Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Bride of Chucky Blu-ray Movie Review

Killer honeymoon, not so killer sequel...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown October 4, 2013

Director Don Mancini's Child's Play trilogy and subsequent Chucky sequels aren't exactly unique among fan-favorite horror series. The first installment remains unmatched. Reinvention is the franchise's lifeblood. Camp slowly displaces straight scares. The diabolical baddie becomes more central to the story with each passing film. The human element becomes more and more inconsequential. The kills gorier, the deaths zanier, the body count higher, the satire more pronounced, the entries more niche, and the true series fans that much more ravenous. Like the Friday the 13th, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street sagas before it, the Chucky movies aren't so much about developing a terrifying mythos as they are keeping a franchise alive and kicking. And, like the well-established icons of the genre before it, the series' undying killer has become an indelible fixture in horror, no matter how hit or miss the original Child's Play sequels may be. Chucky has slashed his way through four different decades -- the 1980s (Child's Play), 1990s (Child's Play 2, Child's Play 3, Bride of Chucky), 2000s (Seed of Chucky and 2010s (Curse of Chucky) -- and I suspect this won't be the last.

"I promise to honor, love, and cherish, till death us do part!"

Chucky of course is actually Charles Lee Ray, or the Lakeshore Strangler if you're feeling morbidly nostalgic; the briefly disembodied spirit of a voodoo-practicing serial killer forever possessing a Good Guy doll, best friend to children everywhere. More than that, Chucky is voice actor Brad Dourif's rampaging id. Murderous, maniacal and armed with a barbed wit and twisted sense of humor, Dourif (and Mancini's puppeteers) summon the obsessive drive of Jason Vorhees, the mercilessness of Michael Myers and the riotous, madcap lunacy of Freddy Kreuger. (As a grown man with a wholly irrational and debilitating fear of dolls, I can attest to Manchini's grasp of precisely what makes the knee-high ankle-slashers the stuff of cold-sweat nightmares. It doesn't mean Mancini is the greatest writer or director, mind you, but a healthy twinge of genre terror goes a long way, even through the silliest of sequels.)

Bride of Chucky represents a jarring shift in tone; successful to a point, but jarring all the same. Six months after Chucky's military school antics ended with the pint-sized killer in pieces, yet again, an old flame, Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly), stitches Chucky back together and brings him back to life. Her newly assembled boy-toy is non-plussed about her obsession, and soon shoves a TV into her bathtub. With her in it. Rather than leave his latest victim dead, though, Chucky's temper gets the best of him. Using a voodoo spell to trap her soul within a bride doll, he thinks he's gained the ultimate revenge, only to fall in love with his murderous new companion. Cue one of the strangest leftfield storylines in living doll horror, endless bickering between Chucky and Tiffany, and an ending that hints at even further screen madness to come.

After the squalor that was Child's Play 3, Mancini and newly anointed director Ronny Yu (who would later helm Freddy vs. Jason) resuscitated the series with Bride of Chucky, a new breed of killer doll movie that dropped any pretense of horror and went running toward comedy and satire. Some hail it as hilarious; others find it more intolerable than Child's Play 3. And frankly, this is about as much of a to each his own series shift as you might imagine. At the same time, those with genre perspective will note the film's inspiration: The Bride of Frankenstein, a classic, still-surprising sequel that took its franchise in a bizarre new direction that serves as quite a system shock to horror fans of any era. Bride of Chucky isn't nearly as successful -- it spends a lot of time trying to decide what it wants to be, before plunging over the edge of good screenwriting sense -- but it certainly has its charms. Tilly is a godsend (although some detractors have deemed her, not Child's Play 3, the real series killer), Dourif is a blast, and the lunacy of it all piles up and piles up until it literally spills into the unholy union of Chucky and Tiffany, announcing Mancini's willingness to take the franchise anywhere. And if you've seen Seed of Chucky, you know how just how far out there he was willing to go.

Bride of Chucky Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky are cut from the same flawed DVD-era cloth, and their 1080p video transfers (the former VC-1 encoded, the latter AVC MPEG-4) suffer the same issues. Seed just suffers to a lesser degree than Bride. At first glance, the fourth and fifth films in the Chucky Collection offer visual leaps beyond their Child's Play trilogy predecesors. But look closer and you'll start to spot all the shortcomings. Digital manipulation is apparent throughout both presentations (with Bride's processing being more of a hindrance than Seed's), with some scenes being scrubbed within an inch of their lives. Worse, artificial sharpening is out in force, edge halos are prevalent and, every now and then, quite severe (more so in Seed for whatever reason), and the crispness that can seem so welcome sometimes becomes a curse when paired with smearing and ringing. Crush is also troubling, with the films' inky blacks draining shadows of detail and occasionally reducing delineation to the series' most mediocre. Add to that a pair of grain fields that haven't been completely wiped away yet prove to be more distracting than if they were -- Bride's grain resembles overcooked oatmeal, Seed's is better resolved -- and you have the two most ungainly transfers in the collection, as well as the two that are most in need of new masters. Considering the Child's Play films are much older than their Chucky sequels, such dated presentations comes as something of a surprise.

All is not lost, though. Colors lend punch to the sequels' palettes (despite the fact that Bride is cast almost entirely in electric blues); primaries are piercing, reds in particular; and skintones are relatively well-saturated, minus a handful of shots per film that feature flushed faces. Detail is also striking at times (the flip-side being that the best scenes make the worst scenes' eyesores stand out even more), and macroblocking, banding and other encoding anomalies are held at bay for the most part. Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky aren't complete disappointments -- again, Seed looks a bit better than Bride -- but they certainly aren't up to snuff. I'll take two new masters and proper high definition transfers, please.

Bride of Chucky Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

More praise-worthy is Bride of Chucky's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. More loud and unruly than nuanced and ominous, it's not a thrilling series showcase, but it gets the job done and then some. Dialogue is grounded and intelligible, effects are punchy and effective, and the soundfield is involving, even though the rear speakers are a bit erratic when the film isn't concerning itself with murder and mayhem. LFE output is aggressive and strong enough to deliver a few perfectly timed jolts, rear speaker activity is assertive without growing chaotic, and dynamics add kick. If anything, Bride's sound design is as inconsistent as the sequel's tone, but Universal's lossless track thrives nonetheless.

Bride of Chucky Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Director's Audio Commentary: Director Ronny Yu discusses his second American film, its Toronto production, the pressure and challenges surrounding the sequel's release, striking a balance between humor and horror, and working with screenwriter and series creator Don Mancini. Yu grows quiet too often and sometimes offers very little beyond technical tidbits and dry anecdotes, making Bride's second commentary the highlight of the disc.
• Cast and Crew Audio Commentary: Mancini and actors Brad Dourif and Jennifer Tilly deliver a much more spirited chat, with laughs and playful banter aplenty. After the requisite "what can we talk about here?" awkwardness, the trio hit their stride, with Mancini chiming in about the various elements, themes and tonal shifts that make Bride the horror comedy it is, and Dourif and Tilly keeping things light and chummy, touching on their performances, improvisation and more. It's a nice blend of informative production info, series history and story-driven amusement.
• Bride of Chucky Spotlight on Location (SD, 10 minutes): A behind-the-scenes "Spotlight on Location" promo, with interviews with the fourth movie's filmmakers.
• Theatrical Trailer (SD, 1 minute)

Bride of Chucky Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Whether Bride of Chucky strikes you as a bold departure or a fool's errand is a matter of taste, but it saved the Chucky franchise after Child's Play 3 nearly wrecked the series. Some will laugh maniacally, others will groan intensely, still others will wonder what they're even watching. Those who get a kick out of Bride's lunge for the horror-comedy jugular, though, may find disappointment elsewhere: the film's Blu-ray debut. Born from a DVD-era master, its video presentation is haunted by a variety of issues, tasking the disc's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track and supplemental package with all the heavy lifting.