‘Curse of Chucky’ Nearly Makes Up for ‘Bride’ and ‘Seed’

Like many ongoing film franchises, Child’s Play was a series that started off strong, but faltered as time went on.  While I particularly enjoyed the first couple of movies, Chucky had pretty much sacrificed all of his credibility with the release of Bride of Chucky.  Already swimming in my disappointment with the evolution of the Child’s Play franchise, I officially checked out after forcing myself to make it to the ending of Seed of Chucky.  I was done.

When Curse of Chucky was released in 2013, I didn’t even bother.  The title alone didn’t sound very promising, and I certainly didn’t want to have to spend any money to torture myself.  I had completely written off the sequel at that point, putting it out of mind until recently when it popped up on Netflix.  After seeing what else was available in the new releases and coming up short, I reluctantly started Curse of Chucky.

After checking out the film, I was… pleasantly surprised.  I expected a bunch of goofy sight gags and corny jokes to flood the screen right away, but I learned pretty quickly that this film wasn’t like Bride and Seed.  Channeling the original film, Curse was actually quite dark and much more horror-based.  The lame comic relief was gone, and as someone who used to love Chucky, I found myself to be ecstatic about actually being able to enjoy a Child’s Play movie again.

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The story was simple enough, which was actually quite refreshing compared to the previous entries that just tried to do way too much.  I love that the film held off on showing Chucky actually move or talk until much later into the film, which gave the killer doll an aura of suspense.  The Child’s Play mythology was expanded quite heavily in this film, as it featured several flashback scenes of the events leading up to the moment when Charles Lee Ray transferred his soul into the Good Guy doll.  As a big fan of the original film, I very much enjoyed seeing Chucky’s origin story explored a little further.

Of course, the movie is not without its flaws.  Perhaps because it served as a throwback to retro horror films, many aspects in the flick were predictable, such as the order of the victims’ deaths.  The ending, in particular, was unfortunately quite awful, bringing the movie down a notch or two.  Without giving anything away, it made no sense at all and seemed more like a hackneyed way of tying in Bride of Chucky.  Still, in the theatrical release, there was a post-credits scene featuring Alex Vincent reprising his role as an adult Andy Barclay, and it is pretty damn awesome.

Notable negative aspects of the movie, such as its horrid ending, prevent Curse of Chucky from fully redeeming the series for those awful Bride and Seed movies, but it was definitely a step in the right direction for the killer doll.  There were some genuinely creepy moments, and I didn’t think Chucky was capable of pulling that off anymore.  And I’m sure there are going to be a lot of kids sneaking a viewing on Netflix only to have nightmares later that night, just as I did with the original Child’s Play movies on VHS.