Easily the best installment (this is CHILD'S PLAY 4)since the extremely scary original, BRIDE OF CHUCKY infuses a much more modern and hip sense of fun into the story, ala SCREAM. Jennifer Tilly is 'Tiffany,' the former girlfriend of Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), who became Chucky (and has voiced him ever since). Seems Tiffany longs for her old beau and his murderous ways, so during a hysterical voodoo ceremony (in which she reads from the fictional book 'Voodoo For Dummies') she revives him, and uses a freaky boytoy (gay actor Alexis Arquette) as their first conjoined murder victim. Well, all does not goes as Tiffany hopes: See she wants to get married, but Chucky isn't the marrying type. Pissed off, she locks him in a crib until he changes his mind. He, of course, escapes, bumps her off, and, just for a good sense of revenge, transports her soul into a bridal doll. Now they're both trapped in plastic bodies, but realize that if they can retrieve an amulet from Chucky's former body (buried several hundred miles away) they can possess new bodies. So, Tiff calls up beyond adorable neighbor Nick Stabile (who we're glad to see frequently with his shirt off) and has him transport her 'dolls' to the location. But there's another story here...
Stabile takes his girlfriend (extremely likeable Katherine Heigl of tv's ROSWELL) along for the trip to get her away from an abusive uncle (John Ritter, whom you'd never expect to see in this kind of movie). Well, just as they begin their travels murders cascade and before you know it our teen heroes look guilty and go on the run with the killer toys.
Long winded plot summary, sure, but I haven't even given you all of the frequent twists and turns in this great genre flick. It's unique in that it's both funny AND scary. There's never a dull moment in Ronny Yu's fast and furious direction. To add, it's often visually gorgeous... again, something you wouldn't expect in a Part 4 of anything. In jokes about the horror genre are in great abundance, but since this was released only a short time after SCREAM, it still seems fresh and never forced. The climax is one of the best laugh out loud (intentionally) in horror history.
As for queer horror, the only two elements are seeing Stabile with his shirt off (we're talking freeze frame frequently here), and Heigl's gay best friend. While we finally have a gay teen who's not portrayed as a complete pansy, he does fall into the old 'I'm only here as the comic relief' cliche. And, once he's of no more use, he's violently knocked off (in an admittedly awesome and shocking kill scene). I kind of feel like gays are becoming the African-American's of horror cinema -- seen so filmmakers can say they acknowledge us, but never allowed to live even to the climax...
That being the only real flaw, check this one out! -- Jason Paul Collum
