Curse of Chucky - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Curse of Chucky



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
After The Seed of Chucky Don Mancini’s 5 film franchise was pretty much toast. The series was no more, as even the early 2000s didn’t want anything to do with the abysmal box office results of Seed. Stuck away on a shelf, the “Good Guys” killer doll was destined to remember diving off a cliff in full flaming glory, never to return to the big screen again. 9 years after the events of the previous film, Don Mancini basically begged Universal to allow him to do another film. He promised fans that he was going back to the roots of Child’s Play, and getting rid of all the layers of insanity that had piled up with each progressive sequel in the franchise. However, Universal told him that they wouldn’t fund a full blown theatrical release, but after some arm twisting, agreed to let him do the film as a direct to video project. Not exactly the best scenario out there, but Mancini took what he could get. I remember being very skeptical of the DTV film when I reviewed it 10 years ago (well, 9 years and 10 months ago), only to come out VERY pleasantly surprised as Mancini had delivered on his promised to bring Chucky back to his roots. It wasn’t perfect, and it suffered some DTV issues, but overall it was a great return to form that would spawn ANOTHER sequel as well as a hard reboot with Mark Hamill voicing the titular character.

Nica (Fion Douriff, Brad’s own daughter) is a paraplegic who is trapped living with a psychologically damaged mother. The two sort of parasitically live off of each other, with Nica taking care of her mentally disturbed mother, while her mother helps take care of Nica’s physical issues. However after a strangely delivered mystery package containing a 1980s “Good Guys” doll shows up, all hell breaks loose. Nica wakes up to find her mother having thrown herself over the stairs and apparently committing suicide. With no one to take care of her, Nica’s sister Barbara (Daniellle Bisutti) and her husband Ian (Brennan Elliot) and niece Alice (Summer H. Howell) move in to help take care of the estate.

It’s not more than a single night before Nica realize that Barb has plans to sell the estate and use the money to put her in an assisted living facility, but Nica is having none of it. Low and behold to the grief stricken family, none of this was an accident. Our little “Good Guy” doll has lured everyone here to this ancient home in order to exact 25 years worth of revenge in a way that only Chucky can do. Hacking, slashing and torturing everyone in sight, the doll fulfills an old grudge as well as figures out a way that he can get out of this doll body once more. That is, if Nica doesn’t stop him first.

As I said, I was surprised by this sequel. I wasn’t really sure WHAT to expect when I first saw it 10 years ago, and with Universal refusing to bankroll a theatrical release it seems that I wasn’t the only person with some hesitation about ANOTHER Chucky movie. Usually in situations like these you see major limitations with the cheap budget, poor acting, and general appearance that only DTV films can revel in. However, the film is actually rather well acted,with Fiona Douriff as Nica turning in a startlingly good performance. Not to mention all of the cheesy dialog and super goofy plot lines that basically killed the franchise are all gone. Chucky is back to being a mysterious evil character in the background, and only showing his true evil nature to a select few. There’s a few minor plot holels here and there, and the end needs to be fleshed out a little bit, but otherwise it’s a very solid film that made the franchise valid once more.

Curse of Chucky may not overtly act as a sequel to Bride or Seed, but it does mention them in passing and make it very clear that this is a direct sequel to the time line of the original 5 films. Ironically it also brings back Tiffany in Jennifer Tilly’s body once more (I’m 99% sure that this is Tiffany after Seed of Chucky, even though the scene half way imitates the scene in Bride of Chucky where she gets the doll once more. Along with the ending with Andy Barclay it appears to be an homage to Bride of Chucky instead of a being sandwiched between Child’s Play 3 and Bride of Chucky like you would initially think). So those wondering if it’s a reboot, I would say that it’s a sequel, with reboot qualities that bring it back in line with the original films while still acknowledging that what happened in the other sequels actually are canon.




Rating:

Rated R for bloody horror violence, and for language




4K Video: Video:

Curse of Chucky was the first of the series to be filmed digitally, and Scream Factory has gone back to the original capture material and struck a brand new 4K master for the Unrated cut (sadly the R-rated cut was left alone and uses the old master from 2013, much like how the unrated cut was on Seed of Chucky, just in reverse). The new 4K disc looks amazing, with a nicely stylized somber gray look that is interspersed with splashes of primary colors (such as the obvious fake blood, or the blue and red on Chucky’s outfit). There’s no sign of noise or digital abnormalities on the new master, and is about as razor sharp as you could ever want. Contrast looks good, as does skin tones and black levels. Talking about black levels, the disc has a much more tamed look to the white levels, giving it a more dim and natural look vs. the slightly overblown whites from the old Universal transfer. The new Blu-ray remaster for the Unrated cut looks just about as good, and in a sense very very similar. Personally I take the new 4K UHD disc as a good fine tuning of an already great looking disc (I gave it a 4.5/5 rating back in 2013, and with the new remaster It’s still excellent on Blu-ray, just mildly tweaked from the Uni transfer).

There is ONE minor nitpick that I have to bring up, and while it IS a nitpick, It’s not going to affect the score at all since this is in regards to the transfer of the R-rated cut on the Blu-ray disc. The Universal disc sported a high bitrate transfer that used seamless branching to utilize the 2 minutes of extra footage in the Unrated cut, while in the Scream Factory disc they use two separate encodes. The Unrated remastered cut is VERY high into the 30s most of the time (with small dips into the low 20s), while the R-rated cut is given a bit starved encode that tends to hang around the high teens and low 20s, even going down to single digits for certain scenes that stay in the mid to high 20s on the Universal encode. As such, this is the first time in all of the Scream Chucky discs where a cut of the film is actually worse than the Universal disc. In this case, the R-rated Universal encode is distinctly superior in clarity, detailing, and resolution than the Scream encode.








Audio:

Scream Factory’s 5.1 DTS-HD MA track (with a down mixed 2.0 DTS-HD MA track) sounds nearly identical to the Universal 5.1 mix, so I’m guessing it’s either a direct port, or simply a re-encode from the master stems that Universal supplied. Either way, it’s a stinking great track, while not a bombastic nor roaring audio mix, is still very much a crowd pleaser. Dialog is locked firmly up front, and the surrounds get a ton of activity with the constant creaking and groaning of the old house, along with the organ inspired score. The LFE track is pretty constrained for most of the film, but when it’s called out (such as the lights humming with old energy, or someone slamming into the ground with a sickening thud) said bass certainly knows hot to party. Overall, a great track that does well with the very limited funds that Universal gave Don Mancini for this DTV “last ditch effort” film in the franchise.







Extras:

Disc 1: 4K UHD
• Audio Commentary with writer/director Don Mancini, special makeup effects artist Tony Gardner and actress Fiona Dourif

Disc 2: Blu-ray
• NEW Andy's Secret Return -- Alex Vincent on Curse of Chucky
• NEW It's Got a Death Curse -- Tony Gardner on Curse of Chucky
• NEW Twist of Jill -- Danielle Bisutti on Curse of Chucky
• Audio Commentary with writer/director Don Mancini, special makeup effects artist Tony Gardner and actress Fiona Dourif
• Playing with Dolls: The Making of "Curse of Chucky"
• Living Doll: Bringing Chucky to Life
• Storyboard Comparisons
• Deleted Scenes
• Voodoo Doll: The Chucky Legacy
• Gag Reel
• Trailer
• TV SPot

Final Score: ​

After basically wanting to burn the series to the ground after Seed of Chucky, Curse did what I didn’t think was humanly possible. It actually breathed new life in to the franchise, returning it to Mancini’s original roots about a killer doll as a secondary side character instead of full blown comedic relief. Only given a tiny budget and the refusal by Universal to release theatrically, the film managed to become probably the 3rd best film in the entire franchise. Scream Factory’s release is generally excellent, with all the original Universal extras plus 3 new ones, and a nice new 4K master for the Unrated cut (sadly the theatrical cut suffers a bit, so I’d hold onto my Universal Blu-ray if that matters to you). Great Watch for a horror fan.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Fiona Dourif, Brad Dourif, Danielle Bisutti
Directed by: Don Mancini
Written by: Don Mancini
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: R
Runtime: 97
Blu-Ray Release Date: Auguest 28th, 2023

Recommendation: Good Watch