‘Bride of Chucky‘ is a 1998 slasher comedy directed by Ronny Yu and written by “Child’s Play” franchise co-creator Don Mancini. David Kirschner and Grace Gilroy both produced it for Universal Pictures.

Tiffany Valentine (Jennifer Tilly) bribes her way to get the remains of Chucky (Brad Dourif), who was her boyfriend ten years ago. Using a spell, she restores his soul. Meanwhile, her neighbor Jesse (Nick Stabile) is planning to run away with his girlfriend Jade (Katherine Heigl) but her Uncle Warren (John Ritter), who is also the local police chief, keeps getting in their way. One night, Chucky and Tiffany get into an argument, which causes him to kill her and transfer into a doll of her own. Now stuck together, they have to find an amulet buried with Chucky’s human body. To head to New Jersey, they trick Jesse and Jade into taking them, leaving a pile of bodies in their wake.

Each film in the original trilogy got cheesier as they progressed. I supposed seven years later, they just decided to lean into that and make it a sort of dark comedy. Needless to say, it was a failure. Instead of laughing at the horror happening on the screen, you cringe and gag at just how gross the scenes turned out to be.

Dourif and Tilly do have good chemistry, I will give them that. At times, their romance was stronger than our two human protagonists and I think that was supposed to be part of the humor. Again, it did not work out because their dialogue was often incredibly bizarre.

As for the rest of the cast, the word bland comes to mind when thinking of a way of describe their performances. I was not impressed with anyone, not even veteran TV star Ritter pulled out a decent acting job. Everyone was just kind of plastered versions of Hollywood tropes with no depth or substance.

I do not blame the filmmakers for wanting to veer away from Chucky’s vendetta with Andy and focusing on the serial killer doll. If they had kept it as a thriller or a horror, even adding Tiffany to the mix, I could see how it would pull together. Unfortunately, they decided to try to make it humor and it fell flat on its face. Say what you want to about its predecessor, it still tried to maintain its integrity within the franchise.

Bottom line, Bride of Chucky was a colossal failure at reaching a new point in the horror movie series. It had potential, but all of the wrong decisions were made in the process.

PARENTAL CONCERNS: Gross scenes, Extreme violence, Strong foul language

FAVORITE QUOTE: Go ahead and shoot! I’ll be back! I ALWAYS come back!

Check out the trailer below:

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