Curse of Chucky (2013)

Curse of Chucky starts with the delivery of a fresh new Good Guy doll from an anonymous sender to the mother of a woman named Nica. Turns out, Charles Lee Ray, the serial killer that possessed Chucky, knew Nica's family back in the day. He started to kill them but never got a chance to finish. So now I guess he decided to finish the job.

Curse of Chucky was a direct to video release, probably because Seed was an embarrassment and should have ended the franchise. No way is the follow up getting an expensive theater release. It was a real gamble on whether or not fans would even be willing to give the franchise another shot. It's also probably why they went back to the basics on this one and made it into a legit slasher just like the original back in '88.

Curse of Chucky is like a breath of fresh air compared to Bride and Seed, which were both 100% comedy. It was cool to see the franchise go back to real horror. One thing I found interesting was how this was almost like a reboot. The movie makes no assumptions that we know who Chucky is or what he's here to do. The first hour of the movie is all suspenseful buildup leading to the big reveal of who the killer is. But it makes sense when you think about how pop culture had already branded Chucky as a wise cracking caricature of a villain. A lot of newer horror fans probably weren't familiar with Child's Play from 25 years prior. So this was a great introduction of the real Chucky to a new generation of fans.