Cult of Chucky (2017)

(On TV, October 2020) I really wasn’t expecting much from Cult of Chucky considering the bland return to form of the previous Curse of Chucky, but this seventh instalment ends up recapturing some of the inspired lunacy of the previous films’ best moments. The tone is given early on, as a now-adult victim of the killer doll’s mass-murder sprees is revealed to keep the head alive… for torture. Bringing back bits and pieces of nearly ever single instalments so far (at least as much as I can remember from scattered viewings of the series), this Cult of Chucky is pleasantly over-the-top throughout, but goes fully crazy (in a good way) for the last thirty minutes of the film: By the end, the rules of the series are completely upended and the film sets itself up for even further instalments in traditional nihilistic fashion. (Although, as of 2019, the series seems to have rebooted.) The various gory sequences are sufficiently over-the-top that they have no relationship to reality, making them a bit easier to take. I still don’t like the series, and my tolerance of Cult of Chucky only goes so far, but this seventh instalment goes to surprisingly new places and ends up more entertaining than expected—perhaps only second to the metafictional comedy of Seed of Chucky.