Freddy's 31 Days of Horror Day 14: Ronny Yu's Bride of Chucky
If you can't tell by now I really like it when there's a "Bride of" movie in a horror franchise and this one particularly takes the franchise off the rails into really weird territory. Child's Play 1-3 is about a serial killer known as the Lakeshore Strangler, Charles Lee Ray nicknamed Chucky, who uses voodoo to transfer his spirit into a Good Guy doll to torment his owner Andy Barclay and steal his body. The first two Child's Play movies are terrifying for anyone to ever grow up with or around dolls, especially with the animatronic work of Kevin Yagher making this pint sized terror come to life! The third movie is kind of just there, but as all the Chucky movies do, it still has great rude banter from our horror villain, "Don't F#*k with the Chuck." At the end of part three Chucky had been sliced and diced to pieces as well as being shot up so, he was pretty demolished. How do we resurrect our foul mouthed fear? Series creator and writer of all the films, Don Mancini, decided, "Hey, why not give Chucky a bride?"
The very opening is a dark stormy night in a police station as an officer goes into the evidence locker to grab something. Littered about the evidence room are relics of other horror movie icons, such as Leatherface, Jason and Michael Myers. What he grabs is something in a little black bag and takes it with him to go meet up his contact who at this point is simply a sexy disembodied voice over the phone. Awaiting his contact, the officer is swiftly murdered by a beautiful deadly woman in black. She reaches into the car to pull out the bag and reveals half of Chucky's face. She then walks off into the night with it as Rob Zombie's Living Dead Girl begins playing telling you this lady is not to be messed with. The lady in question is Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) Chucky's long lost lover. She puts Chucky back together with staples and other doll body parts and recites the incantation of Damballah to resurrect her deadly lover! But quickly turning from horror to comedy, it seems their relationship is anything but paradise. Tiffany was under the impression forever that Chucky was going to marry her after finding a wedding ring, which Chucky reveals was just some lady's he killed and took for fun, why the hell would he marry her? Scorned Tiffany locks Chucky up and starts tormenting him. One night Chucky gets out and kills her and transports her soul into another doll! Now with leverage, Chucky convinces her they have to go find his buried body which has the Heart of Damballah so they can both get new human bodies! We then get one of the bloodiest and funniest road trip movies in horror.
We finally get to see a loving side of Chucky, but Tiffany and Chucky's love includes creating giant death traps for people as they make love in the gore. Oh you thought team America was the first to have puppet sex? Oh no no no, it was Bride of Chucky and damn did it have some funny ass dialogue! The more crazy murders they commit along the way the more the two of them fall in love and rediscover each other for a better domestic relationship. 
This is a completely different dynamic from the other flicks as before it was straight horror, but Chucky always had a darkly wicked sense of humor and a devil's tongue, now he just has someone to bounce it off of. This also was the introduction of a completely different look for Chucky. Before everytime he was resurrected they found some way to make him look brand new. Here he had the scars and look of a deranged mangled little monster and it looks awesome, this became the look people most associated with in the franchise and continued on in the sequels. 
Ronny Yu had just come off of his film, Warriors of Virtue but was most known for his foreign films such as The Bride with White Hair. Bride was what got him most of his horror work and what got him the Chucky gig. He has many times said he's not really a horror fan, as he takes a lot of his cinematography from action movie styles. It definitely gave this film a different look and tone which was needed with the dark comedic direction Mancini wanted to take the franchise. I love Chucky with a passion, possibly even more than Freddy, mostly because he seems like the every man who speaks his messed up mind and just happens to kill people to get his way. The guy liked his good old rock and roll, as there's a scene where he's listening to Rob Zombie, and he likes to do everything old school! This dynamic is funny as hell with contemporary Tiffany whose constantly trying to update him, give him pizazz and show him how to kill with a little flair like her hero, Martha Stewart!
17 Days til' Halloween Halloween!
17 Days til' Halloween! Silver Shamrock!
