Curse of Chucky (2013)

(On TV, October 2020) Whatever progress Seed of Chucky may have made in transforming the series in a satirical self-aware comedy/horror hybrid is almost completely gone in Curse of Chucky, which goes back to the schlock horror roots of the series and loses a lot of interest along the way. This time around, Chucky finds a way to get into the life of a disabled woman, her mother, sister and niece—the results aren’t pretty, and they’re almost entirely without self-conscious irony. We’re left with just a standard-issue slasher with 2010s technical polish. Only a late-movie cameo by Jennifer Tilly ties it all back together, but it’s too late by then: Chucky’s insufferable quips have done enough damage (misogyny doesn’t help), and the throwback to the straight-up horror is more repetitive than amusing. But you can’t even blame this shift in the direction of the franchise being taken over by lesser creative talents: writer-director Don Mancini is once again at the helm of Curse of Chucky, so he presumably knows where he wants to go here—creative fatigue may be to blame given, well, where do you go after six instalments of a premise that’s not exactly expansive? Visually, there are a few interesting things about this instalment: the opening credit sequence isn’t bad, and there are a few other findings here and there. It also takes a surprisingly long time for the plot to actually start, and the epilogue is protracted far too long. But even those distinctions are not quite enough to make Curse of Chucky more than a perfunctory instalment in a minor franchise—it doesn’t have the gonzo weirdness of its immediate predecessor, which is what was most interesting about it. But then again—maybe getting away from Seed of Chucky enabled the previous film to offer a series conclusion on its own terms.