CULT OF CHUCKY: Annabelle Looks Like a Kindergarten Toy

Chucky was first. Even before I had secretly watched the second A Nightmare on Elm Street and before, more afraid of being caught by my parents than of the zombies themselves, I got to know Night of the Living Dead, I was given permission to take part in a screening of Child’s Play. There was only one condition—I was to cover my eyes immediately whenever I was told to do so. For me, that was precisely when the cult of Chucky began.

As befits a film whose main character is a living doll, a family story unfolds in the background, although in this case it is a behind-the-scenes one. It rarely happens that all seven installments of a nearly thirty-year-old series are created by almost the same people. Chucky’s voice is, of course, the titan of horror—Brad Dourif; his partner for two decades has been Jennifer Tilly, playing… Jennifer Tilly; and in addition, at the end of the previous installment, Alex Vincent returned, that is Andy—the child struggling with a murderer trapped in a doll in the first two chapters of the story.

Incidentally, this is not the only Andy to whom toys have played tricks, but even Toy Story 3 was not as dark as the new film by Don Mancini, the creator of one of the most recognizable characters in the world of horror cinema, the screenwriter of all the installments, and also the director of the last three. From the beginning, the vision has therefore been spun by the same people, thanks to which it is coherent and, surprisingly after all these years, still fresh.

The father of the success is Mancini himself and his excellent script full of characteristic black humor. Until recently he had been shaping the serial adventures of Hannibal Lecter, and this clearly had a significant influence on him. In Cult of Chucky he cared about cinematography endowed with artistic value; elegant, often minimalist set design; and shots not overloaded with action.

We usually see one or two characters in them, often against the backdrop of spacious rooms illuminated by pale light, and if it were not for a murderous psychopath in a colorful outfit, every frame would aspire to the status of a small work of art.

The most evident link between Mancini’s recent activities, however, is Chucky himself, who at one point bitterly remarks that canceling Hannibal was a mistake. The mother of the success, on the other hand, is Fiona Dourif, an actress endowed with facial features so strongly resembling her father Brad that in every scene she is immediately associated with Charles Lee Ray, the fictional psychopath who took up residence in a plastic body.

The Nica portrayed by her is one of the most interesting female characters in horror cinema in recent years. She is neither a killing machine nor a helpless victim. Past events have left their mark on her; she appears worn down and frightened, but the will to survive prevails over weaknesses, which makes her convincing as a human being.

The most serious charge against Cult of Chucky is the disastrous use of jump scares. Their very existence is as old as horror itself, and Andy Muschietti recently showed in It how to use them properly, yet Mancini did not demonstrate similar proficiency. He tries to scare viewers, for example, with a nurse terrifyingly… standing behind one of the patients, or with a person who must have imperceptibly crawled on his knees between two women having a conversation and then suddenly straightened up.

The seventh installment of Child’s Play is undoubtedly the most ambitious. Its director must have spent a lot of time on internet forums, where various theories and concepts had long been appearing, and then wove some of them into his own script, while also referencing all the previous stories in the cycle.

It is an ideal combination of sentiment and fan expectations, but I will not reveal details so as not to deprive you of the pleasure of watching. I will only add that, in a sense, we received a sequel and a soft reboot at the same time, and in addition Chucky proved that Annabelle is, at most, a kindergarten toy.