Cult Of Chucky (2017)

Starring: Brad Dourif, Fiona Dourif, Jennifer Tilly, Alex Vincent

Director: Don Mancini

Directed by the writer of the original film, and starring Alex Vincent, who played little Andy in the first film, Child’s Play, Cult Of Chucky is another film in the franchise that features a doll that’s possessed by a serial killer. While the more recent film in the franchise had largely descended into silliness, devolving into comedy horror, this film takes a lot of those threads and weaves them into a film that goes for more traditional fear and jump scares.

The film follows a grown up Andy (Vincent), whose life is in ruins and who lives with the severed head of Chucky, which he regularly tortures. Meanwhile, Nica (Dourif) finds herself in a sinister mental asylum where she is trying to recover, when dolls like Chucky are introduced to her group therapy sessions. Soon, the deaths are piling up around her as a Cult of Chucky arises.

In this film, many threads and old jokes and plot points from the film series seem to be pulled together, which sometimes makes for confusion more than scares. And with multiple dolls loose, and Jennifer Tilly, who is partly herself and partly her character Tiffany, there’s a little too much going on. The ending also feels rather abrupt, like an awkward franchise starter, but I like the idea that the film is trying to get back to the scares that were at it’s roots in the first film way back in the 80’s. On the whole, it doesn’t really work, but at the same time, there are some fun horror deaths here, it’s shot in a really interesting way, and it probably will really please the fans who have stuck with the series this far, and who know the ins and outs. Not so great if you haven’t seen them all.

See It If: you’re a Chucky fan, it’s a bit of a love letter to the series as a whole, but skip it if you haven’t seen all the installments.