If you ask any member of my family what haunted me most as a child, they will immediately be able to tell you the answer...Chucky. When I was around 5-6 years old I was exposed to the film Child's Play 2 via TV marathon. I had no idea what it was, I just saw a doll that walked around making a lot of morbid expressions. I remember the exact moment I couldn't turn away, when Andy goes into the basement looking for Chucky and his dad comes down to investigate, and Chucky kills his dad. This was a very scary thought for a young kid. You always think of kids being in the safe zone in horror, and that the grown ups would protect the child, but this film totally flipped that. I guess that's why it scared me so much. It broke the rules I had set in my imagination. I started wondering if my toys were wandering around my room when I wasn't around, plotting my death. I eventually got over it when I realized Chucky actually had quite the sense of humor. I began not taking him as serious. With that said, when I watched "Curse of Chucky" I was surprised to find a very dark gothic version of Chucky I hadn't seen before. One that would bring back a lot of the original creepy elements of the Chucky character.
"The Curse of Chucky" is a sequel to the original Child's Play films, seemingly somewhere in between part 3 and Bride of Chucky. The story revolves around a young wheel-chair bound girl named Nica, played by Brad Dourif's daughter Fiona Dourif. She lives with her pilled out alcoholic mother who has some kind of connection to Chucky when he was human, which is elaborated on throughout the film. After her mother is no longer around she is in this giant gothic style mansion by herself, so her family comes to visit. Her sister, her sister's husband, their little girl, and the family au pair all join her at the mansion. Chucky was delivered prior to this and he begins to slowly creep up on the family. This film takes a slow burn approach as opposed to the other sequels. You don't see the "real" Chucky until about 40 minutes in. When he finally does show his dark side, it's a storm front of evil. He actually even has make up applied to his face to make him look more innocent, which was a great touch. There is a lot of subtle dark moments to this film, it makes it a very effective horror film and not just a jokey satire which is what "Seed of Chucky" basically was. Chucky's humor is still there, but it is toned down a lot. The kills are also more realistic and less about extreme violence or puns, which is a nice take. For a straight to dvd film, it really couldn't get any scarier. It sets a great dark tone and follows through until the end. I was also very impressed with how Fiona Dourif's character was handled. She was absolutely beautiful and she could actually act, so I was impressed. I thought maybe we'd just see a case of horror nepotism, but nope! Also stay after the credits for a chance to see what that little kid Andy is up to these days!
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