The 1998 horror comedy Bride of Chucky is distributed by Universal Studios. Some of its stars include Jennifer Tilly as Tiffany, Brad Dourif as the voice of Chucky, Katherine Heigl as Jade, Nick Stable as Jesse, and Gordon Michael Woolvett as David. The producers are Grace Gilroy (Scary Movie 3), David Kirschner (The Pagemaster), and Laura Moskowitz (TV movie The Dreamer of Oz). The director is Ronny Yu (Freddy vs. Jason).
The story takes place some time after the events of Child’s Play 3. Charles Lee Ray’s former girlfriend Tiffany bribes a security guard into stealing Chucky’s remains from an evidence locker. After killing the guard, she brings the doll back to her trailer where she sews him back together. Then she tries to resurrect him by chanting some voodoo words. She assumes that she has failed since Chucky still appears to be dead. She answers the door to find her admirer Damien and, after she realizes that the doll is gone, invites him in. When Tiffany restrains Damien by handcuffing his hands and feet to bedposts, she places the inanimate doll on top of him. Chucky comes alive, rips out Damien’s lip ring, and smothers him with a pillow as Tiffany looks on. She finally confesses to Chucky why she brought him back to life: when Charles Lee Ray died, he had a ring that his she presumed was for her and she wanted to get married. The doll reveals to her that he had the ring with the intention of pawning it off, not using it to propose. Tiffany gets angry and locks Chucky in a playpen. As his ex-girlfriend is taking a bath, Chucky breaks out of the pen and electrocutes her by throwing a television into the tub. Then he recites his voodoo spell to bring her soul back in a female doll’s body. The killer doll’s plan is to force Tiffany to help him get “The Heart of Damballa”, which is the amulet hanging around Charles Lee Ray’s dead body that he used to transfer his soul into the Good Guy doll’s body. His body is buried in Hackensack, New Jersey and they need humans to drive them there. She employs her neighbor Jesse to take the two dolls there for $1,000. However, Jesse is in love with Jade, a local girl whose overbearing uncle tries his best to keep them apart. They plan to run away together and get married. Jade goes along with Jesse to deliver the dolls to the cemetery in New Jersey. Of course, they are completely unaware that Chucky and Tiffany are alive inside the dolls’ bodies and plan to transfer their souls into Jesse and Jade’s bodies, respectively, after they arrive in the cemetery.
Obviously, the main difference between this film and its predecessors is the absence of the Andy Barclay character. But there is another unique characteristic about Bride of Chucky that makes it an atypical Chucky movie and that is the comedic approach to the storyline. The first three Child’s Play movies were straight hardcore horror films with little or no humor involved. This one has many funny moments that keep it from becoming too dark. One such example is Tiffany’s repeated references to Martha Stewart, whom she claims is her idol. As the film wears on, Chucky grows tired of it and mocks her by saying, “I don’t know. What would Martha Stewart do?” He and Tiffany frequently get into arguments over small things, like cooking and washing the dishes afterward. They begin to resemble the stereotypical unhappy couple that we see all over on sitcoms.
There is also something that is unusual in this slasher movie and that is the use of a gun by a killer. As we all know, slasher movie killers use almost anything except guns to kill their victims. Tiffany and Chucky frequently use them in this film to harm their victims, especially later on. They use guns to kill the elderly couple that they stole the mobile home from as well as the gravedigger near Charles Lee Ray’s grave. Although Bride of Chucky does have its share of creative death scenes, like Uncle Warren’s death or the deaths of the newlywed couple, many of the killings are the result of using these kinds of weapons and are, therefore, relatively unoriginal.
We can also see that Bride of Chucky may have taken some cues from Scream in regards to the horror movie genre recognizing its own notoriety, specifically through references to such classic killers as Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, and Pinhead. In the beginning of the film at the evidence locker, we see Freddy’s glove, Michael’s mask, Jason’s mask, and Leatherface’s mask. Later on after Tiffany kills Uncle Warren by launching nails into his face, Chucky says that that face looked so familiar to him as if he’d seen it in Hell. He was referring to Pinhead, the main antagonist in the Hellraiser series, who is often seen with many nails sticking out of the top of his head, hence his name.
To wrap, Bride of Chucky is not your average slasher horror movie. It has funny moments to keep it from becoming too scary, so if you’re looking for a good scare, this film is not for you. But if it’s a horror comedy hybrid that you want, Bride of Chucky would certainly be of some interest to you.
