Curse of Chucky

Curse of Chucky is a 2013 American supernatural slasher film, the sixth installment of the Child's Play franchise. The film was written and directed by Don Mancini, who created the franchise and wrote the first seven films. It stars Brad Dourif as Chucky and Fiona Dourif as Nica Pierce, as well as Danielle Bisutti, A Martinez and Brennan Elliott. The film grossed $3.8 million in DVD sales.

Curse of Chucky
Home video release poster
Directed byDon Mancini
Produced byDavid Kirschner
Written byDon Mancini
Based onCharacters
by Don Mancini
Starring
Music byJoseph LoDuca
CinematographyMichael Marshall
Edited byJames Coblentz
Production
company
Distributed byUniversal Studios Home Entertainment
Release date
  • September 24, 2013 (2013-09-24)
(VOD)
  • October 8, 2013 (2013-10-08)
(DVD/Blu-ray)
Running time
96 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2.8 million[1]
Box office$3.8 million

Curse of Chucky sees a return to the franchise's source material, bringing back the straightforward horror elements found in the first Child's Play film, as well as Chucky's classic appearance. The film, which went into production in September 2012, is the first direct-to-video installment of the series. In the U.S., it debuted via VOD on September 24, 2013, followed by a DVD and Blu-ray Disc release on October 8, 2013. The film was also turned into a scare zone for 2013's annual Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood. Though Curse of Chucky was made with a direct-to-video release in mind, it was also seen theatrically in several countries, like Brazil. The film was followed by Cult of Chucky in 2017.

Plot

In 2013 (Twenty-five years after the first film and nine years after the fifth film), Chucky mysteriously arrives in the mail at the home of paraplegic Nica Pierce and her mother Sarah. They live in an isolated house in a bad state of repair. Sarah is shown repeatedly painting pictures of the same flowers. Later that night, Sarah is found dead from a stab wound, and her death is ruled as a suicide. Later, Nica is visited by her sister Barb, accompanied by her husband Ian, their daughter Alice, live-in nanny Jill, and Father Frank. Alice finds Chucky and is allowed to keep him.

Later that evening, while Alice and Nica are making chili, Chucky secretly pours rat poison into one of the dinner bowls. Father Frank eats the poison and is decapitated in a car accident. Officer Stanton later arrives to see the body. That night, Nica investigates Chucky on the Internet and finds news articles about the murders tied to both the doll and Charles Lee Ray. Elsewhere, Chucky kicks a bucket of rainwater onto the floor's power outlets, electrocuting Jill and causing a blackout. Barb gets up to search for Alice. She goes to the attic, clutching Chucky all the time, and finds Sarah's large collection of paintings of the same flower. She finds a large knife inside Chucky's shirt and peels some of Chucky's fake skin, revealing hidden stitches that were created by Tiffany. Chucky springs to life and stabs her in the eye with a kitchen knife. Nica hears Barb's scream but has to crawl up the stairs. Once upstairs, Nica discovers that Barb is dead and Chucky is alive. When Chucky flees, Nica wakes Ian up in a panic.

Ian takes Nica to the garage but is unable to find Alice. He disarms Nica, believing her to be responsible for the murders. Nica tries to explain that Chucky is alive, but Chucky acts like a lifeless doll when Ian looks at him. Ian decides to review the footage from a hidden camera that he planted on Chucky earlier (to get evidence of Barb's affair with Jill) and learns that Alice is locked in a closet and that Chucky truly is alive. Exposed, Chucky kills Ian by chopping off his lower jaw with a hatchet before he can act. Nica manages to break out of her restraints and avoids an axe to the chest by blocking it with her numb legs. The axe gets stuck, allowing Nica to stun Chucky into dropping the axe, and she pulls it out of her legs and beheads him. As Nica tries to cover her wound, Chucky reattaches his head as her attention lapses, and Chucky pushes Nica off her wheelchair and over a balcony onto the ground floor.

When Nica asks why Chucky is doing this, he explains through flashbacks that as Charles Lee Ray, he was a friend of her family and in love with Sarah. Ray killed Nica's father and kidnapped Sarah while she was pregnant with Nica. Charles brings flowers to the kidnapped Sarah, which are the same sort of flowers that Sarah was shown compulsively painting. (The flash-back scene is all in black-and-white except for the color on the flowers) When Sarah betrayed him, he stabbed her in the stomach (which resulted in Nica being born paraplegic) and escaped. Ray's flight from the police ultimately led to his death as a human, which is why he came back to Sarah for revenge. Nica, after stalling by taunting him for his inability to kill his original nemesis Andy Barclay, manages to retreat into her elevator, disarm Chucky and plunge the dagger into his torso, which does not exactly kill him. Officer Stanton, the same officer who found Father Frank's body, arrives at the house, knowing that it's where Father Frank spent his last hours, and he sees Nica holding the bloody knife near Barb's body. A motionless Chucky watches from a nearby chair.

Some time later, Nica is sent to a mental asylum for the criminally insane. Chucky is retained by the police as an exhibit for her trial. The arresting officer gets in his car and sees Chucky breathing in the bag. Just before he opens the bag, Tiffany, who had been hiding in the backseat, slits his throat with a nail file. Tiffany collects Chucky and asks "Who's next?" before closing the bag.

Meanwhile, Alice, now living with her grandmother, comes home from school to find Chucky waiting for her. Chucky persuades Alice to play "Hide the Soul", and starts the infamous voodoo chant to transfer his soul into Alice's body. The grandmother, who Chucky has attacked but did not kill, sits up suddenly, suffocating in a plastic bag, shortly after Chucky begins the chant.

In a post-credits scene set six months later, Chucky, still in his doll body, is delivered to Andy, now an adult. When Andy turns his back to answer a phone call from his mother, Chucky cuts his way out of the package with a knife. Chucky looks around the house, only to have Andy pointing a shotgun at him. Andy tells Chucky "play with this", before shooting him in the head.

Cast

Live action

Puppeteers
  • Tony Gardner as Chucky
  • Peter Chevako
  • Lilo Tauvao
  • William Terezakis
  • Christopher Sigurdson

Production

In an August 2008 interview, Don Mancini and David Kirschner spoke of a planned reboot of the Chucky franchise, to be written and directed by Mancini. They described their choice of a remake over a sequel as a response to the will of the fans, who "want to see a scary Chucky movie again... to go back to the straightforward horror rather than the horror comedy." They indicated that Brad Dourif would return as the voice of Chucky.[2]

In a subsequent interview, Mancini described the remake as a darker and scarier retelling of the original film, but one that, while having new twists and turns, would not stray too far from the original concept.[3] At a 2009 horror convention, Dourif confirmed his role in the remake.[4] At a reunion panel at the Mad Monster Party horror and sci-fi convention, the cast and crew from the original film confirmed that both a remake and a spin-off are in development. Writer Don Mancini and producer David Kirschner worked on a sequel then titled Revenge of Chucky.[5]

In June 2012, it was confirmed that a sequel would indeed enter production, entitled Curse of Chucky, and intended for a direct-to-video release.

Filming

The film began production in early September 2012 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, which ended in mid-October. In November 2012, Don Mancini announced that filming for Curse of Chucky had been completed, and a release was set for around Halloween 2013.

Release and marketing

In May 2013, Fiona Dourif released the first image of Chucky in the film through her Instagram. The image is from the film's soundtrack cover, and shows Chucky looking more like the doll from the first three films than the previous two.[6] The official trailer was released on July 8, 2013.[7] The film's official Red band trailer was released August 1, 2013.[8] Curse of Chucky had its world premiere on August 2, 2013, at the Fantasia Festival,[9] in Montreal, and its European premiere at the London FrightFest Film Festival on August 22, 2013, accompanied by screenings of the original trilogy of Child's Play films.[10] The DVD/Blu-ray was released on October 8, 2013 and domestically grossed $3,821,602 in the first month.[11]

Reception

Based on 21 reviews, the film currently holds a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 6.17 out of 10. The site's critics consensus states: "The franchise hex of disappointing sequels is broken by going back to basics in this chilling entry, restoring a sense of playfulness to the Chucky saga."[12]

An early review posted on Bloody Disgusting on August 2, 2013, was very favorable of the film. In it, Brad Miska stated, "Curse of Chucky may just be the best home video sequel since Wrong Turn 2. It's alarmingly good, which puts pressure on Universal to answer as to why they didn't let Mancini shoot this for theaters." He continued to say, "Chucky fans should rejoice... Curse of Chucky is clearly going to re-ignite the franchise for years to come."[13] Ryan Larson of Shock Till You Drop also wrote a mostly positive review, saying, "the movie does so much right that it's easy to overlook the very few flaws it has. The pacing and writing coincide to create a fun blood-soaked jaunt that never gets boring or dull." He goes on to praise the director, pointing out that "Mancini (pulling double duty as writer as well as director) does a great job at introducing and ushering off characters in a fashion that doesn't bog the film down with a bunch of characters who get three minutes of film time before getting the axe, or butcher knife in this case. The kills are kitschy, but in the best way possible, waxing nostalgic of the slasher films of the late eighties and early nineties."[14]

At the film's world premiere at the Montreal Fantasia Festival, it received a Gold Award for Best International Feature.[15]

Accolades

The film received a nomination for Best DVD or Blu-ray Release at the 40th Saturn Awards.

Halloween Horror Nights

Curse of Chucky received its own scarezone at the 2013 lineup of Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights.

Chucky had previously been featured at Halloween Horror Nights. In 2009, the franchise received its own maze, entitled Chucky's Fun House, in Hollywood, a seasonal re-themeing of Universal Studios Hollywood's year-round attraction Universal's House of Horrors, and Chucky: Friends Till the End at Universal Studios Florida, themed around the Good Guys factory, with scenes featuring Chucky and other childhood toys gone bad. Since 1992, Chucky has starred in his own shows Hollywood, Chucky's In-Your-Face Insults and Chucky's Insult Emporium. In 2010, Chucky was featured in the "20 Years of Fear" scarezone in Florida.

Sequel

The film was followed by Cult of Chucky in 2017.

References
  1. DVD Commentary
  2. "Quint chats up Don Mancini, David Kirschner and Michelle Gold about the CHILD'S PLAY REMAKE and the new DVD!!!". Ain't It Cool News. August 19, 2008. Retrieved July 16, 2013.
  3. "Child's PlayMancini&Kirschner". ShockTillYouDrop.com. CraveOnline Media. September 8, 2008. Archived from the original on July 8, 2012. Retrieved October 11, 2009.
  4. "MGM Gets Rolling On A 'Child's Play' Remake". 25 March 2011. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
  5. "The Cynical Optimist: Child's Play spin-off Revenge of Chucky in the works!". March 28, 2012. Archived from the original on March 31, 2012. Retrieved March 28, 2012.
  6. Orange, B. Alan (May 28, 2013). "First Look at Chucky in Curse of Chucky!". MovieWeb. Retrieved July 16, 2013.
  7. "I'm Your Friend to the End! The Trailer for CURSE OF CHUCKY is Here!". Ain't It Cool News. July 8, 2013. Retrieved July 16, 2013.
  8. Miska, Brad (August 1, 2013). "Exclusive: 'Curse of Chucky' Red Band Trailer Will Slice You Into Silence!". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved January 7, 2015.
  9. "Curse of Chucky". Fantasia Festival. Retrieved July 16, 2013.
  10. "2013 Film4 FrightFest-Curse Of Chucky". London FrightFest Film Festival. Archived from the original on July 1, 2013. Retrieved July 16, 2013.
  11. "Curse of Chucky (2013)". The Numbers. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
  12. "Curse of Chucky (2013)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
  13. "[Fantasia '13 Review] 'Curse of Chucky' Recalls Old School Wrath of 'Child's Play'! - Bloody Disgusting". bloody-disgusting.com.
  14. "Review: Curse of Chucky - ComingSoon.net". 26 September 2013.
  15. fantasia-13-curse-of-chucky-wins-audience-award-big-bad-wolves-for-best-film
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