- The first shot of the movie shows us a delivery truck
with Illinois license plates
but this movie doesn't take place in Illinois.
This is actually a little sign for fans
that Curse of Chucky would take the franchise back
to its roots,
that this entry would return to horror
by focusing on suspense and psychological manipulation more
in line with the first movie, Child's Play,
which took place in Chicago, Illinois.
Appropriately, this movie would honor the original
in many ways, from new characters filling the shoes
of classic characters,
bringing back iconic kills and even secrets hidden
on computer screens and in the background
of an old friend's apartment.
To learn about all the ways this movie brought back elements
of Child's Play and many
other details you might have missed,
stick around to the end of this video.
This video is sponsored by Amazon Music.
(upbeat music)
I've been excited to do this episode
ever since I started
covering the Chucky franchise two years ago,
because this is by far the best Chucky movie.
I know I'm not supposed to say my opinion,
but come on, it's not even close.
If you didn't already know, you may be surprised
to learn that Curse was directed
by the same director who did Seed.
These movies could not be more different,
Seed was a raunchy, colorful over-the-top dark comedy
while Curse is a dark, subdued, tragic suspense film.
But you may be less surprised
by this quick sobering-up that takes place
between these two if you know who that director is,
it's Don Mancini, the original writer and creator
of Child's Play.
As I mentioned, the tone of this movie goes back
towards that 1988 original
but what I didn't mention is it goes past
that and keeps going into its own territory
and in my opinion this is
how you play to Chucky's strengths.
Of course, this is not a review.
You're here for Things You Missed,
so why don't we get back into them?
(knives scraping)
For the first time in the franchise,
we don't start with Chucky coming back to life,
but rather, by meeting our other characters,
starting with a paraplegic woman named Nica Pierce
and her mom, Sarah Pierce.
We see that Sarah has some health issues,
because her bedside table is filled
with anxiety medications and antidepressants.
This is an important detail that comes back later
and it helps cast doubt
on the idea that Chucky is really alive.
In the original Child's Play,
we as the audience know that Chucky is alive
but the adults in the story don't believe that he is.
Curse puts its own twist on this
by making the audience doubt that Chucky is alive.
Obviously if you've seen a Chucky movie before,
you go into this one thinking that he is alive,
just like all the others,
but when we don't see proof of that until much later,
you start to wonder if one
of the human characters is simply using a Good Guy doll
to cover up his or her own criminal actions.
I just wish they would have left out this opening credit
that says Brad Dourif as the voice of Chucky.
I get why they have to put that in there contractually,
but it would have been better if the movie made us doubt
that this doll was the real Chucky and then hit us
with that, surprise, actually it is Chucky.
You could get rid of a couple other shots too
to really go all in on the mystery aspect
but one thing you may have noticed was the elevator
inside of Nica's house.
It's the same kind of old-fashioned elevator seen
in The Barclay's apartment in the first movie.
We also see a Chucky POV
which I don't think we've seen since Child's Play 1,
we see Charles Lee Ray's human form
that we haven't seen since the first one and near the end
of the movie,
Nica stabs the Chucky doll
with a knife and the fluff from inside the doll shoots up
in the air and then slowly floats down on her.
It almost looks like snow.
The first movie takes place entirely in the snow.
But Curse isn't just here
for superficial visual callbacks to 1988.
If you think about the character dynamics,
there are even more similarities.
For one, Chucky finally has a new best friend to the end,
that is, a young kid that he psychologically manipulates.
Instead of Andy this time,
it's the little girl, Alice.
He keeps his true nature a secret
by only communicating with her and through her
because she's too young to understand
that dolls shouldn't be sentient.
- Oh, Chucky wants to know what's for dinner.
- Chucky wants to watch the nine o'clock news.
- And he doesn't hold back any graphic language.
- He said that life's a (upbeat tone)
and then you die, bleeding like a stuck pig.
- He said Aunt Maggie was a real (upbeat one)
and got what she deserved.
- In addition to the child to doll relationship,
the child in each movie has another adult
who's close to them.
In Curse of Chucky,
Alice has a special bond with her Aunt Nica
and in Child's Play,
Andy has his Aunt Maggie, who isn't really his Aunt
but she's such a close family friend
that he calls her as such.
In reality, she's more of a nanny
and Curse also has a dedicated nanny,
so that role is kind of split into two characters
but another similarity is what happens
to each respective aunt character.
In Child's Play, Chucky pushes Aunt Maggie
through the window of the high rise apartment
and in Curse, he rolls Aunt Nica's wheelchair
through a railing,
sending her off the second floor landing in the foyer.
If you're an observant Chucky fan,
you may have noticed the first big confirmation
that Chucky is actually alive.
When Alice finds him in the bathroom,
he's got bloodshot eyes.
It's actually in the previous movie,
Seed of Chucky, that we see what happens to the dolls' eyes
when the awakening ritual is performed on them.
So this means that Alice's new doll is
in fact possessed like the dolls
we've seen throughout the franchise.
When Chucky starts taking victims at the house,
Nica's brother in law, Ian,
starts to point the finger at her.
The situation is somewhat similar
to the plot of the 1982 film, The Thing,
featuring Richard Masur.
It makes me wonder if the name of Nica's physician,
Dr. Masur is an intentional reference.
- Dr. Masur said I was fine.
- Dr. Masur said that extreme stress,
any kind of even mild shock-
- They pronounce it a little bit funny in the movie,
but if you look at the script and subtitles,
it is spelled the same way
that Richard Masur spells his name.
It might not be an intentional reference,
but it's an uncommon enough name
to make me entertain the possibility.
After the very tense dinner scene,
Nica brings the doll upstairs in the elevator
when the power goes out, and when the lights come back on,
she sees this.
(doll laughing)
The doll's head had spun around 180 degrees,
leading to this very unsettling moment with Alice.
- Hey, wanna play?
- This is a move we saw Chucky make
to scare Damian in the beginning of Bride
which at the time I mentioned
as being a reference to The Exorcist
but I guess now he's just absorbed
that into his own repertoire.
We see it again later in the film.
Nica would soon discover the truth
about Charles Lee Ray
on the internet and the articles contain
some previously unknown information.
(thunder rumbling)
Charles Lee Ray's crimes would eventually
be covered on the podcast,
Hackenslash nearly a decade later.
If the character in the world of Chucky wanted
to listen to this podcast,
a good option for them would be Amazon Music.
Amazon Music has more
than 10 million free podcast episodes to listen to,
including mine, if I had one which as of right now I don't.
But you can listen
to the breathtaking true crime podcast
Dr. Death: Miracle Man which is
on Amazon Music two weeks before other platforms.
Personally, I think I'll be listening
to the Let's Read podcast for some scary stories
from my friend who claimed
that he has no arms after I challenged him
to a pushup contest
but Amazon music isn't just for listening to podcasts,
they also have music believe it or not.
There's this feature that gives you fun facts
about the band that you've been listening to.
So I've been testing my Weezer trivia.
I know more than you.
For a limited time,
new customers can try Amazon Music unlimited free
for three months.
No credit card required.
Go to amazon.com/czsworld.
Wait, what?
Amazon.com/czsworld, that exists?
Oh wow, this is for real.
Link in description.
It renews automatically, cancel anytime, terms apply, bye
or stay here actually, we're going back to the video.
(mysterious music)
You may be wondering
why this movie is called Curse of Chucky.
It could be that this doll is cursed
by the soul of Charles Lee Ray using voodoo
but that happens all the way back in the first movie.
- [Chucky] Just keep your (upbeat tone) mouth shut.
- Chucky, stop cursing!
- Oh so that's why it's called Curse of Chucky.
This is also a callback to a line
from Tyler in Child's Play 3
who is similarly not a fan of Chucky's foul mouth.
(upbeat tone)
- Charles, stop swearing.
- After Alice recounts the obscene things Chucky said
to her mom,
she also mentions this curious detail.
- [Alice] He said there is no God.
- And we hear Chucky himself say this later in the movie.
- There is no God.
- Kind of a strange thing to say for someone
who literally is only alive
because an ancient voodoo God lent him some of his power.
Has Chucky forgotten about that or what?
I guess maybe what he meant
to say was your God doesn't exist.
The voodoo stuff is a smaller part
of the story than ever before
but when we flashback to '88,
the room that Charles holds Sarah Pierce captive
in is decorated with voodoo artifacts
and the knife that he uses
to maim her pregnant belly has a white snake on it.
If you've seen my Horror History episode on Damballa,
the Haitian deity that Charles calls upon to transfer souls,
you know that in the Voodoo religion,
Damballa is believed to be a white snake being,
which we see briefly painted on Charles's wall
in Child's Play 1.
If you don't watch Horror History,
you're a (upbeat tone) loser,
go back to rolling around
in a bathtub full of Cheetos and eating them.
Early on, Curse of Chucky focuses
on building its own characters and atmosphere rather
than continuing the story from the previous movies.
When Nica contacts the delivery company
to find out where the doll was sent from,
she hears the words, evidence depository,
meaning that something happened between the end of Seed,
where Chucky was in pieces around LA
and the beginning of Curse,
where he's put together and mailed.
I think we're supposed to assume
that the police eventually collected the pieces
and Tiffany acquired them and reassembled him,
just like she did in the opening
of Bride where we see Chucky's remains locked up
in an evidence room.
The movie doesn't really acknowledge the older films
at all until Nica researches the doll's past.
The search results rank
from the most recent events to the oldest,
starting with the unsolved Los Angeles Homicide website
that details the events of Seed,
then the Niagara Falls and Hackensack Homicide links,
in both locations that Chucky
and Tiffany terrorized in Bride,
then there's the Kent Military Academy Homicide
investigation from the aftermath of Child's Play 3,
the Chicago Double Homicide case
which involves Kevin and Joane Simpson
from Child's Play 2 and finally the Chicago Triple Homicide,
AKA, Aunt Maggie,
Eddie Caputo and Dr. Ardmore in Child's Play 1.
Nica then looks at newspaper archives
which mention that Charles Lee Ray was the chief suspect
of a local kidnapping.
This is an early reveal of what we learn later in the movie,
Sarah Pierce is the woman who was kidnapped.
Of course, this text isn't on screen long enough to read it,
but I love when there are little clues like
that that you can go back to.
Her research is interrupted when the electricity
in the house goes haywire
because upstairs, Chucky kicked over a bucket of water
to electrocute the nanny, Jill.
This is seriously the worst outlet placement ever.
Was this house designed by EA?
- Women, can't live with them, period.
(Chucky giggling)
That might be a reference to Bride of Chucky,
where Chuck and his woman literally just bicker
for the entire movie.
Also, you have to wonder what was going
through Barb's head during this scene.
(ominous music)
I don't know what Tiffany was complaining about in Bride,
okay, it's a knife.
But this scene showcases one
of the cool things about this movie
which is that Chucky has gotten better
at being a killer doll.
Gone are the days of him trying
to overpower people who are four times bigger than him.
Now, it's all about surprise and psychological manipulation,
which is honestly way scarier and the choice
to have Nica in a wheelchair is brilliant
because when there finally is a physical confrontation,
her handicap really levels the playing field.
In my previous episodes,
I talked about how the Bride in Seed arc was influenced
by the Scream franchise
but between the focus on suspense rather than violence,
the twist ending and the use
of a disabled character who finds a way
to use her disability to her advantage,
I'm guessing Curse might have been inspired
by the works of M Night Shyamalan.
Seriously, Nica using her own legs
as an axe board is the biggest alpha move I've ever seen.
I don't know why Ian doesn't try to stop the axe whatsoever,
but whatever, Nica's the last one now.
She uses that axe to cut Chucky's head off,
something that happens
to him in both Child's Play 1 and Seed of Chucky
but this time is notably different
because his head just pops off
like you'd expect a doll head to.
There's no blood or guts,
which means he probably hasn't been resurrected
for very long and hasn't started to turn human yet,
as he does in the other movies.
Although the consistency with this rule is about
as consistent as my Instagram posting schedule.
As usual, Chucky getting dismembered
does not slow him down and he launches
into a flashback of everything that led up
to his original death in the opening of Child's Play.
In his flashback,
you can actually see the home video
that the Pierce family watch earlier being filmed,
I thought that was a kind of cool detail.
The flashback also ties together some loose threads
from the beginning of the movie.
Remember how I pointed out the mother's medication bottles,
letting us know that she isn't well?
In the home movie scene,
Barb mentions that this started
around the time that their dad passed away.
- A couple weeks before Nica was born,
Mom was never the same after that.
- We're led to believe one
or both of these events affected Sarah's mental health
but the flashback shows us
it was actually her being kidnapped by Charles Lee Ray.
He brings her sunflowers
while she's in captivity and this explains
why she's seen painting a sunflower
in the opening and why her attic is filled
with artwork of these sunflowers,
it's basically some kind of coping mechanism
for the horrors that Charles subjected her to.
Nica is just the next target in Sarah's family tree
but when the police arrive, Chucky goes
into Barbie mode and she ends up getting blamed
for all the murders.
They could have ended the movie right there
and I would have been satisfied
but what we get instead is an additional six minutes
of fan-service for enthusiasts
of the Chucky continuity and honestly,
I'm here for it and it's totally packed
with interesting details,
including the previously unknown fate
of beloved legacy characters.
(thunder rumbling)
(spooky dance music)
After the trial,
this police officer takes the Chucky doll along
in his squad car
and what would follow is almost an exact recreation
of the opening of Bride of Chucky,
where he makes a phone call where he mentions,
- Don't forget my money. - Don't forget my money.
- [Zac] And investigates the evidence bag right
before getting his throat slit from
behind by Tiffany's nail file,
yes, she uses the same one from Bride.
Then we see her shipping Chucky to a new destination
which makes a lot more sense than Chucky shipping himself
in three and five and he arrives
at Alice's new home and tells her that he wants to play.
- [Chucky] And now it's time to play.
- Hide and Seek?
- Hide the Soul.
- Hide The Soul is the same name of the game
that he uses when he was trying
to perform the Damballa chant on Tyler in the third movie.
- [Tyler] Couldn't we just play hide and seek,
what do you call this game anyway?
- Hide the Soul.
- We are led to believe that he's successful,
making this his first successful transfer
from the doll body into a human body.
Again, they could have ended the movie there,
and I probably would have been satisfied
but we would have missed out on the post credits scene.
For the first time in over 14 years,
we're reintroduced to Andy Barclay,
who receives a package before his birthday
from the hottest delivery person that I've ever seen.
We hear him on the phone with his mom when he says this.
- Yeah, I'm definitely coming for my birthday tomorrow.
- Back in the original movie,
Chucky was his birthday present from his mom to him,
which means Chucky is attacking him one day shy
of the anniversary of their first meeting.
He also asks.
- [Andy] How's mike doing?
He's presumably talking about Mike Norris,
the police officer that helped save him
and his mom all of those years ago.
It's nice to see that they kept in touch.
There are a lot of interesting items in Andy's apartment.
We see a picture of him and his mom from when he was six,
a picture of Kyle from Child's Play 2
which is actually a clue that they're still in contact,
as we would see in the next movie.
You can also see his diploma
from Kent Military Academy,
which tells us that despite getting arrested
at the end of Child's Play 3,
he was still able to finish school and graduate,
which also kind of leads into the next movie,
Cult of Chucky, where we see his familiarity
with guns from the academy has stuck with him over the years
but if you wanna hear me talk about Cult of Chucky,
then you'll have to join me in the next episode
of Things You Missed.
When that video comes out,
you'll find it there on the left,
but in the meantime, make sure you subscribe
to CZsWorld for new horrors every week,
ring the death bell and select all notifications
and I will see you in the next one,
assuming we both survive.
(upbeat music)