After being accused of murdering her family in the previous film, Nica is committed to a mental institution where she hopes she can recover from the memories of the murderous doll, Chucky. But when a Good Guy doll gets delivered to the hospital, it’s not too long before Chucky himself returns to wreck havoc on the hospital.
Following the heels of the pretty successful and well-received Curse of Chucky, Cult of Chucky goes in a different direction than the previous films. In the last film, Chucky is back to more of his roots from the original trilogy. In this film it becomes a pretty decent hybrid of those films, along with the comedy of Bride of Chucky. However it doesn’t go as completely over-the-top as Bride. Chucky still works to be terrifying, but he also brings in some good one-liners. Now, the one things that massively sets it apart from the other films is that it’s an extremely strange entry. Throughout most of the film you’ll find yourself wondering what the hell is going on, and possibly even wondering if what you’re seeing is real or some kind of delusion. By the end of the movie, there will be some questions that you’ll have remaining, but nothing terribly plaguing. Don Mancini does his best to make sure you are at least left with enough to occupy your mind until the next film (hopefully) happens.
The final act is just one wild, fun, intense, and crazy ride. In terms of kills, they’re pretty sparse, but when they happen, most are pretty gnarly and well-crafted. There’s one death scene in particular that is kind of a throwback to a kill from one of the past films, but the scene itself is so well-filmed and almost mesmerizing to watch. If anything, one of the film’s biggest flaws is that none of the characters are really well developed at all, and you really don’t care much about them. There are a couple of characters that you do kind of develop a liking for, but again, there isn’t a whole lot to them to where you are hardcore rooting for them to live. Fiona Dourif returns as Nica, and she does one hell of a job in this film, even more so than in Curse. Throughout the movie, Nica questions her sanity, and Dourif nails it. Towards the end is when Dourif gets to a little more fun with her role and it’s actually really fun to watch her relish in those moments. As always Brad Dourif does excellent voice work as Chucky, no surprise there. Besides these two characters, we have a couple of returning characters from the series whom, while not in it a whole lot, still deliver and sell their roles in it and easily provide some of the better scenes.
NOTE: Watch through the credits, there is a bonus scene with another surprise appearance that I’ve been wanting to see happen and got so damn excited when I saw it.
Cult of Chucky will probably be the most polarizing entry in the series. I personally enjoyed it for how different it was, and it definitely ended with me wanting more, so hopefully Mancini will make another one. Despite some pretty uninteresting new characters, it is the returning characters that really sell the film. Along with this, the kills are pretty solid, and it is very well-filmed.
–Cody Landman
