Curse of Chucky

 1.5/4

Starring: Fiona Dourif, Danielle Bisutti, Brennan Elliott, Summer H. Howell, Maitland McConnell, Chantal Quesnelle, A. Martinez and the voice of Brad Dourif

The version being reviewed is unrated.  For the record, the rated cut is rated R for Bloody Horror Violence, and for Language

The "Child's Play" movies are spooky fun.  They generate as many laughs as chills.  I mean, when you have a movie about a homicidal maniac that's two feet tall and made of plastic, it's hard to take it seriously.  It's the kind of movie where part of the fun is laughing at yourself for buying something so absurd.  Unfortunately, Don Mancini, the man behind Chucky, makes the curious decision of taking itself seriously.  That this is the sixth movie in the franchise makes such a decision all the more bizarre.

Nica (Fiona Dourif) is burying her mother, who has taken a header off the second floor.  Coming to help her are her greedy sister Barb (Bisutti), Barb's lecherous husband Ian (Elliott), her innocent daughter Alice (Howell), and Alice's sex bomb nanny, Jill (McConnell).  Not to mention their priest, Father Frank (Martinez).  Just before her mother shuffled off her mortal coil, Nica received a strange gift: a Good Guy doll that was a hit in the 80s.  She gives it to Alice, but when the doll seems to move around when no one is looking and the young girl starts saying creepy things, Nica grows concerned.

You know where this is going.  Sooner or later, Chucky is going to reveal himself and start attacking people with sharp objects and throwing out nasty one-liners.  Unfortunately, it takes too long to get there.  Nearly an hour passes before Chucky starts talking, and this is only a 90 minute movie.  So to get to the payoff of watching a sadistic doll go berserk, we have to suffer through an hour of filler.  And considering it involves people who are stupid and boring, it's not exactly fun.

The acting is what you get for a direct-to-DVD movie with a halfway decent budget: too good to be bad, but too bad to be interesting.  Fiona Dourif (daughter of Chucky himself, Brad Dourif) shows spunk and a natural charisma with the camera, although she can't save some of the atrocious lines she's been given.  Danielle Bisutti makes for a decent character who might as well have been named Karen.  No one else bears much of a mention.  Brad Dourif returns to his most iconic role.

One of the things that made this franchise unique is that Don Mancini found new places to take the character.  The franchise has entered into uncharted territory for horror, including a toy factory, a military school and Hollywood.  But either Mancini has run out of ideas or he thinks that "Curse of Chucky" is more self-aware and funny than it actually is.  True, Chucky is always entertaining (in a darkly funny sort of way).  But a few minutes of him is not enough to save an hour of tedium.

Skip it and watch one of the earlier ones.  My vote is either the original or the riotous "Bride of Chucky."  Just my opinion.

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