Bride of Chucky . Austin Chronicle . 10-26-98

Bride of Chucky

DIRECTED BY: Ronny Yu

REVIEWED: 10-26-98

No matter that Brad Dourif snagged an Academy Award for his work in One Flew Over the Cuckooís Nest -- for legions of moviegoers, heíll always be best remembered as the voice of Chucky, poor guy. If itís any consolation, this fourth entry in the killer doll franchise is by far and away the best, a surprisingly affecting tale of pint-sized love and dismemberment thatís remarkably well-done. Hong Kong transplant Yu (The Bride With White Hair) reworks the Chucky mythos while cinematographer and frequent collaborator Peter Pau punches up the visuals -- together they make one of the most original-yet-self-referential comic horror shows since Bride of Re-Animator. This movie begins 10 years after the original Childís Play took place, at which time the soul of serial killer Charles ìChuckyî Lee Ray was transplanted -- via voodoo -- into the body of a plastic Good Guys doll. Now, Rayís ex-girlfriend Tiffany (Tilly, all oozy sexuality and breathy, helium squeaks) has stolen the remains of Chucky from a police evidence locker and raised him from the dead. A black vinyl Martha Stewart fanatic with a latent taste for homicide, Tiffany and beau Chucky immediately hit a brick wall when the topic of matrimony comes up, which results in Tiffanyís soul being unceremoniously transferred into a bridal dollís plastic shell and the sudden death of Alexis Arquette (donít ask). From here, Bride of Chucky morphs into a Barbie and Clyde road movie as the pair hijack a couple of young newlyweds (Heigl and Stabile) and make their way to Hackensack, NJ to retrieve Chuckyís decade-old corpse. It may not be the most original horror film of the last five years, but itís certainly close, thanks in equal parts to Yuís dazzling imagery and series overlord Don Manciniís witty, pithy script. If you thought Kevin Williamsonís Scream was the height of genre-specific comic horror, Mancini goes it one better, tossing in wry, underplayed gags aimed at everything from Bride of Frankenstein to the Men are from Mars/Women are from Venus stable of relationship theory, and then giving the whole shebang a raucous, nasty twist. Make no mistake, this is a horror film, and effects artisan Kevin Yagher gets impressive mileage out of some hoary genre clichés. Gore flows in copious amounts here, so much so that I wondered how this crept past the MPAA with only an R rating. In addition to the gallons of red stuff, Bride of Chucky also works the nerves in other ways as well. Despite (or perhaps because of) the filmís comic undertone, the more serious aspects of Yuís film -- serial killers, relationships, plastic dolls making the beast with two backs -- are all the more disturbing. Itís not quite as relentless as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, but Bride of Chucky is still sick and wrong in all the right ways.

--Marc Savlov

Full Length Reviews
Bride Of Chucky

Capsule Reviews
Bride of Chucky

Other Films by Ronny Yu
Warriors of Virtue

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