Review: Bride of Chucky (1998)

Stars: Brad Douriff, Jennifer Tilly

Budget: $25million

Directed By: Ronny Yu

After a 7 year hiatus he's back, the psycho doll with the bad mouth, this time he's got a friend in the shape of Tiffany his equally psychotic ex-girlfriend.
Gone is all tension by this stage its just gore, blood and shock horror in this sequel. Each death tries to out do the last and comedy is heavily added to increase tongue in cheek humor.

It is though a direct sequel to part 3, despite seven years in real time this takes place only a few months after the end of part 3. Tiffany, as stated, Is played by the the beautiful Jennifer Tilly, both is person and voice. Why voice? We'll get into that later.

There's no Andy Barclay in this movie, he won't return to the series for a while. This did reasonably well in the cinema doubling it's budget, which warranted a sequel In Seed of Chucky.

So Tiffany who is a murderous seductress (no wonder her and Charles got along so well) seduces a police officer to steal Chucky's remains for her. After killing the officer she stitches Chucky's remains back together (after his mutilation in the fan in 3) and attempts to see if his soul still inhabits the doll. Using the voodoo incantation Charles learnt her too she tries to bring him back from death.
It doesn't seem to work at first that is until Tiffany's current lover (played by the late Alexis Arquette) a soppy goth guy stops over and fornicates over her.

Chucky suddenly springs to life and ends up killing the poor terrified guy, much to Tiffany's glee. She's happy and also deluded over Charles, you see before he died all those years back her left a diamond ring with her. She's held it in her head that he always intended to marry her before he died.
This is the reason she went out of her way to find him and resurrect him.
Chucky wastes no time in bursting her bubble and telling her it was just a stolen ring. Which causes them to break out into a big argument, upset Tiffany ends up throwing Chucky in a playpen and locking him in there. She throws in a doll with a wedding dress in there to mock him as she goes off for a bath.

Chucky of course escapes from his makeshift prison and ends up killing Tiffany by dropping a plugged in TV into her bathtub while she's in there. As further punishment he transfers Tiffany's soul into the bride doll so she knows what he feels like.
Now Apparently Charles was buried with an amulet that can allow them to transfer their souls into anyone they want. Both have their eyes placed on Tiffany's next-door neighbor Jesse and his girlfriend. Jesse is eager to get away with his girlfriend Jade too, so when he gets a message from Tiffany to transport her two dolls to a collector in New Jersey for some money he jumps on the offer.

Just before they leave Jesse proposes to Jade, though unknown to him her overprotective police officer uncle has planted some drugs on Jesse. Tiffany and Chucky discover this and in an effort to stop him sabotaging their plans kill him with and elaborate airbag and nail set up.
While they are on their way to the destination they are pulled over by officer Norton who find the weed in their car. Chucky however causes Nortons car to explode when he goes back to it to report the crime. This causes both Jesse and Jade to start doubting each other (great relationship hey?) thinking that the other was the cause of the explosion (even though they both flee).

Even though they are worried about the other one they still go through with getting married when they stop over in hotel/chapel combo for the night. Jades uncle seems to miraculously still be alive, albeit with nails jammed in his face and tries to escape, only to this time properly be killed by Chucky. When some con artists fleece Jesse and Jade of their money Tiffany takes revenge on them in probably one of the films most iconic kills. She throws a champagne bottle up at the mirrored ceiling above their bed, this rains down razor sharp shards of glass onto the couple slicing them to bits. Impressing Chucky incredibly with her creativity he proposes to Tiffany and they have weird doll sex.

Jesse and Jades friend David meets them at the hotel, meanwhile a maid finds the two corpses of the con artists. David explains that both of them are suspects for all the murders that have happened since they've been on the run too, they finally believe each other, David almost does too.
That is until he finds Warrens corpse in their boot/trunk, Chucky and Tiffany break their rouse holding them all at gunpoint. David tries to get the attention of some police officers but it spread across the freeway by a big truck, horrified Jesse and Jade do what they want.
They make the two kid steal a mobile home and explain to them that they are going to use them as new vessels for their souls. Chucky takes being married very relaxed boasting about how great it is, especially as Tiffany is making him food. Noticing how dirty Chucky is Jesse remembers how Tiffany explained she wants the perfect man. He comments how lazy Chucky is and gets Jade to join in too, it seems to trick Tiffany into turning on Chucky.

The two end up fighting each other in the graveyard. I'll leave it there as that's near the end of the film and there's a few twists and turns at the end that are worth not having been spoiled. It's a great turn around on the series though a distant call from the horror of the first film. It's fun though and if you like the series definitely worth watching. THN awards Bride of Chucky 4 out of 5 stars.