Scream set the standard (as well as the stage) for self-referential and irreverent horror films. Hip in-jokes that cut almost as deep as the slasher's blade have become de rigueur as filmmakers try to tap into an increasingly jaded and desensitised young audience.
Bride of Chucky is the fourth instalment in the series that has followed the 'rebirth' of a serial murderer into the body of a creepy little doll (Brad Dourif provides the voice). In Bride, Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) rescues Chucky from the police evidence room and in an amusing Frankenstein-like moment, sews him back together and employing a "Voodoo for Dummies" handbook brings the monster back to life. After the young lovers have a spat, Chucky takes matter into his own hands, and in a goofy twist, rejuvenates Tiffany in the body of a doll her very ownself. Drawing a couple of innocent young lovers into their twisted plans, the dollies carve their way to New Jersey, leaving a wake of mangled bodies until the requisite concluding bloodbath.
Bride of Chucky is certainly a well-made slasher film, as there are lots of gruesome murders, which inevitably leave the screen incarnadine. However, Director Ronny Yu, like many of his colleagues in this field, confuses grossing out an audience with scaring the wits out of it. There are precious few moments that surprise or frighten, but there are dozens of scenes of body parts being punctured, torn and slashed. A handful of nails are driven into one man's face, another is graphically splattered across the highway by an eighteen wheeler, there is a scene of a lip ring being torn out of a man's mouth…you get the idea. Repulsive? Definitely. Scary? Only if you wonder about the implications for a culture that finds this entertaining.
Unfortunately, the film's attempts at Scream-like bon mots are equally dull and juvenile. Do we really need a half dozen Martha Stewart gags? And if a film is trying to be cool, shouldn't it realise that skewering Martha is decidedly passé? Most of the rest of the jokes focus on doll's body parts and bodily functions. While the target audience may laugh, the rest of us are left to cringe at the banality and cynicism of such writing.
"Chucky gets lucky" is one of the tag lines for this film. Too bad you can't say the same for the rest of us.
