Curse of Chucky

Nine years after Seed of Chucky, a delivery van drops off a package at the big old house where Nica Pierce lives with her mother, Sarah. Nica has used a wheelchair her whole life. The delivery man knows Nica from college and flirts with her. Sarah tells her he was only humoring her. Inside the box is a Good Guy doll. Sarah thinks it's ugly and throws it away. That night Nica wakes up to her mother screaming and finds Sarah dead on the floor. The doll is sitting in a chair nearby. The police rule it a suicide.

Nica's older sister Barb comes for the funeral with her husband Ian, their young daughter Alice and Alice's live-in nanny Jill. Father Frank, the family priest, comes too. Alice finds the doll and bonds with him. Barb and Father Frank push Nica to sell the house and move into assisted living. While Nica and Alice make chili for dinner, the doll pours rat poison into one of the bowls. Father Frank starts sweating at the table and leaves early. On the drive home he crashes, and when rescuers pull the car apart, his head comes off. Officer Stanton learns the priest had been at the Pierce house and heads over.

That night the family watches old home movies from a barbecue when Barb was little and Sarah was pregnant with Nica. Nica notices a strange man in the footage. Nica's father drowned three weeks before she was born. Barb and Jill are secretly having an affair. Ian knows. He has hidden a camera in the doll to get proof for a custody fight. While Nica looks up Good Guy dolls online, she reads about Andy Barclay and the murders tied to the doll, finds Charles Lee Ray's photo and recognizes him as the man from the home movie. She also learns the package came from a police evidence department.

Chucky makes his move. He kicks over a bucket of rainwater into an electrical outlet while Jill is on a video call with Barb, and Jill is electrocuted. The power goes out. Barb goes up to the attic thinking Alice is there and finds the doll next to a knife. His face looks wrong. She peels at it and finds a smooth plastic layer covering stitches and scars. Chucky comes to life and stabs her in the eye. Nica drags herself up the attic stairs just as Barb's eyeball rolls down them, and Chucky tells Nica she's next.

Nica gets to a spare wheelchair and wakes Ian. He takes her down to the garage and leaves her there while he goes to find Alice. Chucky starts the car to gas her. Nica breaks the car window with an axe and grabs for the keys, but Chucky swallows them. When Ian comes back and sees Nica holding an axe, he decides she's the killer. Nica has a heart attack and passes out. She wakes up taped to her chair. Ian checks the nanny cam footage, sees the doll moving on its own and realizes the truth too late. Chucky takes off Ian's lower jaw with the axe. Nica frees herself and takes the axe in her leg, then knocks Chucky's head off with the blunt end. He puts it back on and pushes her over the upstairs railing.

Then Chucky explains. When he was human, Charles Lee Ray was a friend of the family and fell in love with Sarah, who was married and pregnant with Nica. He drowned her husband and later kidnapped Sarah. When police showed up, he thought Sarah had turned him in and stabbed her in the stomach. That injury left Nica paralyzed. Charles ran from the police that night, and the chase ended with his death in the toy store in Child's Play. He came back to finish the job.

Nica fights Chucky in the stairlift as he slashes at her fingers. She gets his knife and stabs him in the back, and stuffing spills out. Officer Stanton arrives, hears Nica scream and breaks in. He finds her covered in blood, holding the knife, with Barb's body on the landing. Chucky is sitting in his chair again like a normal doll. Nica is found guilty of the murders and sent to a hospital for the criminally insane. As she's wheeled out of court, she tells Chucky she's still alive.

Stanton takes Chucky out of evidence to sell him and puts him in the passenger seat. Tiffany Valentine rises from the back seat and slits Stanton's throat with a nail file. She mails Chucky to Alice, who is now living with her grandmother. Chucky smothers the grandmother, asks Alice to play Hide the Soul and starts the chant to move his soul into her body.

In the unrated cut's post-credits scene, six months later, a grown-up Andy Barclay gets a package. His mother calls about his birthday, and he tells her no surprises. A knife cuts through the box and Chucky climbs out, but Andy is already waiting with a shotgun. He tells Chucky to play with this and pulls the trigger.

Story notes

• A Good Guy doll arrives at the home of Nica Pierce and her mother.
• As members of Nica's visiting family begin dying, the story reconnects Chucky to Charles Lee Ray's past and to the original series.

Release facts

• Released: 2013-10-08 (US DVD and Blu-ray); world premiere 2013-08-02 at Fantasia Festival, Montreal; European premiere 2013-08-22 at London FrightFest; US video on demand 2013-09-24
• Runtime: Unrated 97 minutes; R-rated 95 minutes (Wikipedia lists 96 minutes)
• Rated: R (for bloody horror violence, and for language; MPAA bulletin 2275, June 5, 2013) / Unrated
• Domestic: No US theatrical release. The Numbers tracks $3,900,044 in US disc sales ($2,761,985 DVD and $1,138,059 Blu-ray). Wikipedia reports $3,821,602 in the first month on disc.
• Worldwide: Made for home video, but shown in theaters in some countries, including Brazil. No worldwide gross has been reported.

Curse of Chucky had its world premiere on August 2, 2013, at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal, where it won a Gold Award for Best International Feature. Its European premiere was at London FrightFest on August 22, 2013, alongside screenings of the original trilogy. It came out on US video on demand September 24, 2013, and on DVD and Blu-ray October 8, 2013. It was made for home video but played in theaters in some countries, including Brazil.

Universal Studios Hollywood turned the film into a scare zone at Halloween Horror Nights 2013. In Brazil, the doll inspired two prank episodes of SBT's Câmeras Escondidas hidden camera show.

Reviews were much better than for the two films before it. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 78 percent from 18 critics, with an average rating of 6.3 out of 10. Its consensus says going back to basics broke the curse of bad sequels. Metacritic gives it 58 from 5 critics. Brad Miska at Bloody Disgusting called it maybe the best home video sequel since Wrong Turn 2 and said Universal should have let Mancini make it for theaters. Ryan Larson at Shock Till You Drop praised its pacing and its late-'80s slasher feel.

The Numbers tracks $3,900,044 in US DVD and Blu-ray sales. The Blu-ray was nominated for Best DVD or Blu-ray Release at the 40th Saturn Awards.

Press and marketing

• Theatrical key-art / poster campaign reference: Universal Pictures At Home — Curse of Chucky poster / home-media archive.

Cast

Crew

Production

In an August 2008 interview, Don Mancini and David Kirschner talked about rebooting the series, with Mancini writing and directing. They said fans wanted a scary Chucky movie again, straight horror instead of horror-comedy, and that Brad Dourif would voice Chucky. Mancini described it as a darker retelling of the first film with new twists. Dourif confirmed he was involved at a 2009 horror convention, and a Mad Monster Party reunion panel said both a remake and a spin-off were in the works. Mancini and Kirschner then worked on a sequel called Revenge of Chucky.

By 2012 the project had turned into a sequel called Curse of Chucky, made for home video. It was a Universal DVD Original from Universal 1440 Entertainment, the production arm of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The budget was $5 million.

Universal announced that principal photography began September 5, 2012, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with Fiona Dourif as Nica, Danielle Bisutti as Barb, A Martinez, Brennan Elliott and Brad Dourif voicing Chucky. The release named Tony Gardner on special effects, Craig Sandells as production designer and Patricia J. Henderson as costume designer. Filming wrapped in mid-October 2012.

Fiona Dourif is Brad Dourif's daughter. During a set visit on September 12, 2012, she told High-Def Digest the family connection made the shoot feel surreal. She said the film was a throwback to the original meant to make Chucky scary again, not a campy comedy.

Brad Dourif played Charles Lee Ray on screen for the first time since the 1988 film, in flashbacks set before Child's Play. Makeup, a wig, lighting and careful camera angles made him look 25 years younger.

Tony Gardner said on the 2023 Scream Factory disc that after Seed of Chucky the props were locked away and the studio said there would be no more Chucky films. So Chucky had to be rebuilt from scratch. He also said the gothic house had recently been used for a Home Alone sequel.

In his interview on the same disc, Alex Vincent said the day he shot his scene was one of the few days Brad Dourif was actually on set. The Andy scene was left out of the R-rated cut and appears only after the credits of the unrated version.

Filming locations

• Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: Principal photography, September to October 2012
• Studio warehouse in Winnipeg: Interior set of the Pierce house, built with four inner walls including one with a fireplace
• Gothic house previously used for a Home Alone sequel (per Tony Gardner): The Pierce family house
• Universal announced principal photography beginning September 5, 2012 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A contemporary set visit documented the Pierce house as an interior house set constructed inside a Winnipeg studio warehouse rather than a practical residence.

Effects and makeup

Tony Gardner and Alterian built Chucky again from nothing, including the doll, the mechanics and the clothes. At the set visit, Gardner showed the press several Chucky heads at different stages of damage and walked them through the working mechanisms inside.

On Seed of Chucky the puppeteers worked from under raised sets. Curse had scenes on real floors where nobody could hide underneath. Gardner said this let puppeteers work right on top of the doll to give it more life, with rods and operators removed digitally afterward. He saw it as a big step forward from Seed.

Gardner described the smooth-faced Chucky as a disguise, a second face over the scarred Chucky from Bride. Barb peeling it back in the attic makes the doll's skin part of the story.

Debbie Lee Carrington, who wore the Tiffany suit in Bride of Chucky, performed in the suit as Chucky. Doug Morrow was key makeup and effects makeup artist for the human injuries. Gary Oldroyd supervised the visual effects.

Tony Gardner's team supplied practical Chucky heads and mechanisms, including multiple battle-damage stages. The production sometimes worked on practical floors where operators could not hide beneath the set, so rod puppetry was combined with limited digital removal.

Gardner later described Curse as a transitional hybrid: practical doll performance remained central, while sparse digital cleanup enabled full-frame actions that traditional under-floor puppetry could not achieve.

Props and costumes

Chucky is dressed as a new Good Guy doll with his familiar red hair. Under a smooth plastic face is the stitched face from Bride of Chucky.

Propstore offered a production-made Chucky doll skin from the film. It's silicone with hand-punched hair, mounted on a replica display.

Trick or Treat Studios made an officially licensed Curse of Chucky Chucky mask, sculpted by Tony Gardner and Alterian Inc. and licensed through Universal Studios.

Gardner described Curse's smooth-faced Chucky as a deliberate disguise, effectively a second face concealing the scarred Chucky underneath; the story therefore made the altered doll skin itself a plot-driven effects prop.

Alterian's Chucky work for Curse included the doll, animatronics and clothing, continuing the same integrated character-fabrication approach the company established on Seed.

Production artifacts

Scripts and documents

The killers

Deaths

Joseph LoDuca wrote the score.

Back Lot Music released Curse of Chucky: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack digitally on October 1, 2013, with 19 tracks running about 1 hour 8 minutes. Track titles listed by the Chucky fan wiki include "Main Title (Chucky Theme)", "Special Delivery", "Too Much Oregano", "Suddenly Seeking Chucky", "Sunflowers in the Attic", "The Curse", "Some Assembly Required / The Haunted", "Fiend of the Family / Last One Standing", "Framed", "Under His Spell" and "Curse of Chucky End Titles".

Soundtrack releases

Home Media

• 2013 DVD, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Region 1. Released October 8, 2013. Includes both the R-rated and unrated cuts, widescreen with English, French and Spanish 5.1 audio. Extras: six deleted scenes (Getting Dressed, Taking a Break, Looking for Chucky, Dad Gets a Ride, Burned, Ancient Egypt); gag reel; Playing with Dolls: The Making of Curse of Chucky; and commentary with Don Mancini, Tony Gardner and Fiona Dourif. Opens with trailers for Dead in Tombstone, Halloween Horror Nights 2013, Machete Kills, Bates Motel: Season One and The Purge.
• 2013 Blu-ray + DVD + UltraViolet combo, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, region free. Released October 8, 2013, sold as Unrated. Unrated (97 minutes) and R-rated (95 minutes) cuts in 1080p AVC at 1.78:1, with English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and French and Spanish DTS 5.1. Extras: the commentary; Playing with Dolls (16 minutes); Living Doll: Bringing Chucky to Life (9 minutes); Voodoo Doll: The Chucky Legacy (7 minutes); storyboard comparisons (25 minutes, covering Electrocution, The Attic, Ian's Death and Nica vs. Chucky); deleted scenes (6 minutes); gag reel (1 minute). Blu-ray.com scored it 4 out of 5.
• 2013 Blu-ray in Chucky: The Complete Collection, Universal, released October 8, 2013. A six-disc limited set in a gatefold box with clear plastic panels. The Curse disc carries the commentary, Playing with Dolls, deleted scenes, gag reel and trailers, plus a digital copy of the unrated version.
• 2017 DVD and Blu-ray in Chucky: Complete 7-Movie Collection, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. Released October 3, 2017.
• 2023 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray Collector's Edition, Scream Factory. Released August 29, 2023. The 4K disc has a new 4K master of the unrated version from the 2K digital intermediate in Dolby Vision, HEVC 1.78:1, with DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 and the commentary. The Blu-ray has the unrated and R-rated cuts and adds three new interviews: Andy's Secret Return with Alex Vincent (7:03), It's Got a Death Curse with Tony Gardner (7:41) and Twist of Jill with Danielle Bisutti (13:13). It also has Playing with Dolls (15:34), Living Doll (8:35), Voodoo Doll (7:08), storyboard comparisons (25:18), deleted scenes (6:19), gag reel (1:27), TV spot and trailer.
• 2023 UK 4K UHD in Arrow Video's The Chucky Collection limited edition. Presents the unrated version in 2160p Dolby Vision/HDR10 with DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0. Extras: the Mancini, Gardner and Dourif commentary; Andy's Secret Return; It's Got a Death Curse; Twist of Jill; Playing with Dolls; Living Doll; Voodoo Doll; storyboard comparisons; deleted scenes; gag reel; trailer; TV spot; image gallery.

Home video history

• NECA Ultimate Chucky 7-inch scale figure (2017), with four heads including Chucky's stitched-up look from Curse of Chucky. Accessories include a Good Guys hammer, voodoo knife, baseball bat, yardstick, makeshift knife arm, razor, pistol, kitchen knife and a Good Guys box.
• Back Lot Music Curse of Chucky digital soundtrack album by Joseph LoDuca (October 1, 2013).

The catalog

Official trailer

Gallery

Posters & Key Art

Film Stills

Behind the Scenes

Press & Promo

Effects

Costumes