Bride of Chucky

BRIDE OF CHUCKY

The fourth film in the Child’s Play series, Bride of Chucky (released in 1998) finds a woman named Tiffany (the girlfriend of serial killer Charles Lee Ray) using black magic to resurrect her lover in the body of the doll his soul inhabited in the previous installment.  She has stitched Chucky back together, and her old flame wastes no time in dispatching her new boyfriend once he’s back in action.  After a spat, Chucky kills Tiffany and transfers her soul into the body of a female doll.  He informs her that to transfer their souls into human bodies, they’ll have to acquire a special amulet that’s buried with his corporeal remains in New Jersey.  Tiffany phones her neighbor (Jesse) and hires him to transport a pair of dolls to a cemetery, and soon Chucky & Tiffany are on the road with Jesse and his girlfriend/fiancée Jade (who are fleeing from Jade’s controlling uncle).  Chucky and Tiffany rack up a few kills when Jesse and Jade aren’t looking, and then the dolls reveal that they are alive and take their human drivers hostage at the start of act three.  Will Chucky and Tiffany transfer their souls into the bodies of Jesse and Jade?  Check out the finale of this film to find out.

Saturated with even more humor than Child’s Play 3, Bride of Chucky isn’t nearly as engaging as the first films in the series despite the shot in the arm that is the addition of a female doll accomplice for Chucky to work with.  This project does feature innovative death scenes (in one memorable moment, Tiffany shatters the mirror on the ceiling above a pair of honeymooners, thereby causing shards of glass to rain down and kill the unlucky couple).  The serious and scary tone of the first Child’s Play film has been replaced with a more comedic feel, and I perceive this change in direction as a mistake.  The concept of a doll possessed by the soul of a serial killer is inherently disturbing and doesn’t mesh well with jokes.  Also, why was this magic amulet never mentioned in any of the previous films?  The series mythology gets shaken up fundamentally by the existence of this trinket, and not in a good way.  Bride of Chucky will be of interest to fans who have followed the series thus far, but it’s not a film I’d recommend just checking out as a stand-alone story.  If you must watch just one Child’s Play film, go for the first and still best one.