Writer and Director Don Mancini adds another chapter to his 20-year-old Child’s Play franchise with The Curse of Chucky. Fiona Dourif plays Nica, a disabled woman mourning the recent death of her mother. Adding to her woes is her sticky beak sister, Barb (Danielle Bisutti) who wants to sell off the family home and cart Nica off to the nearest care home. Whilst at the house, Barb’s young daughter finds comfort in a very familiar doll that was mysteriously mailed to Nica before her mother’s death.
2008’s Seed of Chucky appears to be a thing of the past as Mancini has stripped the humour of the previous two Child’s Play entries to the bone, making this instalment less knowing and more about Gothic horror. Something which will no doubt appeal to fans of the original 80s schlock-fest. Of which there a few nods to. Brad Douriff returns as the voice of Chucky, whose one liners seem out oddly out of place against Mancini’s moody backdrop. Acting as both a sequel and reboot to the franchise, Curse of Chucky also works as a perfectly good standalone movie.
Polished and bloody, Curse of Chucky doesn’t reinvent the slasher film, but it does reinvent the franchise.
This review originally appeared in FilmInk.
John Noonan 