Fear not everyone! It is fairly common for horror movie series to require the viewer to have seen all the previous movies to know what is going on in the latest sequel. Some series use flashbacks to get around this like Friday the 13th, which would so often start a movie with a ten-minute recap of what you need to know. Some consider even this to be too little, so we have movies like Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 that spends over half the movie flashing back to the first one. Others, like Saw simply tell you to go back and watch the others again, 'cos there's something you'll have missed anyway. Then you have Halloween, where it has a new continuity every other movie anyway, and the later ones ignore the earlier ones.
This brings us to Curse of Chucky. The latest film in a series that started out 25 years ago with Child's Play decided they want to do a movie that not only places itself neatly within the continuity of the previous entries to the series, but also works perfectly as a standalone movie for those who may not have seen everything else.
The movie starts off by introducing us to Sarah and her paralyzed daughter Nica. It doesn't take long before a mysterious package arrives containing an old child's doll. Fans of the series recognize this doll right away as the infamous Chucky, but the characters aren't so well versed in his exploits and just toss it aside as a missent toy. Sarah dies that night under conspicuous circumstances and the next day the other daughter, Barbara, and her family come by to help with all necessary arrangements. At this point we have a half-dozen people in an old house completely unsuspecting of their soon-to-be fates.
The acting is at a much higher level than one would normally associate with a typical horror movie part 6. Nobody feels like they are just reciting lines, they give the movie plenty of passion. Even Brad Dourif is at the top of his game as the manic Chucky. The score from Joe LoDuca is likely to be one of his best efforts. The writing is up there as is the direction. It is the best Chucky film since the original (a statement I do not make lightly). All of this adds up to one single question... Why is this direct-to-video? It could have stood quite well in a theatrical release, especially since there's no Paranormal Activity this Halloween to compete against (don't worry, though, we're getting two of those next year).
Curse of Chucky, watch it!
This brings us to Curse of Chucky. The latest film in a series that started out 25 years ago with Child's Play decided they want to do a movie that not only places itself neatly within the continuity of the previous entries to the series, but also works perfectly as a standalone movie for those who may not have seen everything else.
The movie starts off by introducing us to Sarah and her paralyzed daughter Nica. It doesn't take long before a mysterious package arrives containing an old child's doll. Fans of the series recognize this doll right away as the infamous Chucky, but the characters aren't so well versed in his exploits and just toss it aside as a missent toy. Sarah dies that night under conspicuous circumstances and the next day the other daughter, Barbara, and her family come by to help with all necessary arrangements. At this point we have a half-dozen people in an old house completely unsuspecting of their soon-to-be fates.
The acting is at a much higher level than one would normally associate with a typical horror movie part 6. Nobody feels like they are just reciting lines, they give the movie plenty of passion. Even Brad Dourif is at the top of his game as the manic Chucky. The score from Joe LoDuca is likely to be one of his best efforts. The writing is up there as is the direction. It is the best Chucky film since the original (a statement I do not make lightly). All of this adds up to one single question... Why is this direct-to-video? It could have stood quite well in a theatrical release, especially since there's no Paranormal Activity this Halloween to compete against (don't worry, though, we're getting two of those next year).
Curse of Chucky, watch it!