The film begins with a foot chase between notorious serial killer Charles Lee Ray (played by Brad Dourif) being chased by police detective Mike Norris (played by Chris Sarandon) through the streets of downtown Chicago. Wounded, Charles takes refuge in a toy store and realizing he's dying, transfers his soul into a nearby Good Guy doll using a voodoo chant. In the process, the toy store is destroyed and Charles is declared dead. The doll winds up in the hands of single mom Karen Barclay (played by Catherine Hicks), who buys the doll for her young son Andy (played by Alex Vincent). It isn't long before people start mysteriously dying and each time Andy and Chucky are there. At first no one believes the doll is alive but quickly discover the terrifying truth. Even worse, since Andy is the first person let in on Chucky's secret, Chucky is able to transfer his soul into the body of the little boy through the same Voodoo spell.
The original film took an interesting route to becoming the film everyone knows, with the original script by Don Mancini being more of a psychological thriller, at least initially, and toying with the audience more with the truth about the doll revealed later on than the overt and upfront the doll is possessed movie we have now. I can only imagine it would make some scenes scarier, such as the scene where Andy's Mom discovers there are no batteries in the Chucky doll and then it comes to life right in her hands. Of course, with us being six sequels in at this point, it's probably moot as anyone coming to the film already knows damn well the doll is alive. Still, even with the cat out of the bag right from the start, director Tom Holland manages to craft a better than average horror film and capture a good deal of tension out of what is really an absurd premise. The three leads all do great in their roles, especially Catherine Hicks and Alex Vincent as mother and son. Brad Dourif is downright iconic in his voice work for Chucky, making it his most recognized work. Just through his voice work he brings so much personality to what is essentially a puppet. It's a role he would continue to reprise through all of the subsequent films.
Some time has passed since the original film and Andy Barclay is now in foster care as his mother has been committed to a mental hospital for insisting her son's doll was indeed alive, something Andy also insists is true, but falls on the deaf ears of adults. Meanwhile, the Good Guy doll is put back into production as the burned, charred body of the original Chucky doll is rehabbed and, to no one's surprise, comes back to life. Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) quickly discovers that Andy has been placed into the care of Phil and Joanne Simpson (played by Gerritt Graham and Jenny Agutter) and high tails it there for one last ditch attempt to use Andy to get out the doll body once and for all. Meanwhile, Andy is finding it tough to fit in at the new foster home, but warms up to fellow foster kid, the teenage Kyle (played by Christine Elise). Once Chucky shows up and starts taking out anyone who gets in his way, it's up to Andy and Kyle to take out Chucky themselves.
The second film is a solid follow-up with some very interesting stylistic choices. The foster home Andy goes to is decorated almost exclusively in pastel pink and blue colors, which is a bit of an eyesore for me personally. I struggle to think why anyone would paint their house almost exclusively in those two colors. It's such an obnoxious design choice. The film also has a unique shooting style with a favoring of low angle shots throughout much of the first half of the film, which is not something you see often in films. I'm sure the intention was to put us on the same level as Andy and Chucky and it gives the film a unique look, even if it's abandoned as the film goes on.
The third film jumps ahead eight years with Andy Barclay (played by Justin Whalin) going off to Military School after failing to settle into a series of foster homes. Meanwhile, the Good Guy doll has gone back into production with a prototype made from the remains of the Chucky Doll from the second film, with predictable results. In no time, Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) is resurrected and tracks down Andy, shipping himself to the Military Academy. However, the package is intercepted by young cadet Tyler (played by Jeremy Sylvers) and he takes it as he wants a Good Guy doll for himself. At first Chucky is irritated until he realizes that since he has a new body, he can transfer his soul into Tyler rather than have to deal with Andy. However, before he can finish teaching Tyler the game "Hide the Soul", they're interrupted and Chucky is taken away from Tyler by the C.O of the school. This, of course, unleashes a whole new wave of terror from Chucky as he tries to get to Tyler while Andy once again tries to stop the killer possessed doll.
Despite the setting of the Military Academy adding some novelty to the film and a few memorable moments, this entry does seem like it's going through the motions and recycling the same plot as before. Since it was rushed into production, it doesn't feel like the script was as well thought out either and preferring to go with broadly drawn characters and expected plot developments. Still, the new setting does give the Chuckster some new ways to unleash mayhem, including swapping out paint bullets with live ammo for the school's war games and some heavy artillery in the form of grenades. It also doesn't help that Andy is taking the main heroic role here but is largely ineffective as a hero, with fellow cadet DeSilva (played by Perrey Reeves) outshining him at every turn, demonstrating what a resourceful hero she is. I mean, Andy is dealing with Chucky for the third time and in the process dealt with countless amounts of death and mayhem yet he's a wimp for much of the film. The film is also really repetitious with Chucky tormenting Andy or working Tyler and then they're interrupted and Chucky is taken away. This happens three or four times in the movie and it is a bit annoying. In the positive column, this film has one of my favorite death scenes in the series where someone sees Chucky moving around on his own and dies of a heart attack before Chucky has a chance to kill him, which just pisses the little possessed doll off. Despite it all, it's easy to see why the series went on a seven year hiatus.
Tiffany (played by Jennifer Tilly) was the one time girlfriend of Charles Lee Ray and has tracked down the remains of the Chucky doll from the previous movie. She proceeds to stitch them together and resurrect Chucky with the same chant as before, as read from a Voodoo for Dummies book no less (still one of my best loved props, ever). Soon enough, the stitched up doll is back to life. However, when Tiffany finds out that despite her impression, Chucky (played by Brad Dourif) never intended to propose to her with a ring she found, she locks him away and gives him a brand new girl doll the same size as he to play with.
What I loved about Bride of Chucky is that it has a wicked sense of humor. Whether it's Chucky and Tiffany arguing how to best off someone, Tiffany waxing poetic about her idol Martha Stewart or Chucky getting all meta and admitting that explaining how they wound up as dolls was a long story and if said story was a movie, "It'd take three or four sequels just to do it justice." The film finally embraces the absurdity of it's premise and leans into it while crafting some genuinely funny gags and never feeling burdened with actually being scary, because by this point Chucky really isn't. Another thing that impressed me was just how much the animatronics for Chucky and Tiffany had advanced since the previous film. They are so incredibly expressive in this film and feel that much more like real characters. They are even able to move around better and even smoke (for some reason, seeing Chucky smoking a big ol' doobie is one of the funnier things I've seen). Which fits as Chucky, along with his new bride, segue into becoming the main characters of the series starting with this entry. It's weird that Chucky and especially Tiffany become far more entertaining characters than the human ones, with Chucky as the sassiest killer doll ever that I couldn't help but love (his doll rendition in this one is even kinda cute) and Tiffany is the perfect partner in homicide for him as well.
When Seed of Chucky was released, it took the change of tone with the previous film and continued running with it with a newly resurrected Chucky and Tiffany discovering to their shock that they have a son (who we saw being born in the cliffhanger ending of the previous film). This also marks the strangest entry in the series, with some real wild plot points that are both funny and a bit inspired. To illustrate, John Waters shows up playing a sleazy tabloid reporter and it's the most normal thing in the movie.
Glen (voiced by Billy Boyd) is the offspring of Chucky and Tiffany living as the ventriloquist dummy of a rather unpleasant man when he spots a news report from the set of a new movie called "Chucky Goes Psycho." He recognizes the two puppets being used in the movie and figures they must be his parents due to all three having a "Made in Japan" imprint on their wrists (which of course has led Glen to presume he's Japanese). Glen travels to Hollywood and in short order resurrects Chucky and Tiffany into the movie prop dolls using the same amulet they were searching for in the previous movie. Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) and Tiffany (played by Jennifer Tilly) are initially shocked to discover that Glen is their kid but decide they are going to be one happy family as soon as they transfer their souls into real people. They find the perfect targets, with Tiffany deciding she wants to transfer her soul into the body of the star of the movie, Jennifer Tilly while deciding Chucky should transfer his soul into Redman, who Jennifer Tilly is trying to get to cast her in his biblical epic. During this, they are also trying to determine if Glen is a girl or a boy (Glen is not...um...anatomically correct and says sometimes he feels like a boy and sometimes a girl). Chucky is firmly on the side of him being raised a boy and Tiffany wants him to be a girl named Glenda (the references to the Ed Wood film Glen/Glenda are pretty overt). Tiffany also thinks they should stop killing to set a good example for their new child, something neither one has much success with following (although Tiffany going through the 12 step program and trying to apply it to her homicidal compulsions was pretty funny).
Seed of Chucky is without a doubt the weirdest of the series (and for a series about a possessed killer doll, that's saying something). This film is also the most self-aware of the series, with Jennifer Tilly playing both herself and Tiffany both in the movie and movie within the movie (which Tiffany, naturally, thinks is perfect casting). Tilly is also game for poking fun at herself all throughout the film as insecure and needy, as well as wondering why she keeps losing movie roles to Julia Roberts ("I could've played Erin Brockovich and I wouldn't have needed the Wonderbra," she remarks at one point). The fact that Tiffany appears to idolize Jennifer Tilly and want to be her is also amusing, having apparently moved on from idolizing Martha Stewart from the previous film (probably because she's being executed, as Tiffany observes while watching a news report). Meanwhile, Chucky is determined that his son is going to be part of the family business, despite Glen's protests that he doesn't want to kill people, causing his psyche to start to crack.
Don Mancini graduated from screenwriter to director as well for this installment as for the first time in the series, Chucky and Tiffany (as well as Glen) take front and center as the main characters for the film. The writing, as weird and wild as it is does give the three puppets plenty of material to works with as the laughs keep coming from the dark and twisted places you would expect a film about a family of killer dolls would come from.
After the disappointing returns from Seed of Chucky, it was quickly realized there needed to be a course correction for the series and Don Mancini went back to the drawing board and reigned in the more outlandish and satirical elements as he took things back to basics and crafted Curse of Chucky, a film more in line with the genuinely creepy original.
Sarah (played by Chantal Quesnelle) lives in a large, isolated house with her daughter, Nica (played by Fiona Dourif), who has been confined to a wheelchair since birth. They are delivered a package and discover the contents are a Good Guy doll (guess who!) and wonder who it could be from. When Sarah winds up dead, Nica's family arrives for the funeral and to assist making preparations for what's next for Nica, since they feel she wouldn't be able to keep up the huge house on her own. Meanwhile, Nica begins to suspect there is more to the doll than appears, especially as more people start to die, and sets out to figure out where it came from.
Don Mancini once again took up both writing and directing duties on this film. Despite being the sixth film in the series, he manages to take the Chuckster back to his more sinister roots and actually make him pretty scary again. Considering the joke machine Chucky (once again voiced by Brad Dourif) had become in the previous two films, this is no small feat. The overlying mystery to the film was a nice touch as well since the audience already knows Chucky is alive, the intriguing question was why he was and the film is really clever in how it's revealed as well as how the events in this film tie into the events of the previous five films. He also assembled a nice cast for the film, headlined by Chucky voice actor Brad Dourif's own daughter Fiona as Nica, who makes a worthwhile adversary to Chucky. The film also contains a couple of fun cameos from Jennifer Tilly as Tiffany and perhaps even cooler, Alex Vincent as a grown up Andy Barclay!
And now we arrive at the most recent film in the saga, released last week came Cult of Chucky. The film takes place four years later and manages to bring in a lot of plot threads that have been weaved throughout the entire series into this film.
Since having the murders of the previous film blamed on her, Nika (played by Fiona Dourif) has spent the past four years in a mental hospital. As her therapy has progressed, she has come to believe that Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) was a hallucination brought on by her mental state to help her cope with the murders she supposedly committed. She is moved to a new medium security ward as part of her improvement in treatment. It's only when a Good Guy doll is introduced to group therapy and people start turning up dead that she once again begins to believe that the doll really was alive. Meanwhile, Andy Barclay (played by Alex Vincent) is living alone at an isolated cabin. Locked away he has the dismembered head of the Chucky doll that was sent to him at the end of the previous film and spends his nights slowly torturing the still very much alive head. When he hears news of what is happening in the hospital, he heads there with the hope he can help convince the people in charge that Nika's claims are real and stop Chucky once and for all.
Don Mancini once again returns as writer and director for this installment and brings an interesting style to this film, making it one of the more visually unique films in the series. Filled with stark whites against a snowy landscape lends the mental hospital setting a certain almost surreal quality. He populates the film with a number of colorful characters, including a guy with multiple personalities nicknamed Multiple Malcolm (played by Adam Hurtig), that takes on an interesting role in the film. I hesitate to discuss the plot of this one in too much detail as much of the fun comes in the surprises, which this one has a few. The film also does let a little more humor into the proceedings this time, including an amusing reference to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (which makes sense as Brad Dourif was in that film as well as the mental hospital setting). Chucky has also picked up a few new tricks this time out, courtesy of VoodooforDummies.com website, as he announces at one point.
In the realm of horror franchises, the Chucky saga is unique in the sense that it has had the same creative team behind almost every single entry in the series. Don Mancini has been the writer on each entry (although director Tom Holland significantly rewrote Mancini's script for the first film) and even took a bigger role on the last three films by stepping up as director as well. This is almost unheard of within the horror genre for the same creative force to be behind a series of films, especially one seven films deep. For the past 29 years, this little killer doll has kept coming back under the direction and writing of Don Mancini and the series has gone from genuinely terrifying to self parody and back again. It keeps some of the best continuity between films, with characters from the prior films returning for later films, including seeing little Alex Vincent all grown up as if this were Boyhood with significantly more decapitations.
It is interesting how this series has grown and evolved over the years, with Chucky, as well as Tiffany, becoming more and more of a central role as the series progressed. The mythology has also continued to grow and develop which has opened new possibilites for the series. Due to the absurdity of the premise, this series is probably able to get away with more than others would. I can only speak in a general sense because the latest film very much plays into that aspect as well and I would hate to spoil it for my fellow fans of the homicidal Good Guy doll. Of course, the latest film once again left things wide open for another film in the series. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess. Don Mancini continues to manage to come up with fun new directions for the series to go in and I can only hope he once again can for Chucky's eighth go around. I remain confident it will be something entertainingly, dementedly oddball, as these films all seem to be.
Glen (voiced by Billy Boyd) is the offspring of Chucky and Tiffany living as the ventriloquist dummy of a rather unpleasant man when he spots a news report from the set of a new movie called "Chucky Goes Psycho." He recognizes the two puppets being used in the movie and figures they must be his parents due to all three having a "Made in Japan" imprint on their wrists (which of course has led Glen to presume he's Japanese). Glen travels to Hollywood and in short order resurrects Chucky and Tiffany into the movie prop dolls using the same amulet they were searching for in the previous movie. Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) and Tiffany (played by Jennifer Tilly) are initially shocked to discover that Glen is their kid but decide they are going to be one happy family as soon as they transfer their souls into real people. They find the perfect targets, with Tiffany deciding she wants to transfer her soul into the body of the star of the movie, Jennifer Tilly while deciding Chucky should transfer his soul into Redman, who Jennifer Tilly is trying to get to cast her in his biblical epic. During this, they are also trying to determine if Glen is a girl or a boy (Glen is not...um...anatomically correct and says sometimes he feels like a boy and sometimes a girl). Chucky is firmly on the side of him being raised a boy and Tiffany wants him to be a girl named Glenda (the references to the Ed Wood film Glen/Glenda are pretty overt). Tiffany also thinks they should stop killing to set a good example for their new child, something neither one has much success with following (although Tiffany going through the 12 step program and trying to apply it to her homicidal compulsions was pretty funny).
Seed of Chucky is without a doubt the weirdest of the series (and for a series about a possessed killer doll, that's saying something). This film is also the most self-aware of the series, with Jennifer Tilly playing both herself and Tiffany both in the movie and movie within the movie (which Tiffany, naturally, thinks is perfect casting). Tilly is also game for poking fun at herself all throughout the film as insecure and needy, as well as wondering why she keeps losing movie roles to Julia Roberts ("I could've played Erin Brockovich and I wouldn't have needed the Wonderbra," she remarks at one point). The fact that Tiffany appears to idolize Jennifer Tilly and want to be her is also amusing, having apparently moved on from idolizing Martha Stewart from the previous film (probably because she's being executed, as Tiffany observes while watching a news report). Meanwhile, Chucky is determined that his son is going to be part of the family business, despite Glen's protests that he doesn't want to kill people, causing his psyche to start to crack.
Don Mancini graduated from screenwriter to director as well for this installment as for the first time in the series, Chucky and Tiffany (as well as Glen) take front and center as the main characters for the film. The writing, as weird and wild as it is does give the three puppets plenty of material to works with as the laughs keep coming from the dark and twisted places you would expect a film about a family of killer dolls would come from.
Sarah (played by Chantal Quesnelle) lives in a large, isolated house with her daughter, Nica (played by Fiona Dourif), who has been confined to a wheelchair since birth. They are delivered a package and discover the contents are a Good Guy doll (guess who!) and wonder who it could be from. When Sarah winds up dead, Nica's family arrives for the funeral and to assist making preparations for what's next for Nica, since they feel she wouldn't be able to keep up the huge house on her own. Meanwhile, Nica begins to suspect there is more to the doll than appears, especially as more people start to die, and sets out to figure out where it came from.
Don Mancini once again took up both writing and directing duties on this film. Despite being the sixth film in the series, he manages to take the Chuckster back to his more sinister roots and actually make him pretty scary again. Considering the joke machine Chucky (once again voiced by Brad Dourif) had become in the previous two films, this is no small feat. The overlying mystery to the film was a nice touch as well since the audience already knows Chucky is alive, the intriguing question was why he was and the film is really clever in how it's revealed as well as how the events in this film tie into the events of the previous five films. He also assembled a nice cast for the film, headlined by Chucky voice actor Brad Dourif's own daughter Fiona as Nica, who makes a worthwhile adversary to Chucky. The film also contains a couple of fun cameos from Jennifer Tilly as Tiffany and perhaps even cooler, Alex Vincent as a grown up Andy Barclay!
Since having the murders of the previous film blamed on her, Nika (played by Fiona Dourif) has spent the past four years in a mental hospital. As her therapy has progressed, she has come to believe that Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) was a hallucination brought on by her mental state to help her cope with the murders she supposedly committed. She is moved to a new medium security ward as part of her improvement in treatment. It's only when a Good Guy doll is introduced to group therapy and people start turning up dead that she once again begins to believe that the doll really was alive. Meanwhile, Andy Barclay (played by Alex Vincent) is living alone at an isolated cabin. Locked away he has the dismembered head of the Chucky doll that was sent to him at the end of the previous film and spends his nights slowly torturing the still very much alive head. When he hears news of what is happening in the hospital, he heads there with the hope he can help convince the people in charge that Nika's claims are real and stop Chucky once and for all.
Don Mancini once again returns as writer and director for this installment and brings an interesting style to this film, making it one of the more visually unique films in the series. Filled with stark whites against a snowy landscape lends the mental hospital setting a certain almost surreal quality. He populates the film with a number of colorful characters, including a guy with multiple personalities nicknamed Multiple Malcolm (played by Adam Hurtig), that takes on an interesting role in the film. I hesitate to discuss the plot of this one in too much detail as much of the fun comes in the surprises, which this one has a few. The film also does let a little more humor into the proceedings this time, including an amusing reference to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (which makes sense as Brad Dourif was in that film as well as the mental hospital setting). Chucky has also picked up a few new tricks this time out, courtesy of VoodooforDummies.com website, as he announces at one point.
In the realm of horror franchises, the Chucky saga is unique in the sense that it has had the same creative team behind almost every single entry in the series. Don Mancini has been the writer on each entry (although director Tom Holland significantly rewrote Mancini's script for the first film) and even took a bigger role on the last three films by stepping up as director as well. This is almost unheard of within the horror genre for the same creative force to be behind a series of films, especially one seven films deep. For the past 29 years, this little killer doll has kept coming back under the direction and writing of Don Mancini and the series has gone from genuinely terrifying to self parody and back again. It keeps some of the best continuity between films, with characters from the prior films returning for later films, including seeing little Alex Vincent all grown up as if this were Boyhood with significantly more decapitations.
It is interesting how this series has grown and evolved over the years, with Chucky, as well as Tiffany, becoming more and more of a central role as the series progressed. The mythology has also continued to grow and develop which has opened new possibilites for the series. Due to the absurdity of the premise, this series is probably able to get away with more than others would. I can only speak in a general sense because the latest film very much plays into that aspect as well and I would hate to spoil it for my fellow fans of the homicidal Good Guy doll. Of course, the latest film once again left things wide open for another film in the series. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess. Don Mancini continues to manage to come up with fun new directions for the series to go in and I can only hope he once again can for Chucky's eighth go around. I remain confident it will be something entertainingly, dementedly oddball, as these films all seem to be.
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