Welcome to the Kill Count, where we tally up the victims in all our favorite horror movies.
I'm James A. Janisse and today we're looking at the brand new movie,
'Cult of Chucky,' released earlier this week on DVD, Blu-ray, Video on Demand, and Netflix.
'Cult of Chucky' is a direct sequel to 'Curse,' picking up four years after Nica's committal to a mental institution.
'Cult' takes place primarily in the asylum, playing off the fact that nobody's likely to believe a committed person about a walking, talking doll.
Despite its direct-to-video release, the film's look is even more artistic and stylized than the sleek aesthetic of 'Curse.'
'Cult' is a confident step forward for the franchise, bringing together loads of characters and ideas from previous films...
...and mixing them all together in a chaotic blend that happily sets up another sequel at its conclusion.
And although the last act of this movie is capital-B bonkers, most of it is a slow burn that's more reminiscent of the original 'Child's Play.'
Still, when the kills finally come they freaking deliver, so let's see what's in store and get to them already!
The movie begins in a skyscraper restaurant, shot much like the apartment building from 'Child's Play' 1...
...fitting, since the guy eating here is Andy Barclay, again played by Alex Vincent from the first two movies.
He and his date are talking about his past, since she went and looked him up.
"You googled me." Nah man, she used
ｉｎｔｅｒｎｅｔ ｓｅａｒｃｈ
And through it she learned about the whole crazy, killer doll claim.
She says the whole situation is a bit too much for her and leaves. Her loss, dude.
She's missing out on having probably the cutest kid she could ask for.
Andy takes his truck back to his Lincoln Log cabin home, where he keeps a locker with enough arms to take over an Oregon wildlife refuge.
He's also got a fine collection of stuffed heads everywhere, including a special one kept behind a framed Kent Academy sweater.
Turns out I was right to not include Chucky in the Kill Count for 'Curse,' so take that, internet commenters!
Apparently Andy's been keepin Chucky's head locked up and using it to practice his carpentry skills.
Seems like they almost have a sort of mutual respect thing going on, since Andy lets Chuckie take a hit off that jay.
But Chucky's still a little fucky and bites at Andy's fingers to scare him. Adult Andy ain't havin' it though.
"You wanna play?" And his new form of playtime involves a freaking blowtorch.
One order of Chuck-brûlée coming right up.
The opening credits sequence is something straight out of an AMC show, with clips from 'Curse' and news articles setting up the story ahead.
Then we're back with Nica, who's been getting electroshock treatment and therapy from Dr. Foley...
...who, over the past four years, has gotten her to accept that Chucky isn't real and that she was the one who murdered her whole family.
"What I did was unforgivable."
He says that because of her progress, he's transferring her to a medium-security facility, where she gets a blindingly white room set up by a nurse named Carlos.
He's polite enough, but says he's not a big Nica fan because of the whole, y'know, mass murder thing.
Nica explores the rest of this clinically colorless locale and meets some of the cast we'll get to see murdered.
They include Angela, who claims to have died and be invisible to everyone else in the ward...
...although that's quickly disproven with a jump-scare by a guy who introduces himself as Michael.
Like Carlos, Michael is friendly to Nica, but unlike Carlos he's not too bothered by her murderous past.
At least not, too bothered to bang her in the stairwell. Get it, Nica!
Dr. Foley holds a group session with the rest of the main inmates like Claire, an angry firebrand who doesn't feel safe around Nica...
...since all she ever did was light her house on fire.
"You always bring that up."
And Madeline, a demure lady whose reason for being there is revealed later on.
When Nica explains her backstory to them and mentions her niece Alice, Angela sits up and tells her that Chucky had given her a little ring-a-ding-ding and left a message with her.
"He said to tell you he's coming for you."
Sounds like a great time for Doc Foley to prove to everyone that Nica's down to doll, so he whips out a Good Guy to show that she's cool.
"Hi, I'm Chucky!"
Madeline is super into it, adopting the doll... "He's my baby." ..and making sure he eats his din-din at suppertime.
Also over dinner, Michael reintroduces himself as Mark, and Nica finds out that this guy has Multiple Personality Disorder, and is called "Multiple Malcolm."
When Dr. Foley takes Nica to see a visitor, the audience gets a real treat in the form of Jennifer Tilly...
...who brings a splash of color into the film as a femme fatale introduced as Alice's legal guardian, Valentine.
And don't worry, the movie doesn't forget that Jennifer Tilly exists in this universe.
"Did anyone ever told you you look exactly like Jennifer Tilly?" "Yeah, I get that a lot."
Because that IS Jennifer Tilly's body, but it's Tiffany's soul, since Tiffany's body, which also looks strikingly similar to Jennifer Tilly's, died in 'Bride of Chucky.' Got that?
Nica asks after Alice, and Tiffany don't mince words.
"She's dead, Ms. Pierce." To really guilt-trip the hell out of Nica, she says Alice died of a broken heart...
...but mentions that Alice wanted to bequeath the doll to Nica.
"Hi, I'm Chucky!" Nica's straight shook, meaning J-Tills did her job, so she makes her exit.
"Good luck." Come back soon Jennifer, we love youuuu!
Foley puts Chucky in his office, but that night Chucky escapes and first-person makes his way to a conveniently doll-height drawer to steal a scalpel behind Carlos.
Who's still hard at work! How long's your shift, brother?
Chucky starts looking for Nica's room, showing off the latest look of the doll and its movements, until he's interrupted by Angela.
Time for your first line in this movie as a whole, complete Chucky doll, dude. What kind of killer pun you got for us?
"Where's Nica?"
Oh... That's okay, he gets back to his smart-ass self soon enough after Angela tells him he isn't real and is just a figment of her imagination.
"You fuckin' with me?"
Ah, there's our boy! Chucky leaves Angela with the promise that she's next, then goes to Nica's room.
But when he gets there he finds a broken spoke in her wheelchair and a pool of her blood on the ground.
Turns out she used the metal to slit her wrists because she felt so guilty about Alice's death.
That's okay, Chucky, we can still chalk that one up as an assist if you want.
But Chucky knows assists don't help his K/D, so the next morning Nica wakes up to find a message for her written in blood and her wrist wounds all sealed up.
Nice stitch work, Chucky! Charles Lee Ray paid attention in Home Ec.!
Not everyone made it through the night alive though, as Nica and the rest of the people at the hospital find the body of Angela in her bed...
... her wrists cut open with Nica's metal spoke, giving us our first kill of the movie a whopping 31 minutes in.
Looks like 'Cult' is gonna take things slow.
The main character inmates discuss Angela's death in another group session, with Claire yelling that Nica did it, but Foley insisting it wasn't her fault.
Malcolm's the only one with the right idea. "Chucky did it."
So of course he gets freaked out when Madeline and her adopted Good Guy arrive and reveal that there are now two Chucky's.
As they explain where the second doll came from, Nica realizes that 'Valentine' meant Tiffany Valentine.
"That was Charles Lee Ray's girlfriend."
So now she starts thinking maybe she isn't crazy after all, and that Chucky really is a bad guy.
To prove it's just a doll, Foley takes a lighter to Chucky's hand, holding it there long enough to melt his fingers into a little nasty Good Guy claw.
But since Nica is smart and awesome, and I freaking love her, she immediately realizes Chucky might've swapped places with Madeline's doll...
...and wants to try him at the stake too, but the rest of the group is done with this kangaroo court.
Madeline goes for a walk to get away from Nica and Malcolm agrees to help find out what's going on, while also revealing that his Mark persona...
...is just Adam Hurtig's impersonation of Jesse Eisenberg's impersonation of Mark Zuckerberg.
"I hacked into Dr. Foley's computer, it was ridiculously easy."
While Nica distracts Nurse Ashley, Malcolm slips out the door unnoticed.
Nica watches from the window as Chucky whispers sweet nothings into Madeline's ear then flips Nica off. Rude fucking doll, man!
Nica tries to warn Madeline what's up, but instead Madeline just tosses Chucky into an open grave.
When Malcolm comes over to see what's going on, Maddy pushes him in as well.
Meanwhile, Claire grabs the Chucky doll from Foley's office and goes to throw it away, but gets bitten as she tries.
But wait a minute, we just saw Madeline's doll confirmed as Chucky.
And now there's pretty strong evidence that this doll's alive too? 'Cult of Chucky'!
Foley and Carlos just think she injured herself, so they take her away, strap her to a bed, and drug her up with downers.
They leave at Nurse Ashley's request for help with Malcolm and, during an interesting if not entirely necessary split-screen sequence...
...Nica watches as Malcolm helps Chucky out of the grave and then is pulled out of the grave himself.
He turns and looks at Nica with a psychopathic smile and we're beginning to get ideas of what the cult of Chucky might actually be.
The Chucky with Claire disappears from the scene and pops back up bedside with a can of compressed air.
He toys would Claire a little bit before slamming the canister into the ground, shooting it skyward to repeat that honeymoon waterbed kill from 'Bride of Chucky.'
But this one's a lot cooler with a close-up on Claire's eye shedding a single tear, a real nice slow motion shot of the glass shards falling, and a full-on decapitation to top things off.
Way more graphic and intense than the more comical deaths of those hotel grifters.
Although Chucky's always willing to lighten the mood. "Sometimes I scare myself."
Somehow word of the murders makes its way to Perez Hilton's website, and since Andy is a consummate consumer of celebrity gossip, he sees it.
The messed up head finally lays out what's up in this movie.
"You thought I was the only one?"
Andy takes out another Chucky doll, one with a Kent Academy haircut that would make Sergeant Botnik freakin' cream himself, and takes off in his truck.
Back at the asylum, Nica's caught on to the twist in this movie. "I think both dolls are alive somehow."
"Ade Boku Dembella..." "-gasps-"
Holy shit! Was that an incantation variation?
I don't know how Nica overheard that or whatever to justify that cut-away, but she's insisting to Foley that she's not a murderer and Chucky did it all.
His response is to drug her and use a flashing light to hypnotize her so he can be real fucking creepy and sexually abuse her.
Gross, dude. Can't wait for you to get murdered.
For now he just gets knocked out by Chucky, though, and even he can tell how nasty Foley is.
"And they call ME sick?!"
Chucky still takes advantage of Nica's dazed state in his own way though...
...encouraging her to take a shard of broken glass and murder Foley with it so she can join the club.
The screen fades to black before anything happens, and then we find Nica crawling down a hallway.
She crawls right into an image of Alice, who tells her they've been waiting for her, and before you can say, "What the fuck, man?"...
...Alice reverses away, and there's a giant wavy Chucky standing over Nica with a knife.
And uh, yeah, still standing there. Long shot.
Sometime later Malcolm's acting real weird and when Nica asks him what his name is today, he tells her.
"It's Charles. I think we've met." What if he winds up meaning Charles Barkley? That'd be fun.
The movie jumps another weird level when Maddy takes Chuckie to her room and breastfeeds him.
Guaranteed Chucky talked her into that one. Or maybe not, 'cuz it seems like he hasn't fully come out to her yet.
Aw, Chucky, she's your mom. She'll love you no matter what!
Or...suffocate you with a pillow. Yeah, looks like Madeline's gonna do that instead, I guess.
It's apparently the same thing she did to her real-life baby, as Dr. Foley reveals, and the reason she was committed in the first place.
As Madeline gives her surrogate baby a tearful apology, Nica interrupts her in an attempt to grab Chucky...
...but Dr. 'Phil-Estor' stops her and says it's time to bury the past.
So they do! We got a Good Guy funeral and burial that Nica watches eyefully from the window.
On his way to the hospital, Andy gets a call from Tiffany or Jennifer or whatever.
"Even I lose track!" She asks him to join up in their ever-growing cult, but Andy's not into it, sorry Tiff.
He gets there that night and is stopped by a security guard who tells him to go on and git!
Andy acts fast to get himself committed, punching the guard to wind up in a white-tastic room of his own.
What, there's no processing time to get committed there?
Nica keeps vigil watching Chucky's grave until she finally sees him punch through the dirt.
Then she gets drugged from behind with a needle in her neck so she misses it when Grave Chucky goes full Margaret White.
So we've got two Chucky's running around now. Why not have a third?
'Cuz we get one when Dr. Sex Abuser opens a box delivered to him and finds Buzzcut Chucky inside.
Almost time for the call party, e'rrybody, get ready!
But first let's deal with some loose ends, like shoe laces, which Madeleine isn't allowed to have because she's on suicide watch.
Nurse Ashley takes the laces away and tells Maddie she'll check on her every 15 minutes.
When she leaves Grave Chucky is waiting behind the door, and he manipulates Madeline until she's opening her arms for one final embrace.
It's final because she's hiring Chucky as her own personal Kevorkian.
"Will it hurt?" "I'll do my best."
Chucky proceeds to stick his little plastic hand into Maddie's mouth. Sure, it's got some dirt on it, but at least this isn't the same doll from 'Seed.'
You wouldn't want THAT Good Guy's hand anywhere near your mouth.
Chucky finishes the job by going elbow deep and pulling out Madeline's...
Shit, dawg, what is that? Trachea? Is that what a trachea looks like, or is that just straight-up spinal cord?
I don't know, but it's gross and all kinds of awesome.
Her death is made to look like a suicide with Chucky's detached arm sticking out of her mouth.
Maddie's death is the breaking point for Nurse Ashley, who hands in her badge and her gun to Foley.
He takes a dark, night stroll of the soul to his office, where he finds Nica sitting there in a straitjacket.
He falls back on classic exploitive therapist motivation, saying he's gonna write a book about Nica's situation.
But I bet you he leaves out the part where he fucking molests her.
Speaking of which, Dr. Rapenstein takes out some red shoes for Nica to wear, because I don't know, looks like he's into that, I guess.
Thankfully, before he can act on his fetishes Nica spits in his face and Chucky gives an encore performance that knocks Foley out again.
"I just CAN'T with this guy!"
Now it's time for the movie's craziness to crack wide open, 'cuz one-armed Grave Chucky joins Nica and Claw Hand Chucky to tell his counterpart...
...that Andy in da house, but they should be careful 'cuz he got that crazy eye going on.
They waste literally no time using their activation key on the third Chucky doll in the room.
"Ade Boku Dembella, give me the power, I beg of you!"
A new Chucky has entered the game! The trio of Chuckey's act like a vaudeville routine as Claw Hand Chucky explains what's going on.
"A few years ago I came across this groovy new spell on VoodooForDummies.com...
...Now, I can be me." "And me." "And me!"
Then he tells Nica that he also inhabited Alice's body and used it to murder some people until someone fought back and killed her...
...which is not only really fucking dark but also explains the end of 'Curse.'
Turns out the incantation near Grandma's suffocation did actually work, and the Chucky mailed to Andy was the result of this soul-splitting, or whatever, Ade Boku spell.
Carlos walks in on all this crazy talk and is dumbfounded as the three Chuck-sketeers swarm him.
They stab him in the leg and then go crazy on him for our fourth kill, drilling him and stabbing him some more...
...and slicing open his torso to get some gaseous intestinal release there.
Buzz Cut Chucky is having a great time. He'll be the first to tell you!
"I've never felt so alive!" "Yeah, well you've been alive for like two minutes."
[all three Chucky's laugh]
The cult of Chucky's argue over who gets to go kill Andy until they agree to let Buzz Cut Chucky do the honors, on account of feeling bad about his shitty haircut.
Outside, the guard from earlier finds a sexy red car idling, but when he looks inside the window the only thing he sees is the Tiffany doll sitting by her lonesome.
Hey, guess what happens next! Yep, Tilly pulls another Bailey and slits his throat with a nail file.
I'm old enough to remember 'Bride of Chucky,' where Tiffany admonished Chucky to be more creative with his kills.
Back inside, Chucky tells Nica he had never planned on killing her, and instead goes into one last chant.
A return of rolling clouds means the shit really went through this time, and Nica suddenly stands up out of her wheelchair.
I don't know how Chucky's soul would fix whatever brain or spinal cord injury kept her from being able to walk, but, you know what, whatever.
Foley comes to and sees Nica standing there which must be real confusing, although I bet he's really into it when she starts groping herself.
"There's definitely perks to being supernaturally possessed."
Chuck-Nica walks over to Foley, tells him this kill's for Nica, that proceeds to deliver what is probably...
the single goriest kill in this entire franchise, stomping his head to mush against the ground.
Holy fucking shit! That is just gruesome, man!
On her way out the door, Chuck-Nica runs into Malcolm, who's really proud of himself for killing Nurse Ashley with a drill to the stomach.
Not quite sure how that drill is staying up like that, kind of defying physics there, but whatever.
Chuck-Nica calls out Malcolm, saying he's not actually the one who killed Ashley, and calls him a poser.
He drops to his knees in despair, perfect height for a doll to drill through the back of his freaking head.
The drill comes out the front through the eye in another seriously gruesome kill coming in just two minutes after Nica's stomp-a-thon across Foley's face.
Chuck-Nica and Grave Chucky have a real good laugh together. It's always nice to see two people become such fast friends.
Finally, Buzz Cut Chucky goes to Andy's room and key-cards his way in, but after he throws a knife into Andy's leg...
...Andy bounces back and pins him up against the wall like literally anyone could have done throughout any of these movies.
Then he just digs his hand into Chucky's tum-tum, disemboweling him and whipping out a gun and a callback.
"This is the end, fucker!"
Andy shoots Chucky in the head and confirms that he's the one who sent this doll to Dr. Foley in the first place.
With a final "fuck you" from Chucky, Andy channels his inner Nica and crushes this Chucky's head until it looks like a smashed crimson pumpkin.
Man, if you think about it, Andy just killed like, a one-hour-old being.
Chuck-Nica is standing in the doorway and tells Andy if he shoots, he'll kill Nica too.
Andy goes for it anyway, but he forgot to press 'R' earlier, and while he's reloading his gun, Chuck-Nica locks him in.
"Tag, you're it pal."
He's left in his padded room as Grave Chucky plants the drill and takes his place as an unassuming doll in the asylum rec room.
Chuck-Nica comes outside to meet Tiffany, and they have a passionate reunion.
"So this is different." "Works for me."
Yeah, I bet it works for you Tiffany, seeing as how Fiona Dourif looks just like her freaking dad, man. It's uncanny.
Their victory laughs are joined by the Tiffany doll in the back, who is also alive.
Maybe with Alice's soul, since they mentioned her right beforehand? I don't freaking know man, the movie's over.
We'll just have to wait for the next one for answers.
But hold up, the Blu-ray and DVD version has a post-credits sequence.
In it, the captive Chucky head in Andy's cabin wakes up to the sound of a car pulling up.
In walks a blonde lady all dressed in black.
"Kyle?" "We're gonna have some fun."
She approaches the head and he screams in anguish, and with that the movie's over for real.
It was definitely a slow burn, but it still had a fair number of kills.
How many exactly? Let's grab our friend Chucky and get to the numbers!
Oh!.....Gah...Gahh...
He's killing me! HE'S KILLING ME!!
Nine people died in 'Cult of Chucky,' which is plenty! Quit bitching that wasn't enough, people!
Of the victims, five were men and four were women, a near even split between genders.
With a run-time of 91 minutes, that comes out to a kill on average about every 10 minutes, even though two thirds of them happened in the last 16 minutes of the movie.
Fuck you, Chucky!
Golden Chainsaw for Coolest Kill has so many options, but I'll give it to Dr. Foley's death, when Nica put on her red shoes and danced the blues.
It's so long and gory and the practical effects are absolutely outstanding!
Dull Machete for Lamest Kill will go to Nurse Ashley, who got killed off screen with a single drill bit to the stomach.
And that's it! 'Cult of Chucky' is the latest in the Child's Play series, which turns 30 next year.
We're done with Chucky on the Kill Count for now, but I'm glad I did this, because I truly have a new respect for this wild and crazy series.
We're back to some one-offs until November, starting with 'You're Next' in a week.
Until then, I'm James A. Janisse, and this has been the Kill Count.
Thanks a lot for watching the Kill Count for 'Cult of Chucky' and all of these Chucky movies.
I wanna thank some of my Patrons like Jacob Patroni and Stephanie and Christopher Leffler. What's up, guys?
I also want to thank BlondieBoy, who donated the money to cover this Chucky doll that I've been using to great effect throughout these videos. Hey, buddy.
Next week on Friday the 13th, I'll be announcing the schedule for the Kill Count for the rest of the year.
Anything left to say, Chucky? "Fuck you very much!" Chuckyyy!