Last Updated on August 5, 2021
When CURSE OF CHUCKY (READ ARROW’S REVIEW HERE) premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival last week, I was lucky enough to not only sit down with Don Mancini ( read my interview here ) but I also got the chance to interview the three stars, Fiona Dourif, Danielle Bisutti and Chantal Quesnelle. Fiona, whose father is the one and only Brad Dourif (the voice of Chucky) plays the heroine, a paraplegic young woman living with her mother (Quesnelle) who’s visited by her sister (Bisutti) and her family. We had a nice chat touching upon Fiona’s earliest memories of her father working on the franchise, and the lasting legacy of the series, of which CURSE is the sixth installment.
So, what did you all think of Fantasia? Of Montreal? Of the reaction last night?
Fiona Dourif: It was really positive, right? I’m really stoked to be here.
Not an empty seat in the house!
Danielle Bisutti : The payoff was super big. And we also had a sense when we were filming it that this was a special episode in the franchise as it were, and exactly how we wanted the audience to react, especially for Don.
Well, Fantasia is probably the most bloodthirsty audience in the world…
Fiona: It was a shame they didn’t watch the gory version…
This wasn’t the unrated version?
Fiona: No, it’s the R-rated version. It was cool to see that the movie worked without it, but no- a lot of gore was taken out.
I had no idea. Going into the movies, obviously Fiona, you’re pretty familiar with the series.
Fiona: (Laughs) Yeah- I’m familiar!
How about you two?
Chantal Quesnelle: Oh yeah, I remember Child’s Play. I don’t think I saw it in the theater, but I saw it on VHS. I remember renting it on VHS, and it’s a dream come true for me. I went to McGill. I’m from Kingston, but I went to university in Montreal, and I remember in my first or second year going to the film festival and thinking “God it would be great to be in one of these movies one day” and twenty years later in one of the movies I rented…
Danielle: My uncle produced the first film, and my Dad was the set dresser on the third one where I got to visit the set and meet Don, and have this experience and it just felt like kismet many years later to be part of this legacy.
Fiona- being young and being around the Chucky doll must have been interesting. Did you dad ever bring it home?
Fiona: There’s a Chucky doll in the corner of our house. (Laughs) It was the coolest thing about dating me in high school.
That’s awesome to hear. I love Brad Dourif. Great actor. Loved him on DEADWOOD.
Fiona: He’s also a GREAT guy. He’s a great, strange, and wonderful kind of nerd.
Any memories of visiting the set when you were younger?
Fiona: One of my first memories is walking into a studio and my dad screaming like he’s being burnt alive. And I was young, like six or seven and my Dad was kind of my main parent, and so I didn’t take it well. I bolted and hid under something, and nobody could find me. And they had to stop what they were doing. That was like one of one or two times I met Don Mancini before I was cast.
Did he let you watch them as a kid?
Fiona: My dad took me to the premiere! This also didn’t do well for me. It took me until about a year ago when I could finally watch them, because I’m a big scaredy cat. I can watch them now though. Yeah, my dad took me to the premiere and in it his head like spontaneously combusts, it explodes in a microwave.
What about the challenges of working in a wheelchair (her character is paraplegic)?
Fiona: It’s the second time I’ve played a paraplegic. I played one about three years ago. I did a lot of research. I have a lot of respect for people that have to live that way. It’s challenging. It was hard to drag myself and not move my legs, and you guys can see the one shot where I moved…
I never noticed
Danielle: Me neither- I thought she was fabulous…
Fiona: I bet I’ll get a bunch of tweets.
I was looking for that, but I didn’t see anything.
Fiona: The first time I played it (paraplegic) I had consultants and I wheeled around a hospital for a couple of days and stuff and figured out how to transfer in and out of chairs. Universal gave me a chair, and I wheeled around a mall, shopping and stuff.
What was it like working on such a contained set? Like a dark, spooky Agatha Christie household.
Danielle: We bonded, and the aesthetic of the art design…likening it to like Hitchcock…and yeah I think it definitely added to the creep factor. But as characters, that’s the house we grew up in, so I don’t think there’s much awareness to it being scary at all.
Fiona: I walked into that said and thought “if I could buy a house, it would be this eerie.” It was beautiful. And it was fun! I had so much fun shooting this movie. And I love Don, we became close friends.
It’s an interesting series too the way it’s progressed. One of the cool things about seeing this movie, – while it’s a legitimate movie compared to the last one- it’s still a little tongue in cheek. I appreciate that when I see it in a movie- like they’re having fun, and now I can have fun too. Does that make it easier to get into the spirit of the movie?
Chantal: What made it easier is the writing of the script. Even though it goes back to the horror genre, and it’s a horror movie, we all agreed that the script is about family and relationships. The relationship between a mother and daughter, between sisters, the past history that we sort of pretend isn’t there.
Danielle: There’s lot of humor and a lot of subtleties that come out…
Fiona: And Don doesn’t take himself too seriously. It’s fun, and the script is super tight.
CURSE OF CHUCKY hits VOD September 24th, and Blu-ray/DVD October 8th in an Unrated cut. Preorder it here!
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