Welcome To the Dead Parade #14: Chucky's Cult Following
Cult of Chucky came out this week, so I decided to bring back the Dead Parade to cover it. For my look at the previous six films, click here and here. Otherwise, prepare yourselves.
Cult of Chucky is a step backwards, in my opinion. After the awesome set-up of having Alex Vincent reprise his role as Andy Barclay at the end of the last film, we open with Andy on a date from hell--not literally, it's just going badly because he went to military school, really likes guns, and everyone he ever became attached to had been killed by Chucky.
Apparently, after shotgunning Chucky in the face at the end of Curse of Chucky, Andy recovered the killer doll's head and is now torturing it for theraputic funsies.
The bulk of the story, however, focuses on Nica Pierce, the wheelchair-bound survivor of the previous installment, who, true to Chucky survivor conventions, has been convicted as the real killer and sentenced to a mental institution for schizophrenia.
The stark, white surroundings--both the snow outside the hospital and the walls within--are uninspired when contrasted with the creepy, gothic atmosphere of the house in Curse.
The film, like a long-running Shonen anime, suffers from escalation issues, revealing that Chucky can now possess multiple host bodies at once because he Googled "voodoo" at some point during the events of the previous film. Tiffany returns, bringing a Chucky doll with her when she visits the asylum, and the usual murder mechanics ensue, spending too much time playing with and setting up the "multiple Chuckies" twist (zombie connection, anyone?) and not leaving nearly enough time for a proper final showdown between Andy and Nica and the dolls (or a final showdown of any kind, really). Hopefully, what this is setting up will be far better than the set-up itself has been.
On the plus side, Chucky is still an old school effects marvel. I also enjoyed seeing that Cult of Chucky made several nods to moments from previous Child's Play installments, chiefly the buried doll scene and the "what if all of the Good Guy dolls were Chucky" suspense from the second film. And the choice to have Nica get possessed by Chucky (a generally terrible decision, I think) nonetheless gives Fiona Dourif (who played Nica in both Curse and Cult) the chance to show that she can deliver an evil laugh just as well as dear old dad. The post-credits scene was also a nice touch, but as when I watch an MCU film, I had to do some Googling of my own before it made sense.
A filler episode that goes in an unnecessary direction, but I hope that direction will at least lead somewhere.
D-
Stay tuned for the return of the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective, and the start of the first volume of Tales From Wonderland.
Ticketmaster,
out.
Apparently, after shotgunning Chucky in the face at the end of Curse of Chucky, Andy recovered the killer doll's head and is now torturing it for theraputic funsies.
The bulk of the story, however, focuses on Nica Pierce, the wheelchair-bound survivor of the previous installment, who, true to Chucky survivor conventions, has been convicted as the real killer and sentenced to a mental institution for schizophrenia.
The stark, white surroundings--both the snow outside the hospital and the walls within--are uninspired when contrasted with the creepy, gothic atmosphere of the house in Curse.
The film, like a long-running Shonen anime, suffers from escalation issues, revealing that Chucky can now possess multiple host bodies at once because he Googled "voodoo" at some point during the events of the previous film. Tiffany returns, bringing a Chucky doll with her when she visits the asylum, and the usual murder mechanics ensue, spending too much time playing with and setting up the "multiple Chuckies" twist (zombie connection, anyone?) and not leaving nearly enough time for a proper final showdown between Andy and Nica and the dolls (or a final showdown of any kind, really). Hopefully, what this is setting up will be far better than the set-up itself has been.
On the plus side, Chucky is still an old school effects marvel. I also enjoyed seeing that Cult of Chucky made several nods to moments from previous Child's Play installments, chiefly the buried doll scene and the "what if all of the Good Guy dolls were Chucky" suspense from the second film. And the choice to have Nica get possessed by Chucky (a generally terrible decision, I think) nonetheless gives Fiona Dourif (who played Nica in both Curse and Cult) the chance to show that she can deliver an evil laugh just as well as dear old dad. The post-credits scene was also a nice touch, but as when I watch an MCU film, I had to do some Googling of my own before it made sense.
A filler episode that goes in an unnecessary direction, but I hope that direction will at least lead somewhere.
D-
Stay tuned for the return of the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective, and the start of the first volume of Tales From Wonderland.
Ticketmaster,
out.
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