CURSE OF CHUCKY (2013)

Director: Don Mancini. Cast: Fiona Dourif, Brad Dourif, Danielle Bisutti, Brennan Elliott, A Martinez. USA, 2013. 90 mins. Chucky's back in this darker sixth instalment in the CHILD'S PLAY franchise. As someone who could never take Chucky remotely seriously I really enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek approaches of both BRIDE and SEED OF CHUCKY. But this time creator/writer and director Don Mancini has instead chosen to appease those fans who wished for Chucky to be 'scary' again. Picking up after the events of CHILD'S PLAY 3, a package is delivered to the unsuspecting Nica - wheelchair-bound since birth - and her mother, who live in a gothic old house in the woods. A house which features one of those antique lifts, with metallic sliding shutters, which operates excruciatingly slowly and is guaranteed to fail just when the heroine needs it most... Mancini builds a nice atmosphere of dread and expectation in the early sequences when Chucky first arrives.  He holds back from revealing Chucky's true-nature as long as he possibly can - initially offering us little more than a widening glimmer in the doll's eyes. The arrival of Nica's family following a funeral provides everyone's favourite mannequin-from-hell with a sprinkling of potential victims and there's much fun to be had guessing whose going to be on the receiving end of Chucky's wrath first. (There's also an outrageous crowd-pleasing character revelation which is inspired). The anticipation builds until finally Chucky can hold back the torrent of venomous profanities bubbling up behind those deceptively inanimate plastic lips no longer. The mayhem that ensues is fairly lack-lustre (with the exception of an early spectacular gore set-piece), but Fiona Dourif (daughter of Brad) throws herself into her role as Nica and her tussles with Chucky are carried off with a reasonably convincing menace. A special mention is in order for the show-stealing turn from Danielle Bisutti as Nica's pantomime-villain sister Barb. And it almost goes without saying that Brad Dourif's voice-work is reliably on the money as always. The denouement is surprisingly dark and the extended post-credit coda throws fans two delicious cameos and a lip-smacking pay-off which is arguably worth the price of admission alone.  ***(out of 5*) Paul Worts