Review of Bride of Chucky (1998) by Andrew D — 30 Jun 2013

The Child's Play series finally finds its niche in this sequel to the cult film from the 1980s. When Chucky's old girlfriend, Tiffany, gets her hands on the doll and reincarnates him, she's overwhelmed with joy because her boyfriend's back and the two can finally get married.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed himself, Chucky rejects the proposal, making Tiffany mad in the process, locking him up in a small cage. Filled with rage, Chucky breaks loose and kills Tiffany, only to transfer her soul into another doll.

Now, promising her a new body, he convinces her to get the help from one of the boys in the area she lives in to take her and Chucky to New Jersey and get an amulet that will transfer them back to human bodies.

As the miles are added to the odometer, sparks begin to reignite between the murderous couple. I've seen all five of these films, and none of the other four came as close to good as this one does.

The first three tried way too seriously to be a horror movie while Seed of Chucky tried way to hard to strike twice with the humor that this one made. The problem with the first three is that Chucky isn't a very scary slasher character.

He's a two foot tall doll and the addition of voodoo makes the story even sillier. Thankfully, someone actually came up with the idea to make the series into a horror comedy from there on out, giving birth to Bride of Chucky.

This film does almost everything right for a horror comedy. The kill scenes from a slasher film are still there, but there's a good amount of a dark sense of humor that's added to it. For example, Chucky gets persuaded by Tiffany to be more creative with his kills.

In doing so, they launch a series of nails into someone's face, killing him. Chucky looks down, see the nails sticking out and around his face and says "Now why does that looks so familiar?" It was a great little reference to Hellraiser while also making a pretty funny joke.

Where the film also succeeds with its humor is the amount of self reference used. By doing this, it shows that the film knows that the film is silly and it takes that to its advantages. One of my favorite lines in the movie explains this perfectly.

When asking Chucky what happened to him, he simply replies that "it's a long story. In fact, if it were made into a movie, it would take three or four sequels just to tell it," which is an incredibly funny jab at the Child's Play series itself.

As far as the acting goes, it's fine. Brad Dourif has always been the right fit for the voice of Chucky and Jennifer Tilly was a great decision as well to play and voice Tiffany. The kid actors were passable, but could have been better.

The script itself isn't perfect, but it thankfully is aware of itself and knows when it's time to start wrapping up the story (you'll be able to tell when the time comes). In conclusion, Bride of Chucky is pretty much as good as Chucky is going to get.

He's just not a scary villain, rather an excellent parody of how crazy horror has become and Tiffany just adds to this, making one hell of an entertaining hour and a half.