You Can't Keep a Good Guy Down

I dare not even attempt coyness on the subject of Child’s Play. As many loyal readers already know, meeting a certain precocious plastic stabber at the ripe age of 6 changed my young life, pointing me forever down a path wherein the subject of dolls both terrified and fascinated me. 

Following a year of nightmares brought on by my inappropriate viewing of Charles Lee Ray’s first film outing, I went on to see every ensuing installment in the theaters. Perhaps the ushers gave my mother a questionable look when she brought her 8 and 10 year old children into a viewing of the particularly mean-spirited Child’s Play 2. Maybe it was odd that my entire family attending a weeknight screening of Private Chucky (aka Child’s Play 3). It was thrilling to be a teenager spending a Friday night with friends educating them on the franchise’s history when viewing Bride of Chucky. Nothing, however, has quite come close to the time I attended a matinee showing of Seed of Chucky by my lonesome, free to giggle and guffaw to my solo self’s content.

I adore the Child’s Play series, particularly the fifth installment lovingly written and directed by series creator Don Mancini. I rarely turn down a chance to proclaim my adoration for the highly underrated Seed of Chucky, making the fact that Mancini returned to the director’s chair for 2013’s Curse of Chucky such good news.

Quick Plot: Nica is an agoraphobic 25 year old paralyzed below the waist and nursing a heart problem inside an almost offensively awesome gothic-yet-modern home. One day, a mysteriously unmarked package arrives for Nica’s flighty mother. Guess who’s inside:

Before you can say hidee ho, Nica’s mom is found dead as a presumed suicide. Such news brings out Nica’s older sister Barb, along with her doofy husband Ian, cute kid Alice, sexy nanny Jill, and sexier priest played by She-Devil’s A. Martinez. 

Not just ANY Martinez. A. Martinez. 

Proceed to typical Chucky shenanigans as the foul-mouthed toy spends the evening poisoning chili, electrocuting the scantily clad, cussing a storm at a little girl, and plucking out eyeballs with giddy one-liners. The story is fairly straightforward, although the tone is decidedly different from most of the other installments. Whereas Bride and Seed were essentially all-out horror comedies (and very funny ones at that), Curse plays more like a horror film, effectively setting up its glorious home setting as a place filled with hiding spots and rickety elevators. While the franchise pretty much gave up on making Chucky a scary figure for its last two films, Mancini finds a way to stage him as a true villain.

It helps that his victims aren’t exactly U.S. Army cadets or Chicago policemen. Nica, played quite well by Fiona Dourif (yes, she’s Brad’s daughter; yes, she looks exactly like him; and yes, she somehow manages to be an attractive woman despite looking exactly like Brad Dourif), is hampered by a heart condition and wheelchair. While the character quite wonderfully proves herself to be a worthy adversary, the fact that she has these physical limitations helps to ward off some of the obvious ‘just fight back’ eye rolls often thrown at killer doll films and their ilk.

As you would also expect from the man who brought us Seed of Chucky, Curse is also quite funny, just not as aggressively so as its predecessors. It’s a tricky balance, but the film manages to be, for the most part, a straight horror film with just enough touches of humor to entertain on a separate level. Fans of the series will gobble up the final 20 minutes, especially since they bring back some familiar faces not to be revealed here.

High Points

The biggest complaint I’ve heard lodged against this franchise and really, any involving villainous shorties is that some viewers find it impossible to be scared of something they can just kick. Well haters, guess what: if you’re paralyzed below the waist, YOU CAN’T JUST KICK AN EVIL SUPERSTRONG KNIFE-WIELDING DOLL. Well-played, Mr. Mancini

Low Points

While I ultimately want to marry the final five minutes (especially once you add the vital post-credits sequence), I will confess to being one of the maybe many who thought ...

SPOILER ALERT

...that the introduction of Tiffany in the evidence depository was supposed to take place during the timeline of Bride of Chucky. Sure, it didn’t line up with that part of the series, but since the scene with the police officer was almost beat-for-beat the opening of Bride, I just figured the movie was ret-conning the last two films and spinning its own tale. The Internet (including an interview with Don Mancini himself) proved me wrong: Curse is indeed a sequel that follows Seed, give or take a few years for Tiffany (now in the body of Jennifer Tilly, natch) and a messily sewn-back-together Chucky to make up. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense and is SERIOUSLY AWESOME, but I will concede that the actual execution could have been done a little cleaner so as to not confuse some viewers.

Lessons Learned

If you’re confined to one secluded house that gets no cellular reception, you’re probably better off just canceling your iPhone plan and saving on the unused minutes

Real hell is watching a DVR’d Real Housewives marathon while eating tuna melts

Dolls using the F-word are never not funny

Look! It’s-

Some guy named Brennan Elliot playing the amusingly incompetent Ian. Why is this important, you ask? Mr. Elliot apparently had a supporting role as a henchman in what has become my favorite Lifetime movie of all my life time, Murder On the 13th Floor. 

See, like any actor ever appearing on an episode of Law & Order: SVU, I have a compulsion to always mention the hilarious Murder On the 13th Floor any time I have even the vaguest excuse to do so. Hence, Murder On the 13th Floor.*

*I also have this weird fantasy that if I say the title enough times while staring in a mirror by candlelight, I will suddenly be living the life of a sharp-faced Jordan Ladd on the penthouse of a high-tech apartment building, hiring overly violent, ultimately inefficient thugs to slaughter my nanny. Let me dream...

Rent/Bury/Buy

For any fan of the Child’s Play series, Curse of Chucky is a must. Aside from its full-out fan service in the final act, it manages to do some new things with the legacy and character. Brad Dourif gets a little more to do, and his eerily spitting image of a daughter holds her own as a plucky protagonist. Writer/director Don Mancini achieves quite the challenge in making a horror film that’s occasionally scary, occasionally funny, and ultimately, quite a treat for those friends to the end.

Shortening Cred: It’s Chucky. He’s 2 feet tall and not growing. Long live the King of the Shortening!

Friends Til the End

This might shock you, but I'm something of what you might call a Child's Play fan.

I know. This just shattered your world. It's like learning that Taco Bell's meat is low grade or that Ricky Martin is gay. I of course should have warned you before making such a statement, but there I go about killing another monocle. How horrid of me.

How hide-y hide-y ho-rrid of me.

But something that might only mildly rock your socks is that of the five (so far) Child's Play films, second in my heart to 1988's debut is the VASTLY underrated 2004 campfest, Seed of Chucky. I've spoken before about how wonderful a ride it is, so it makes perfect sense that I would follow that up by literally speaking about it. 

How to hear such golden jewels of audio pleasure? Hop onto iTunes and download--for free--or stream this way for this week's episode of the fine new podcast Movie Matchup, where you'll hear myself, host with the most Troy, and The Podcast Podcast's (it's a podcast) lovable honorary Muppet Fozziebare discuss in grand detail Don Mancini's Seed of Chucky and a little something you might have seen called Final Destination 5 (theme!). 

Get to it now, because Tony Todd looks bored and just might send Death on your ass because it seems like something to do.

Gimme Five

You may have noticed that this blog’s poll has been stagnant now far longer than usual. I typically like to start each month with a fresh question that gauges my audience’s taste in one random field or another.

So why, you may be wondering, has May’s Cinco de Pollo not made a June exit? The cynical may say it’s due to slackerdom on my part, but those true of heart should trust in my powers to know I’m simply speechless over the recent results.

It’s an industrious little franchise that reaches the 5 mark. Also quite often, a stale one scrounging for spark. Looking at the choices I assembled, how in the Hellraiser: Inferno did Halloween 5 and Friday the 13th V: A New Beginning get so close to nipping at the tiny heels of Seed of Chucky?

Before I get ahead of myself, let’s take a quick moment to examine the runners-up:

Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (Zero votes)

A terrible title and a film I apparently watched on the SyFy Channel a few months back, yet have absolutely no memory of. Did the Men In Black stop by the Bronx, or is this really that forgettable? Hard to believe, considering IMDB includes David Carradine and my dream pimp, Fred Williamson in the cast. 

Hellraiser: Inferno (1%)

A film I definitely have never seen (and not just mentally blocked), this fifth installment has no Clive Barker backing but does star Nightbreed hunk Craig Sheffer and Ajax himself, James Remar. The latter makes me happy, but the latter also popped up for a scene or two in The Unborn  and look how well that turned out.

Leprechaun in Da Hood (3%)

As surprised as I was at the poor showing of this wannabe cult classic, I’ll chalk some of the sway over to that other (far superior) horror comedy starring a different vertically challenged redhead. Despite a superb premise, watching Warwick Davis rap is far less fun than should ever be possible.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (4%)

Maybe not the worst of the series but certainly the dullest (though the more critically acclaimed New Nightmare works hard to take that title). You’d think that the complexity of fetal dreams could at least birth some subtext (even Freddy’s Revenge managed to salvage its awfulness via homosexual metaphors) but aside from the apparent pro-life stance taken so early, this fifth Freddy romp is devoid of just about anything interesting. Lisa Wilcox’s Alice enters with mild residual sympathy, but her new batch of everyone’s-got-a-gimmick friends don’t bring much weight to the saga. Aside from a neat-enough comic book inspired death, Nightmare 5 is a snooze.

Hannibal Rising (6%)

There was a time when I was really excited to see this film. Most of that yearning came from the fact that Dominic “McNulty” West and Kevin “Lucious Vorenus” McKidd were listed in the credits. Four of you readers out there in the world would, it would seem, convince me to indeed rekindle that urge I once had. Perhaps one day when I find myself with a meat craving, I shall.

Saw V (6%)

The worst of the series and the epitome of what people who haven’t seen the films (but really want to complain about them anyway) would use as ammunition. Convoluted plot, characters we have no investment in, various loose ends, and an uninspired setup that manages to recycle plot points from just about every film before it. Power to Saw VI  for rescuing a franchise I had almost declared dead (Donny Walberg head smash dead, not Dr. Gordon is-he-or-isn’t-he deadish).

Diary of the Dead (8%)

In my personal estimation, Romero’s fifth in his Dead quintology (well now, sextology? stop giggling) series receives some unfair panning. Its weaknesses are glaring, but so were Day of the Dead’s (actors without indoor voices anyone?) and I will argue to my death that were the monotone narration removed, this would be considered a genuinely okay film.

Halloween 5 (22%)

Danielle Harris returns to give another fine underage performance, but aside from that, I have absolutely no idea why 14 of you presumably smart, kind and beautiful readers find anything to love about this lesser slasher. Enlighten me. Please.

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (22%)

Much like Halloween 5, this (spoiler alert) Jason-free installment teases audiences with the possibility that the previous film’s child survivor is now donning a dime store mask to match a bloody weapon. It's a tease that doesn't pay off, and the film's sole interest point seems to be the utter sleaziness it proudly sports. Are there really people out there in the world that dare to cite this a superior film to Jason Takes Manhattan???

The Winner, thank goobers:

Seed of Chucky (25%)

I’ve yet to fully expand on why I love this gleefully camped-out entry, but for now, heed my recommendation that if you haven’t seen Seed of Chucky, you're missing out on something really neat. 

It’s funny. 

It’s gross. 

Touching. 

Rather adorable. 

Bizarre.

And John Waters gets a cameo. 

Get to it.