Film / Curse of Chucky

Evil has a new home.

Alice: Chucky, I'm scared.
Chucky: You fuckin' should be.

The sixth film in the Child's Play series, and the first released directly to video.

Twenty-five years after the events of the first film, Chucky appears on the doorstep of Nica, a young paraplegic woman. Of course, everyone around her soon starts dying, and Nica discovers she may have a past connection with Chucky.

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This film provides examples of:

• Almost Out of Oxygen: Chucky traps Nica in the garage and begins revving the car to suffocate her with the exhaust fumes before she's able to smash the driver's side window.
• Asshole Victim: There are many victims who arguably had it coming.
  • Barb is a bully and a very unlikable individual who is very likely a Hate Sink. Few would mourn the character's demise.
  • Barb's aide, Jill, is not only having an affair with her employer but has even has a sexy video chat whilst the daughter of the marriage she's ruining is sleeping in the same room. Also, despite feeling guilt over hurting Nica and the rest of her family, she still proceeds with conspiring with Barb likely out of fear of losing her affection.
  • Even Ian enters this trope when he blames Nica for the deaths, ties her up to interrogate her regarding his daughter's location, and refuses to help her when she starts having a heart attack.
  • Not only does he give a scathing speech towards the wrongly accused Nica en route to jail in a deleted scene, Officer Stanton also turns out to be corrupt and is duly rewarded.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Chucky successfully gets revenge on Nica's family, killing almost all of them except Alice and Nica herself, and frames Nica for his crimes, causing her to be sent to a mental institution. His next plan however...
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • After all the build-up regarding whose bowl of chili Chucky spiked with rat poison, it's finally revealed to be Father Frank. However, rather than dying from the poison itself, it instead causes him to lose focus driving to the point where he crashes his car, getting decapitated once the metal pinning his head in place is removed.
  • We're led to believe that Ian is having an affair with his daughter's babysitter Jill. However, it's revealed that it's his wife Barb is the one having the affair with Jill.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Barb would make a proper Soap Opera villainess if she wasn't in a Killer Doll Slasher Movie.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Pierce family is seriously messed up and filled with corruption, especially from Barb.
• Big Sister Bully: Barb is revealed to be this towards Nica due to resenting her for her "special privileges" as a result of her being paraplegic from the waist down.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The seemingly laid-back Ian turns out to be a prick and a misinformed, somewhat possessive and boorish father who when she goes missing goes crazy towards the wrong person, Nica.
• Bittersweet Ending: At the end Nica is declared criminally insane as no one believed her, but she does take pleasure in mocking Chucky's inability to kill her. Chucky is alive and comes back after Alice to possess her. However, it doesn't seem to work as six months later Chucky is sent to Andy Barclay by Tiffany, to presumably possess him, only for Andy to blow Chucky's head off with a shotgun.
  • Cult Of Chucky reveals that the Chucky sent to Andy wasn't the same Chucky we followed throughout the movie. That Chucky successfully managed to possess Alice, killed a few people, but later got stopped and killed, killing Alice as well, making the ending more bitter than sweet.
• Blinded by Rage: Nica taunts Chucky about his "completion anxiety" over his never being able to kill Andy and her after twenty-five years. This buys her enough time for the power to come back on, allowing her to escape into the elevator.
• Boom, Headshot!: Andy greets Chucky by putting a shotgun point blank to his face before he can react. The movie ends with the gunshot.
• Bound and Gagged: Ian does this to Nica which only shown him to have Took In Level In Jerkass, so he can initially attempt to sic the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on her to make her spill out Alice's location while preparing to intend to turn her over to the authorities once they arrive at the house with Nica gift wrapped for them to arrest her at ease without any physical resistance from her end and after Ian rescues Alice from Nica's clutches. While Ian believes he's being a Papa Wolf if his daughter is in danger, this is instead framed as ultimately his Moral Event Horizon, followed by ending up paying for it as an Asshole Victim not long after.invoked
• Bullying the Disabled: Barb towards Nica, whom she resents for her paraplegia. Ian does this after blaming Nica for the murders by tying her to her wheelchair to interrogate her for kidnapping Alice.
• The Bus Came Back: For Andy Barclay. He's even played by the same actor who played him in the first two movies.
• Cain and Abel: Barb is the Cain to Nica's Abel.
• Call-Back:
  • Alice quoting Chucky to her mother including his profane language is a direct reference to Andy doing the same to his mother in the first film.
  • Tiffany killing the dirty cop at the end who she paid to smuggle her Chucky shares the same dialogue and death as the cop she killed at the beginning of Bride.
• Call-Forward: In the flashbacks, the knife human Chucky wields is the same as the one he wields as a doll in the first movie, thus explaining how he got it: after transferring his soul, he took the knife from his human body and hid it in his overalls.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Parodied.
  Chucky: (staring at Jill's corpse) Women, can't live with 'em. Period. (laughs)
• Casting Gag: Barb, whose actress has narrow eyes compared to most people, is told by Chucky that she has her mother's eyes and that he always disliked how close together they were.
• Celebrity Paradox: An odd variant, as Ian says the Good Guy dolls were on the same level of popularity as the Cabbage Patch Kids, which were an inspiration for the Good Guy dolls by Don Mancini's admission.
• Chekhov's Gun: Barb warns Nica that with her condition she's prone to heart palpitations when under stress. While it mostly comes off as Barb being patronizing, this does end up happening when Nica is almost suffocated by Chucky in the garage.
• Children Are Innocent: Alice is completely oblivious that Chucky is a killer doll and by the end of the movie, she is convinced that it was Nica who killed her parents and the nanny.
• Danger Takes a Backseat: That dirty cop should really know better to check his car's backseat when you're in a horror movie. Might have noticed a psychotic woman waiting with a knife.
• Darker and Edgier: Much more of a straight horror movie than the previous two movies, which were basically outright comedies.
• Deadpan Snarker: Again Chucky has a few of these moments including making a cruel joke Nica can feel pain in her hands after stabbing her fingers during the climax.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The Sin City-like Flash Back, with the odd Splash of Color.
• Depraved Bisexual: Barb is a having an affair with Jill, and is very selfish and manipulative.
• Developing Doomed Characters: It takes a very long time for anything to happen.
• Didn't See That Coming: It's safe to say that Chucky decidedly didn't see Andy expecting him and greeting him with a shotgun pointed directly at his face coming.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Andy Barclay, of all characters, is suggested to be this in the stinger, until it's subverted in Cult of Chucky.
• Evil Cripple: Both Ian and the police accuse Nica of being the real culprit. The truth doesn't help her case. The general public likely perceives her as a crazed murderer who butchered her own mother, sister, brother-in-law and a priest.
• Eye Scream:
  • Barb is killed with a knife through the eye (and judging by how quickly it kills them, presumably through the brain).
    Chucky: You have your mother's eyes... And they were always too FUCKING CLOSE TOGETHER!
  • One of Jill's eyes also gets burned out from their High-Voltage Death.
• Fall Guy: In the end, the murders are pinned on Nica by the police. There was evidence to back Nica's claims she didn't do it, chief among them the video evidence from the nanny cam. However, her fingerprints were on each murder weapon and she was ranting about a killer doll being responsible. That would mean the police probably had little motivation to look for evidence that proved her innocent and every desire to pin this bloodbath on their only real suspect.
• Feel No Pain: Nica takes advantage of her paralyzed legs being unable to feel anything by using them to absorb an axe swing from Chucky.
• Femme Fatalons: Tiffany kills a police officer with a Slashed Throat from her sharpened fingernails.
• Final Girl: Nica, who ends up getting locked up for the murders committed by Chucky. However, she still finds satisfaction in surviving Chucky's reign of terror.
• Fingore: When Nica locks herself in the house's elevator to escape Chucky, she has to physically hold the door shut, allowing him to slash at her fingers which unlike her legs can feel pain. She eventually just grabs the knife by the blade to wrench it away from him.
• Foreshadowing: When Chucky electrocutes Jill to death, a huge burn appears on her right eye that's very similar to the mark on Chucky's scarred face, which the audience doesn't see until later on in the film.
• Gold Digger: Barb, despite not being married to someone who's rich, does want to sell her mother's house strictly for money and disliked Ian's middle-class job as a lowly barista as she expected something more high-class than that.
• Henpecked Husband: Ian is one for Barb, who treats him like trash and cheats on him with Jill.
• Hidden Depths: Ian seems rather preoccupied with the sexy nanny, Jill. But it's revealed she's actually having an affair with his wife and he's already suspected as much. In fact, he's taken steps to secure the evidence, which he intends to use to win their custody battle for their daughter. Much to Barb's surprise and horror as Ian also behaves like a jerk about it.
• High-Voltage Death: How Jill meets her end.
• How We Got Here: A flashback reveals that it was Charles Lee Ray killing Nica's father and stabbing her mother in the stomach, resulting in her being born paraplegic, that led to him being chased by police and taking refuge in the toy store at the beginning of the first film.
• Human Mail: Chucky is sent to the house via special delivery by a mystery sender. Tiffany mails Chucky to Andy again. It doesn't work out as well as Chucky expected.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: A pre-doll transformation Charles Lee Ray is seen stabbing a pregnant woman to cripple her unborn daughter after she rejected his advances.
• In the Style of: Due to the Direct to Videoinvoked nature of this installment, its limited production value gives this film a vibe of a Masters of Horror episode.
• Insane Troll Logic: Despite thinking Nica of being a murderer is a logical hunch on Ian's part as noted below in Jerkass Has a Point, it's still irrationally and practically impossible due to Nica's paralysis and being wheelchair bound would make her too weak and slow to commit those murders, yet Ian still insists Nica's the culprit.
• It's All About Me: Barb is selfish and manipulative. Ian also shows some of this aspect as well.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Ian tries this by tying Nica up upon believing her to be a Broken Pedestal to him after thinking she's the killer and Alice's kidnapper and at first interrogated her for Alice's whereabouts before taping her mouth when she does not comply to his demands, as he was also preparing to turn her over to the police once they arrive to the house after he rescues Alice by himself.
• Jawbreaker: Ian dies by getting his jaw hacked off with an axe.
• Jerkass: Barb, a self-serving Big Sister Bully and an elitist Gold Digger Rich Bitch wannabe is resentful of her sister getting more attention from their mother, tries to manipulate Nica to sell their family home because she wants cash, has an affair with Jill and seems only concerned with herself.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Ian loses audience sympathy for not believing Nica about Chucky, immediately viewing her as a psycho and then becoming a huge jerk. In his position there're two scenarios, Nica has lost her mind or a killer doll is on a rampage. Only one of those things is logical. However, it is worth noting that just before his death; when he replays the camera, he clearly sees Chucky move and hears a voice that he knows Nica will never replicate. By the time the former makes sense to him, he's already...forcibly speechless and presumably hesitating in denial, which caused him to stoop to being an idiot as it would allow Chucky to ambush and then kill him.
• Jump Scare: Just before the credits, no less, Alice's grandmother getting up with a plastic bag over her head, screaming.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Following blaming Nica for the murders, Ian takes advantage of her passing out from her heart attack to tie her up in preparation to interrogate her for Alice's whereabouts.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Jill is very feminine, and also is in a secret relationship with Barb.
• My Beloved Smother: Nica's mother Sarah is very overprotective, due to how Nica was crippled in the womb and the trauma that caused her, and there is noticeable tension as a result. When a delivery man openly flirts with her, Nica considers pursuing it further but her mother shoots the idea down, claiming he was just being friendly.
  Sarah: "Nica, he was just being nice. I'm sorry. Oh honey, I just don't ever want to see you get hurt."
• New Media Are Evil: Barb runs a print media business that she said is dead, resorting to her to find other means of gathering money.
• No Range Like Point-Blank Range: Andy puts a shotgun at point-blank to Chucky's head when he shows up at his place and fires. Justified, as Chucky is small and quick, making point-blank range the best chance of killing him in one shot.
• Not Named in Opening Credits: Jennifer Tilly is credited at the beginning of the ending credits in order to not spoil that Tiffany appears in the film. Similarly, Alex Vincent (Actor) isn't credited until after The Stinger so as to not reveal that he's an adult Andy.
• Oh, Crap!: Chucky gets a genuine shit-your-pants one when he finds himself staring down the barrel of Andy's shotgun during the after-credits scene.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: When Nica attempts to warn Barb about Chucky being alive, Barb assumes she's talking about the hidden camera Ian placed in the doll to monitor her and Jill's affair, causing her to angrily leave while holding him.
• Papa Wolf: An unsympathetic example, as Ian Wrongly Accused Nica of being a killer and Alice's kidnapper and tried to interrogate her after tying her up to squeeze out her daughter's location from her. However, rather showing him as a dedicated father who loves his children so much that he would take action, it instead shows him as a shortsighted, boorish, selfish, possessive and impulsive thug who judges his sister-in-law as the culprit and driven by narcissistic love for his daughter senselessly without ever listening to common reason like how can a wheelchair-bound woman commit murders in her feeble state and is easy to get disillusioned with Nica despite should knowing she would never harm her own family after bonding with her for years before the events of this film. Ian ends up no better than his wife Barb of being unworthy as Alice's parent.
• Parental Neglect: As much as we can see, Barb doesn't seem to be a very good mother to her daughter.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Barb seems to be an ableist as she resents her sister Nica for her paraplegia.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Play with this."
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In a deleted scene, en route to the police station, Officer Stanton contemptuously gives one to Nica after arresting her, even showing his Wicked Cultured Hidden Depths for his knowledge in ancient Egyptian history as he condemns her.
• Red Herring: The interaction between Ian and Jill implies they will have an affair in the movie, so we won't feel sorry for their deaths. Jill is having an affair, but with Barb. We still don't feel sorry for Ian, after he became a jerk by viewing Nica as a killer and then tying her to her wheelchair to torture her to squeeze out his daughter Alice's location.
• Remember the New Guy?: It turns out the Pierce family, specifically Sarah was the true cause behind the events that led to the opening of the original 1988 film.
• Rich Bitch: Barb, despite not actually being rich. However, it's implied she's the wealthiest of the Pierce family through her print media business until it went bankrupt. See Gold Digger above.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Chucky arrives at Andy's apartment, the TV shows the Woody Woodpecker short "The Screwball".
  • The scene where Andy says "Play with this" while wielding a shotgun is lifted almost verbatim from a scene in the 1991 Child's Play Mock Buster "Dolly Dearest".
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Jill, frustrated by not being able to locate the doll for Alice, ends up getting one from Barb.
• Smug Snake: Both Barb and surprisingly Ian are presented as snide and arrogant people who are above everyone.
• The Sociopath: Barb can be considered this as she is selfish and manipulative, not caring for others except herself and likely implied never to have mourned for her mother's passing to begin with. Chucky is also this of course as usual in the series. While Chucky is a high-functioning example, Barb is a low-functioning example.
• Splash of Color: The flashbacks are in black and white with a bit of color here and there.
• The Stinger: There's a post-credits scene in which Chucky is mailed to Andy...only to be greeted with a shotgun pointed at his head when he emerges from his box. Of course, this later turns out to be a different Chucky.
• This Cannot Be!: The look on Ian's face after finding out Chucky is indeed real and committing the murders, yet he's in likely in denial at what he's seeing as he tries to rationalized this and convince himself Nica's still the killer as he initially thought and not Chucky in his mind, which causes him to drop his guard when Chucky ambushes him when he waited too long before killing him.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Ian after viewing Nica as a Broken Pedestal and a murderer and becomes disillusioned by their prior relationship upon this erroneous revelation.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: When Chucky returns to Alice at the end of the movie, she's not bothered at all by the horrible scars that are now visible on his face.
• [Verb] This!: Andy's Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Play with this."
• Villain Decay: Inverted. There's not much humor involving Chucky, the deaths are simplistic, brutal, and pragmatic. Chucky himself is also a lot more angry, violent, and sadistic than he was in any of the past films. While this could be explained out-of-story as attempting to drop some of the humor introduced in the previous entries, it can be explained in-story as Chucky having personal history with the family in question.
• Wham Shot:
  • Chucky's rubber mask beginning to fall apart, revealing his still patched-up face.
  • A cop is about to transfer Chucky in an evidence bag... and Tiffany springs up from the backseat of the car and slashes his throat.
  • Chucky being mailed to someone who is revealed to be Andy Barclay. He is then greeted with a shotgun to the head.
• What You Are in the Dark: Despite Nica and Ian having a good in-law relationship in the film, it ultimately turns out be hollow and feeble as Ian was quick to wrongly accuse Nica as a Broken Pedestal to him for the deaths of Barb and Jill and Alice's kidnapping, while refusing to listen to Nica of what's really going on despite having known Nica all his life before the events of the film.

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