Bride of Chucky (1998)

After almost a decade the 'Child's Play' franchise saw a much needed breath of fresh air with 'Bride of Chucky'. With time to properly develop a sequel writer Don Mancini is able to construct what many consider the best sequel in the series. While I still maintain that the second entry is the best, 'Bride' is just as deserving of the title thanks to the funny screenplay and excellent visual style from director Ronny Yu (Freddy vs. Jason) and of course the always amazing voice talent of Brad Dourif. Set only about a month after 'Child's Play 3', dear old Chuck has seen better days and his mangled remains now lie in a police evidence locker until his old flame Tiffany manages to stitch him back together in the hopes of helping him wreak havoc once again. Only things don't exactly go the way she expects and ends up in a plastic shell herself and the couple go on the honeymoon from hell.

This time around, Dourif is complemented with the additional talent of Jennifer Tilly as Tiffany. This film would cement her character into the franchise and her performance shows why. She's funny, charming, and unlike many actors in a film such as this she's a class act who doesn't perform her role halfway. Like Dourif, she acts just as if she's in 'Titanic' and that really helps elevate horror movies when the actors don't walk through the role. The rest of the cast is alright, but forgettable for the most part. We have the cliche gay best friend, which was a really bad trend back in the 90's and we have the two main heroes of the piece played by Nick Stabille and Katherine Heigl. These two are probably the worst protagonist characters in the whole series and makes you long for Andy and Kyle again. Heigl especially performs her role rather poorly and given her attitude towards her early roles, I'm not surprised she phoned it in. The only real actor that makes it out without a scratch is John Ritter, here in a much darker role as a corrupt police chief. Sadly, he's not in the film nearly enough.

Don Mancini's goal was to have Chucky be the star and while I do miss Andy and company, it's nice to have some more development on the Chucky character. We learn a little more about him and he really starts to develop his now infamous personality here. What most movie goers know about Chucky is likely in this film such as his stitched up look, Tiffany, his dark humor which goes even further here, and overall despite three previous films 'Bride' is the film that most people will remember the most. And while the film is certainly stylish with its cool color scheme and heavy metal soundtrack, I do miss the tense score like in '2' and the gritty style of '3' and overall the series is all comedy at this point with no attempt at a spooky atmosphere whatsoever. Even still, 'Bride of Chucky' is the second best entry in the franchise and holds up today. It's a restart button that was sorely needed at the time even with it's follow up 'Seed of Chucky'.

( A )