Curse of Chucky (2013) Review

“Play with this”

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

When you're gonna spice things up, maybe reforming the roots is a good idea. 
PLOT
Curse of Chucky follows the Pierce family go through recent tragedy as the matriarch Sarah (Chantal Quesnelle) has recently died, ruled a suicide. The only who lives in her home is her youngest daughter Sarah who is born paraplegic. The day before the funeral, she is visited by her older sister Barb, alongside her husband Ian, their daughter Alice and live-in nanny Jill who Barb is secretly cheating on Ian with. Father Frank (A Martinez) also visits to help Barb try convincing Nica in selling the house for the sake of settling her own financial troubles, promising she'll be taken care of due to her own heart condition. Alice gets comfortable when finding a Good Guy doll named Chucky who was sent to the house the day Sarah died. Little does the family know the doll is possessed by serial killer Charles Lee Ray. As the evening progresses, Nica makes chili for dinner but one minute of not paying attention in the kitchen leads to Chucky poisoning one of the bowls. The victim would be Father Frank who would quickly leave upon the symptoms of illness kicking in. This would lead to him get decapitated in a car accident. As the night progresses, the Pierce family see home movies. And when Nica recognizes someone peculiar, she discovers the doll came from an evidence depository. She then investigates and finds online reports of previous murders linked to him, as well as seeing a picture of Charles before the power goes out, as a result of the doll electrocuting Jill. When Barb goes to check on her, Ian admits he knows of her infidelity and snuck a nanny cam to get proof of it, intending to have a custody battle over Alice. Barb doesn't find her daughter nor Jill, but does find Chucky and mistakes Nica to know of the nanny cam. She looks around the attic and notices the doll's stitches concealed in another layer of plastic. Only after the discovery does Chucky kill her by stabbing her in the face. When Nica finds her sister dead, she wakes up Ian and convinces him to escape with her. Chucky however has taken the keys and revs the garage full of carbon monoxide. Nica would try breaking into the car with an axe to get the keys from him, but Ian mistakes her to be responsible and ties her up after she has a heart attack. When she wakes up, he looks through the nannycam footage to know where Alice is. Not only does he get his proof Barb's affair, but proof that Chucky's alive who locked Alice in a closet. Just upon that discovery does the doll attack and kill him with the same axe. He then pushes Nica off the balcony before he explains his motive. It turns out he was so infatuated with Sarah that he killed her husband Daniel and he kidnapped her while still pregnant with her. That never went according to plan due to the police getting word of his whereabouts and before he ran away and transferred his soul to the original doll, he stabbed Sarah in the stomach which is the real reason of Nica's paraplegia. She does fight the doll in response to his motive, but he survives every blow she strikes. By the time Officer Stanton arrives as he was investigating Father Frank's death, Chucky (offscreen) wipes out the nanny cam footage to avoid proof he's alive. This leads to Nica being found guilty for all that happened and gets institutionalized. Stanton confiscates Chucky to another buyer he waits for, only for him to be killed by Tiffany Valentine still in the same body of actress Jennifer Tilly. Since she is the one who sent her husband to the Pierce family in the first place, she then sends him to Alice who now lives with her other grandma, Ian's mother. He kills the remaining guardian before he uses voodoo to swap bodies with her. The film ends in a post credit cliffhanger where he also confronts his infamous rival Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), but fails due to the once child now adult having the jump on him with a shotgun. 
THOUGHTS
I was actually nervous upon hearing this franchise would have a direct to video era and I wasn’t a fan of those kind of movies since it didn’t always work out for Disney. Since Seed failed in more ways than one, it made sense why Universal didn’t trust what else Don Mancini had in mind. Ironically, this was the most unconventional comeback nobody would expect because this and the follow up Cult beat Seed with ease for being straight up scary like the original film. The redesign that was done for Chucky really fit the tone because it was like a realization he’s back better than ever. It was so smart that he hid his scars to intercept the Pierce family, only for us the audience to remember he’s far from changing within and I think Brad Dourif did a great job showing a new layer of depicting his twisted mind, both the voice and physical presence combined. It’s one thing for him to electrocute someone, but to see him pull off a chain reaction through a rat poison. It made a lot of sense for him to reunite with Tiff because that’s how insanely drawn they are to one another. It also felt logical for him to target swapping bodies with Alice because kids are still vulnerable to trick and he remembered that once he got rid of an obstacle. It’s very clear he is in the same body when he sees Andy again, which means his first attempt at possessing Alice backfired, thus leading to his actions in Cult having a big payoff. If everything he’s done here has proven anything, it brings this movie full circle by showing how fragile family can be through shared & unspoken trauma. Had Sarah been open about her experience with Chucky, it’s likely she and her daughters would’ve been safer. Sadly, this led to a downfall so severe that can never be undone. The final girl that root for the most is instinctively Nica because Fiona Dourif, Brad’s daughter, owns it in being one who is most vulnerable but spends more time trying to be resilient & determined to do the absolute rather than wait for someone else to take action. It does feel all for nothing because her family still died, but it’s not in vein either because she’s still alive by the time of the show. We already know we want Alice to make it since Summer H Howell embraced all the innocence was all about, just like Andy, but that sadly wasn’t enough for her to overcome similar odds. We didn’t expect a love triangle involving her parents and the nanny, but it sure stirred up the pot very well. It is a mixed bag in wanting to care for Jill since we know she cares for the kid, but Maitland McConnell showed she’s got her own selfishness in ruining a marriage. But of course, she’s just following suit because it was Barb who started it. Danielle Bisutti showed her to be the queen of greed because she mostly thought of herself only concerned of how she looked outside instead of within. Rather than respect her husband getting by through working at Starbucks, she shames him for it and wants the house for herself. Little did she expect that her husband was ahead of the curve before they all bit the dust. Ian was a bit cynical since he knew of her secret, but Brennan Elliot reminds us he was way more reasonable in comparison because he didn’t want his daughter to grow up with someone who would teach her the wrong things. Had he stayed awake and kept Barb from looking for the nanny cam, there’s a good chance they would’ve survived the night. Again, none of their deaths were in vein because Nica still survived long enough to prove her innocence by the time of the series. While this movie ain’t so bad on its own, there were still a few things that bothered me upon rewatching. For starters, how did Nica forget Sarah threw Chucky in the trash before she died? I mean suspicion should’ve kicked in the moment she saw him in the living room. And honestly, Barb was wasting so much money having a nanny around after saying they can’t afford her. And why would Chucky move to hide in the bathroom? If he doesn’t want to get caught yet, he should’ve waited until nightfall. Also, I don’t hesitate calling Barb a bitch for thinking Nica can’t cook. All you need are two hands to get cooking done. Hell, there was no single point for her to sneak up on Jill if she don’t want to get caught cheating yet. On top of that, I don’t see the point of Chucky waiting until Barb discovered the scars for him to attack. I don’t want to root for the villain but if the jig is up, don’t hesitate doing what you came to do. The same can be said on waiting so long to kill Ian after Nica’s heart attack. Lastly, what bothered me more than the cops not looking for the missing keys is that nobody found Jennifer Tilly’s fingerprints at the crime scene when that is the second time she’s killed like that. Other than that, this is still a wicked good time. In short, Curse of Chucky is the improvement the franchise wanted and delivered to say the least. If you’re still a fan of slashers, check this out.