From Freddy Krueger to Jason Voorhees, Ghostface to Leatherface, the horror genre hasn’t exactly been left wanting for memorable villains, but few are able to evoke the same level of primal fear as Chucky, that pint-sized devil doll that first scurried onto the silver screen via Child’s Play all the way back in ’88.
Directed by Tom Holland – no, not that one – Child’s Play spawned a spine-chilling slasher franchise around Charles Lee Ray (AKA the “Lakeshore Strangler”), a serial killer on the brink of death who managed to relocate his soul to a pint-sized Good Guy doll and, well, the rest is history.
To date, that reign of terror has resulted in six feature films, each one more horrifying that the last. And on October 3rd, writer-director Don Mancini will be introducing the seventh (and perhaps final?) entry in the series: Cult of Chucky. Pitched as a direct continuation of the 2013 cult hit Curse of Chucky, we now have our first suitably creepy image from the upcoming release, which places that Good Guy doll front and center.
What’s the elevator pitch? It’s the seventh installment in the famous Child’s Play franchise, one which finds Don Mancini behind the lens. Indeed, Mancini is a bona fide veteran of all things Chucky, after he contributed to the screenplay of Child’s Play in 1988 alongside Holland and John Lafia.
Here’s the official logline that teases all of the nightmarish horrors that await:
Confined to an asylum for the criminally insane for the past four years, Nica Pierce (Fiona Dourif) is erroneously convinced that she, not Chucky, murdered her entire family. But when her psychiatrist introduces a new therapeutic “tool” to facilitate his patients’ group sessions — an all-too-familiar “Good Guy” doll with an innocently smiling face — a string of grisly deaths begins to plague the asylum, and Nica starts to wonder if maybe she isn’t crazy after all. Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), Chucky’s now-grown-up nemesis from the original Child’s Play, races to Nica’s aid. But to save her he’ll have to get past Tiffany (Oscar-nominee Jennifer Tilly), Chucky’s long-ago bride, who will do anything, no matter how deadly or depraved, to help her beloved devil doll.
As this is a direct-to-video release, horror fans can look forward to an extra batch of content launching alongside Cult of Chucky on October 3rd. That includes a featurette designed to take you behind the scenes, one that’s aptly been called Inside the Insanity of Chucky, along with a tour of Alterian, the studio that houses many of the creative geniuses behind Chucky’s puppeteering.
