I don't know if I was ready to play or not.
Of all the classic slasher movie franchises, “Child’s Play,” better known at this point as the “Chucky” series, is quickly managing to distinguish itself from its pack of dying veterans and contemporaries by not only managing to operate beyond the heyday of the slasher flick but by somehow crossing a bizarre line in its evolution that has somehow not only given it a favorable bounce back in quality from sequelitis but has actually managed to even improve it from where it began.
Brad Dourif reprises his role as the infamous killer doll
Chucky, taking his sadistic joy of terrorizing the innocent to a mental
institution housing one of his previous victims, Nica (Fiona Dourif).
Protagonist of the previous film, the direct to video and
supremely underrated “Curse of Chucky,” Nica has been framed for the murder of
her family by Chucky and must navigate her new environment as a paraplegic
while attempting to keep her sanity in an environment that is making her
question it for thinking that the entire ward is at danger over the presence of
an 80s children’s doll.
Meanwhile, his most famous victim Andy (reprised by the now
adult Alex Vincent), coming to terms with his childhood suffering seeks to
vindicate Nica of her conviction to prove the evil of Chucky and rid the world
of him once and for all.
While I would contend that filmmaker Don Mancini is a
terrific craftsman of suspense, the inherently creepy concept of Chucky has
always struggled to reconcile the characterization of its icon as a very
effectively human and contemporary wisecracker into a cohesive feature, often
finding difficulty in being a effective horror movie by being hard to buy into
the suspenseful pay off or being an excellent comedy at the expense of the
horror element.
With that in mind, the fact that an unabashed sixth sequel
in this franchise, released in an age of reboot madness has somehow managed to
perfect the damn near 3 decade old concept while evolving it to new heights is
nothing shy of an outright act of god.
The film manages to play off of elements of claustrophobia
and paranoia in an environment that perpetuates the notion so well that you’d
almost forget that the film couldn’t have been shot across more than 5 or 6
locations at best. The fear of Chucky beyond his gleeful performance provided
excellently by Dourif is now firmly rooted in just how easy it is for him to
hide, and Dourif’s daughter continues the family legacy of horror by being one
of the most compellingly tragic heroines I’ve seen on screen in quite some
time.
Yet as scary as they’ve managed to make Chucky through a
genuinely clever MO that lends itself well to his psychotic love of creative
murder, now bolstered by an evolution of the concept manifested as a new set of
voodoo spells whose effects I will withhold for reasons of potential spoilers,
the comedy is flat out knocked out of the park.
All of the comedy is black and occasionally borderline
absurd in the scenario’s they play out across. The opening alone in which we
discover one of Andy’s cathartic coping mechanisms for his tragedy is worth the
price of admission alone.
Reviewing this movie almost felt like cheating by the time I
got to the end of it. Were it not for the execution of the more joke heavy
third act of the film, I'd have almost stopped this review mid-production on the grounds that the movie was too good
to qualify, compared to the string of cynically produced Z-grade garbage Fromage Fridays has beaten me into the ground with.
I had the misfortune of watching “Child’s Play” at the age
of 4 years old, baking a pathological fear of child sized dolls and Chucky
himself into my psyche for life. While growing up and understanding the logic
that defines our reality has helped me tolerate them as an adult, I still flinch
at first sight of Chucky memorabilia of any sort.
I don’t know whether to adore “Cult of Chucky” or be pissed
at it for reigniting a psychological issue that will be plaguing my sleep for
at least a week or 2 but god bless it either way.
4 out of 4 Shatners
Bottom Line: Were it not for"Blade Runner 2049," "Cult of Chucky" would've been better than everything that I've seen in actual movie theaters this month.
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