Chucky Bride

One of my favorite places to see horror movies in Atlanta was North Dekalb Mall. Around my junior year of high school, they started adding midnight shows on weekends, and you could be assured the crunkest crowds would be out in full force during opening week. It was like every clown, joker and wise-ass from Atlanta, Decatur and wherever the hell else seemed to put down their crack-pipe, 40 oz., or in my case, Mountain Dew, and flow like a raging river of crazy to communally witness the wholesale slaughter of second-rate TV actors as written by second-rate TV writers and directed by third-rate Hollywood directors. Or in the case of Bride of Chucky, second-rate Hong Kong director, Ronny Yu.

A midnight movie at North Dekalb was 3D before 3D came back into fashion. It was Movies 2.0 where every member of the audience was interacting with the movie, whether you wanted them to be or not. I'm not talking about snide, post-MST3K comedic cat-calling hipster douchebags (see a horror movie in Olympia, Washington and you'll understand). The interaction I'm talking about is way weirder and more akin to the "Don't go in there!" and "Ohnohedi-uhnt" stereotypes of lore, but far more surreal and tolerable.

Bride of Chucky is perhaps my favorite North Dekalb experience of all. The movie, if nothing else, is a crowd-pleaser if your crowd consists of me, my friends who counted Jack Frost and Getting Lucky amongst their favorite films, and 300 rowdy, inner-city African American kids. People had clearly snuck into the theatre, as there were no more seats in the room, and kids were sitting on the steps.

A most joyous burst of "Yeah Chucky, smoke one!" united the audience in laughter and mirth as on-screen a puppet lit a marijuana cigarette.

An awkward tension was quickly defused by a cheer of "Chucky bust-a-nut!" as on-screen two plastic dolls joined in passionate coitus.

Everyone left that screening changed for the better.

Postscript: Years later I was told that a friend of a friend who works in a video store in Alaska was amazed by how well Bride of Chucky continues to rent to this day... or at least with a segment of the African American community in this Alaskan town. According to the legend, few weekends pass without the question "Y'all got Chucky Bride?!"