Bride of Chucky (1998)

[slayrrr666]

“Bride of Chucky” is one of the better horror movies to come out in the past ten years and could be one of the best horror films of the 90's.

**SPOILERS**

Chucky’s girlfriend, Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) manages to find his battered remains after being sucked into the fan at the end of part 3 and brings him to life in her trailer park. Her neighbor, Jessie (Nick Stabile) and his girlfriend Jade (Katherine Heigl) are being tormented by her uncle. (John Ritter) Tiffany upsets Chucky when he refuses to marry her, so she buys a doll for him to play with. Chucky kills Tiffany, and then transfers her soul into the doll she got him. In order for them to be placed back into human bodies, they have to travel to New Jersey to retrieve an amulet to do so. Jessie sees this as an opportunity to escape from Ritter, and they set out on the journey, but not before Ritter is killed by Chucky and Tiffany. Along the way, several bizarre incidents force them to stop at a bed and breakfast. When several more people are killed, they call up their best friend (Gordon Woolvett) to straighten out the situation. They convince him neither one of them are the killers, as the police have began to solve the crimes. He finds Ritter’s body in a trunk in the back of the van. Thinking he has been set up, he confronts them about it. Chucky and Tiffany then turn real to prove they did it, which gets Woolvett killed. The group steals a motor home and arrives at the cemetery. Jessie and Jade get Chucky and Tiffany to turn on each other, giving them enough to escape. Chucky recaptures Jade and forces her to get his amulet. Chucky and Tiffany restart their feud, which gives Jessie and Jade enough time to kill the both of them as the police arrive and clears them of the crimes.

The Good News: I have to give the most amount of props to the FX department, as Chucky and Tiffany as dolls look completely convincing. The scenes with them together are the movies main highlights, including a hilarious conversation where Tiffany advises Chucky on how serial killers in the 90's work. That being said, the amount of one-liners in this movie that are actually funny is incredible. Chucky gets the most of them, but Tiffany cracks a few gems as well. It is actually funnier than what Hollywood calls comedies these days. The gore is plentiful and shockingly realistic. Several deaths in this movie are actually original and creative. Turning Ritter into a new form of Pinhead was a totally brilliant scene. The honeymooning couple was a nice death scene, as well. For teenage love, the pairing of Stabile and Heigl works great. They have a great chemistry together and actually behave like a normal couple. I also have to admit that the first time I saw this movie, I did jump during certain scenes, and that shows what an incredible job director Yu did. He learned enough, apparently, to do the same thing with “Freddy vs Jason.” He knows how to stage set-ups and pay-offs, and here he shows some great skills that have a Hong Kong influenced look and style. He could be the next great horror director if he keeps filling up his resume with films like those two. Nice soundtrack, too, like “Freddy vs Jason.”

The Bad News: For fans of cheesy movies, this will be a great find. However, this film has a high cheese factor that may prevent the serious horror movie fan from having a good time enjoying this film. The film knows it is a cheesy movie and revels in it, making a serious fan turned off because of things like the one-liners. It isn’t all that bad of a movie, but it has to be watched in the mind frame that it is a cheesy movie, and that the cheesiness of certain scenes add to the movie, not to take it away. Remove yourself from that state of mind and you may find yourself enjoying this movie.

The Final Verdict: Fans of cheesy movies and the other “Child’s Play” movies will find a lot to like about this movie. For serious horror fans, take a look at it, but keep in mind that it isn’t a serious movie and that the cheesiness is supposed to be there and you might find yourself liking it.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity on a doll, a shadowy puppet sex scene, some drug use, and numerous drug references

[Quorthon]

The best one since the original, I think.

Don Mancini successfully brought his movie maniac into the late 90's and on with flair and success. He realized that a killer doll just isn't the scary thing it was in the 80's. He was able to poke fun at the story, characters, and franchise. Nightmare on Elm Street died only a little after it's prime, but with decent send-offs in New Nighmare and Freddy's Dead (aside from the fact that the same plot device in Freddy's Dead was used in the original film...). Sleepaway Camp vanished, Slumber Party Massacre died (thankfully), Halloween withered painfully until H2O, and Friday the 13th became just plain laughable--pathetic even. Out of all those old 80's horror franchises, Child's Play survived the best, and never sent Chucky into space, and hasn't gone straight-to-video/DVD yet.

My favorite line:
Chucky: "It's a pretty long story. If it were a movie, it'd need two or three sequels just to do it justice."

Somewhat better writing and stronger direction in Bride than in Seed. Although Seed is a great guilty pleasure--with John Waters no less.

[slayrrr666]

Wow, I didn't know you were that much of a Chucky fan, Q. They're so cheesy that it seems like you wouldn't have a good time with them.

[ZapRowsdower]

Chucky scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. Now, it's good to have something that pokes fun at what just isn't scary anymore. I'm glad the last two were comedies - if they kept trying to make it scary, the franchise would die painfully.

[slayrrr666]

I find it funny, though, that this film made me jump the most out of the entire series, despite the fact that this one was a comedy.

Plus, just thought I'd throw this out, but this was the first horror movie I ever saw, and got me into the genre. So, this will always be a special film for me.

[Quorthon]

slayrrr666 said:

Wow, I didn't know you were that much of a Chucky fan, Q. They're so cheesy that it seems like you wouldn't have a good time with them.

Dude, I love the cheese. I am a Bruce Campbell fan, after all. I just think there's a fine line between a cheesy good time and a total piece of shit. House of the Dead and Troll 2 = Cheesy movies that are watchable based on the crap-cheese factor. Some of that shit Sci-Fi shows is just plain, well, shit. Watchers--that movie is just total shit. Carnivore--also no redeeming value. AVP is almost there. These movies just aren't enjoyable.

But I grew up with cheesy movies. My Mom practically raised my younger brother and me on a diet of ye olde cheesy horror and SF films. The Giant Claw, The Deadly Mantis, Kingdom of the Spiders, Empire of the Ants (I was all about giant mutated bugs for a while), crap like this. Enjoyable for little more than the cheese factor. If you like cheesy SF and horror, then the 50's and 60's were crankin' out nonstop enjoyment for you.

Chucky has pretty much usurped Freddy as my favorite "slasher villian." Child's Play 3 was the first I saw, and it was so long ago that I don't remember much of it.

[slayrrr666]

Nice. That was how I grew up. 50s Sci-Fi for me as well.

[Quorthon]

What were your favorites from that era?

For me, Them! is my favorite, but I think that, overall, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is probably the be-all end-all of 50's SF perfection. It's got atmosphere, characters, terror--it's like perfection.

Tarantula was also good.

[slayrrr666]

The Godzilla series, naturally, and they remain so to this day.

The Thing from Another World is up there, as well as the drive-in fair from the late 50s (The Giant Gila Monster, The Deadly Mantis, The Giant Claw, The Killer Shrews, Tarantula, Beginning of the End and It Came from Beneath the Sea are near the top) as well as the dino and giant monster pictures of the time. Gorgo was probably the one I think could usurp Godzilla as the best film, not best monster, and The Land Unknown and The Valley of Gwangi being big in my youth. I don't think I've seen an uncut version of Body Snatchers, but I really enjoyed it. Might be near the time if I see the uncut version (I seriously doubt the movie was only an hour and 10 minutes, as AMC played it that long with commercials a couple years ago). It's been awhile since I've seen stuff like Tobor the Great, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Day the Earth Caught Fire, but I remember them being pretty good.

[Quorthon]

Ever seen The Monster That Challenged the World? That one's decent, too. Released on DVD by Midnite Movies. This company takes movies that range from awful to tolerable, but never high quality, and releases them on DVD with the picture and sound cleaner than you could imagine. Good bargains, typically.

A few of my Quickshots are rife with 50s-60s era SF shlock. I "reviewed" The Angry Red Planet, The Man From Planet X, Earth vs The Flying Saucers, and Fantastic Voyage. The Angry Red Planet, I highly recommend you watch--because it's so wildly cheesy. It's one of those films that is just too easy for MST3K. From the astronauts smoking in the ship to them tossing sexist banter to the female member of the crew to the ridiculous monsters on Mars--it's all fun.

I grew up a fan of giant mutants, mutant bugs, and giant monsters (Godzilla, Gorgo, Kong, etc.), but have yet to see the original 1950's Godzilla. I always liked the one from 1985 (84 Japan). It was better than Godzilla 2000.

Ever seen The Giant Claw? That one's the worst!!

[slayrrr666]

The Monster that Challenged the World I have seen, but don't remember too much about. I saw it in my youth but not since, so a vague recollection at best.

Godzilla 1985 is one of my favorites in the series, but I honestly liked Godzilla 2000 a little more. That could be the cuts done to it (85 is atrociously hacked up from the Japanese release, so I've read) but they're both fun watches at any rate. I highly recommend the original, as it's a marvelous piece of filmmaking. With a new edition coming soon that will include both the Japanese version and the the American version with the Raymond Burr footage together for the first time. I'm anxiously awaiting that one.

[Quorthon]

A new release of what? The 50's Godzilla original or Godzilla 1985?

[slayrrr666]

The 50s version.

[Quorthon]

When does that come out?

[slayrrr666]

Sept 5.

www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=5741