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Don Mancini Says Cult of Chucky is “Chucky on Drugs”

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Of all the various slasher icons to star in their own long-running franchises, few were probably less likely than Chucky (voiced by the legendary Brad Dourif), possessed doll host to the soul of dead serial killer Charles Lee Ray.

After all, Chucky is a doll, and thus not very physically imposing. Yet, as easy as it would seem for a grown adult to kick Chucky’s ass, the diminutive death dealer always manages to survive to slay more victims, while taking a few more lives along the way.

The Chucky – or Child’s Play – series has certainly had its ups and downs in quality over the years, although each entry has its fans, even the insanity that is Seed of Chucky. Still, I don’t think anyone really expected the series’ first DTV entry Curse of Chucky to be as downright awesome as it was.

Curse in many ways took things back to basics, trying its best to make Chucky more of a brutal force of evil again, and less of a wisecracking comedian. Earning raves from fans, the film proved successful enough to inspire Universal to greenlight another sequel, entitled Cult of Chucky.

cult of chucky

Set four years after Curse, Cult once again centers on Nica (Fiona Dourif), who was sent to an asylum after being framed for the murder of her family by Chucky. Nica has been convinced that she in fact killed them and that Chucky was a hallucination, that is until a familiar doll arrives at the snow-covered facility.

During a recent interview with the CBC writer/director – and Chucky creator – Don Mancini offered the following comments on how Cult is coming together:

I wrote it with snow in mind. We shot all night outside for one sequence, and we got snowed out with a blizzard. We had to shut down for safety reasons. Our zoom lens also froze. But the snow was great — that really paid off. It gave the film a Shining-like feel.

In Cult of Chucky, we’re doing a mental institution movie. There will be dream sequences and lots of surrealism. This will be Chucky on drugs. To me, I don’t know why people would take the approach of doing the same things with a sequel. Sequels offer the opportunity to subvert expectations. All good storytelling is about good surprises. Sequels, by their very nature, bring baggage — how can I subvert them in a fun way?

Hmmm, dream sequences? Surrealism? Could Cult of Chucky end up giving fans a bit of a “Chuckmare on Elm Street” vibe? That’s definitely one path the series hasn’t taken before, and could prove to set apart Cult from its predecessors.

Joining Dourif on this crazy ride are Chucky’s old nemesis Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), and Chucky’s wife Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly). In an amusing bit of continuity between wildly different films, Tiffany remains inside the body of actress Jennifer Tilly, who Tiffany possessed in the fourth wall-breaking Seed.

Chucky is one of the only major horror franchises to retain the same continuity between all installments, with no remakes or alternate timelines being introduced to muddy up things. Here’s hoping Cult proves as good as Curse, and Mancini gets to bring Chucky back again for an 8th go-around.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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