BRIDE OF CHUCKY (1998)

DIRECTED by Ronny Yu.

SCREENPLAY by Don Mancini.

STARRING  - Jennifer Tilly as Tiffany Valentine,  Brad Dourif as Chucky (voice),  Katherine Heigl as Jade Kincaid,  Nick Stabile as Jesse Miller,  Alexis Arquette as Damien Baylock,  Gordon Michael Woolvett as David Collins,  John Ritter as Chief Warren Kincaid,  Lawrence Dane as Luiet. Preston,  Michael Louis Johnson as "Needlenose" Norton.

PLOT - Tiffany Valentine - girlfriend of desceased serial killer Charles Lee Ray manages to steal the mangled remains of the Chucky doll that once housed Ray's displaced soul.

Taking the doll back to her trailer park home, she repairs it and then performs a voodoo rite to ressurect Chucky from the dead. The killer doll is back and ready to proceed with his murderous rampage once more.

However, the newly reunited couple soon begin to argue. In a fit of rage Chucky kills Tiffany and then performs a voodoo incantation of his own which results in Tiffany's soul being trapped in a female doll. There are now two animated dolls walking around - a Made-in-China Bonnie and Clyde ready to do the Devil's work.

The duo set thier sites on a young couple - Jesse and Jade as potential new human host bodies for thier souls. Jesse and Jade are having trouble with Jade's uncle and guardian - Warren Kincaid. Warren is the town's police chief and he doesn't approve of trailer park boy Jesse dating his niece.

Tricked into transporting the dolls with the promise of money, Jesse and Jade flee the backwards small town and Jade's oppressive uncle so that they can be together. 

However, the romantic road trip soon turns into a nightmare as Chucky and Tiffany begin to make thier presence known. The bodies start piling up and Jesse and Jade are accused of commiting the murders. On the run from the police, can the terrified young couple prove thier innocence and escape from the evil clutches of Chucky and Tiffany or will they become the new human host bodies for the souls of the two murderous psychopaths ?

DIALOUGE  - Tiffany  - "I wouldn't marry you if you had the body of G.I. Joe !"

TAGLINE - THIS HALLOWEEN, CHUCKY GETS LUCKY !

PERFORMANCES  - As with the previous entries in the series, the voice of Chucky is provided by Brad Dourif. As ever Dourif is brilliant and perfectly embodies his signature role.

In this entry, Chucky is played more for laughs than in the previous and later movies. Chucky is just as homicidal as ever but this time he has the extra stress and hassle of having to look out for his newly "dolled up" girlfriend Tiffany. This brings a more likeable side to Chucky's character whilst still retaining his monsterousness. He's funny, rude and lewd. Chucky's great.

Equally great is Jennifer Tilly playing Chucky's trailer trash girlfriend Tiffany. In human form she's incredibly sexy and just as murderous as her dead boyfriend was. She also has a lonely vulnerable side too as she's clearly missed Charles/Chucky and is totally devoted to him, being prepared to kill just to ressurect him.

Once Tiffany becomes an animated doll we see yet more aspects to her character, Whilst still a killer she's not quite as evil as Chucky and begins to wish for a normal life with her man. Tiffany develops sympathy for the young couple they kidnap whose bodies Chucky intends to steal and inhabit.

Chucky and Tiffany definitely have a dysfunctional relationship, they love each other but they bicker and argue, these arguments usually have a habit of turning violent. This weakness proves to be thier downfall in the end. Dourif and Tilly really bounce off each other well in all thier scenes together and the character of Tiffany became just as iconic and popular as Chucky himself - she went on to appear in all the subsequent sequals and also the spin-off TV series.

Katherine Heigl and Nick Stabile are also good as Jade and Jesse, the young couple caught up in Chucky and Tiffany's evil schemes. Jesse is a simple but earnest trailer park boy dating the more middle class Jade. The two go on the run from Jade's obnoxiously possessive uncle Warren (John Ritter playing a brilliantly slimy and power tripping role here). 

In the early scenes you find yourself really rooting for the young lovers and hoping that they can put some distance between themselves and the power abusing police chief. As the film progresses and the bodies start to pile high around them the couple begin to suspect one another of commiting the murders, as this paranoia sets in the two begin to argue but this is resolved when Chucky and Tiffany reveal thier true natures to them.

SFX  - Bride of Chucky features some of the best animatronic effects I've ever seen. Both Chucky and Tiffany really do appear to be convincingly alive. It's a combination of the top level effects and the great vocal performances which really convince. There's never a moment when these two characters don't appear to be anything other than living, breathing, evil little people. They're just so full of character and totally convincing.

Chucky has had a bit of a redesign for this movie, he has a battle scarred face from the doll being hastily patched together. This just serves to make him even more horrific but still cute in a twisted sort of way. Just look at that evil little face...

The Tiffany doll is equally good. She's like a plastic caricature of Jennifer Tilly, complete with Tattoo's, cleavage and peroxide blonde hair. She's a trailer park Barbie doll...

SEX & VIOLENCE  - If you're looking for sex then Jennifer Tilly has you covered (Well probably not - I'm sure if you inappropriately propositioned her in real life she'd soon tell you where to go) but for the purposes of this film she plays a deadly seductress and she's VERY good at it...

There's also a hilarious sex scene between Chucky and Tiffany in doll form, Chucky gets down on one knee and proposes to Tiffany. Deluded as ever Tiffany thinks she can make an honest man (doll ?) of him and says yes. The two animated plastic dolls then proceed to make sweet love. It's just as ridiculous, funny and plain wrong as you'd imagine.

Aside from comedy doll sex there's also some great kills in this film. First, we get the hapless cop who human Tiffany tricks into stealing the dismembered Chucky doll from a police evidence locker. Tiffany ruthlessly slashes his throat open and watches him bleed out.

Shortly after this Chucky murders Tiffany's new "boyfriend" Damien by first ripping out his facial piercings and then suffocating him to death with a pillow...

After this, human Tiffany is not long for this world. Chucky electrocutes her to death in the bath by pushing a TV into the tub with her...

Perhaps the best death scene is when Chucky and Tiffany murder Uncle Warren with a nail gun, causing him to look like a cut price Pinhead from the Hellraiser films (something which Chucky even comments on)...

Can I just say, it was really, REALLY satisfying seeing this character get his just desserts. His snivelling little deputy and right hand man "Needlenose" also comes to grief soon afterwards when Chucky blows him up in his car.

We next get a random kill when Tiffany becomes annoyed with a swinging couple in a honeymoon hotel that our heroes are hiding out in. Tiffany throws a well aimed champagne bottle at the mirrored ceiling whilst the couple are having sex. The glass ceiling shatters and the pair of pervy partner swappers are showered with broken glass leaving them as a pair of impaled and bloodied corpses...

Jesse and Jade's gay best friend David is squished by a speeding truck whilst fleeing from the killer dolls...

Ouch...death by bad C.G.I.

An elderly pair of campers are killed by the dolls off camera. We see thier bodies in the wardrobe of a camper van that Chucky and Tiffany have forced Jesse and Jade to steal...

And finally we get the temporary "deaths" of Chucky and Tiffany.

Chucky goes down in a hail of bullets...

Whilst Tiffany (after being baked alive in an oven) dies giving birth to Chucky's child...

The resultant mutant doll baby then commits the film's final atrocity by savaging to death poor old Police Luitenant Preston...

Fade to black...(and wonder what the hell it was you just spent the past 90 minutes of your life watching).

RATING - Bride of Chucky is a great horror comedy. Possibly one of the best horror comedies there is (probably only beaten to the top spot by Evil Dead 2). 

It just works on both of the levels it's supposed to. The jokes are funny and the moments of horror are horrific. You can't really ask for much more than that.

Its also fun to spot the references to other horror movies that are made (look out for the evidence locker room scene in the opening credits where we see Michael Myers's mask, Jason Voorhees's hockey mask, Freddy Krueger's glove and Leatherface's chainsaw- implying that all these movie series - owned by separate studios in real life - take place unofficially in the same "slasherverse").

Yep, this one's definitely a favourite of mine, so I'm giving it 5 deadly dolls out of 5. Great fun.

POSTER/VHS/DVD ART  -