Cult of Chucky ups the ante for the Child's Play franchise by introducing multiple dolls and new powers, and it has a wild ending. This is also a case of how not all direct-to-video movies are bad because 2013's Curse of Chucky and 2017's Cult of Chucky are some of the best in their franchise. Keeping Child's Play afloat is the continued guidance of Don Mancini, creator of the property and writer of all seven films in the original series. Mancini has also directed Seed, Curse, and Cult of Chucky, although he had nothing to do with 2019's MGM's remake.

In Bride and Seed of Chucky, Mancini took Child's Play in a more comedic direction, embracing the self-referential style Scream popularized in the 1990s. By Curse of Chucky, though, Mancini sensed fans wanted something different and opted to take Chucky back to his more horrifying roots. Curse introduced a new nemesis for Chucky in Nica, a paraplegic young woman played by Fiona Dourif, daughter of Chucky voice actor Brad Dourif. Cult sees Nica committed to a psychiatric hospital, but Chucky arrives to continue tormenting her with some new abilities.

Cult of Chucky Includes Multiple Possessed Dolls

Chucky Learned Voodoo That Allowed Him To Spread Himself Around

In the original Child's Play, Charles Lee Ray gained the ability to transfer his soul into a doll by practicing voodoo. This is taken to a new extreme in Cult of Chucky, as Chucky learns a new voodoo spell that allows him to inhabit multiple host bodies simultaneously. Naturally, this sees Chucky using multiple dolls to terrorize Nica and kill off the other staff and patients inside the hospital. It also explained several instances where it seemed like Chucky was in two places at once since he literally was, in a sense.

Cult of Chucky Ends With Chucky Possessing Nica

Chucky Uses Nica To Kill Her Caregiver & Escape With Tiffany

While the logical assumption to make is that after he's finished torturing Nica, Chucky plans to kill her, that's not the case. Ultimately, Chucky possesses Nica's body instead, enabling it to walk again. He then uses her to murder Nica's abusive caregiver, Dr. Foley, before taking off with Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly), Chucky's bride. Alongside the two sit the possessed Chucky and Tiffany dolls. While all this was happening, Chucky's original target, Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), made an unsuccessful rescue attempt and ended up locked inside the institution.

The Real Meaning Of The Cult Of Chucky Ending

Chucky Saves Nica After Causing Her Predicament

Cult of Chucky turns things on its head by surprisingly making Chucky the lesser villain in the horror movie. This comes after Curse shows how Charles is connected to Nica. Charles is why Nica is a paraplegic. He stabbed Nica's mother while she was pregnant before going on the run and ending up gunned down in the first movie. He was always in love with Sarah, but when he returns and Sarah "throws him out," he kills her and then goes on a rampage that ends with Nica in an institution.

When Chucky arrives at the mental hospital Sarah is in, he sees she has attempted suicide and is being sexually abused by her caregiver. Chucky not only helps save her but kills her ab. While he goes on a rampage, killing a lot of people in the hospital, his main target seems to be Nica. However, he was not there to kill her. Instead, he saves her and gives her the ability to walk again, albeit while he possesses her body. He may be making amends for her paralysis, or he may be using her, but Chucky becomes more than a villain in this film's ending.

How The Cult Of Chucky Ending Was Received

Fans Disagreed On Whether Chucky Should Have Won

Cult of Chucky was a polarizing chapter in the Child's Play franchise. While critics seemed to love the movie, with an 81% Rotten Tomatoes score, the audience was a little more underwhelmed, giving it 62%. One audience review complained that the ending ruined much of the movie, writing, "The ending gives 100% non-satisfaction. We can't even enjoy the doctor's death." However, critic Stephen Dalton of The Hollywood Reporter considered this a return to form:

"A lean 91 minutes long, Cult of Chucky is part self-spoofing slasher, part lowbrow bloodbath and all guilty pleasure... Dourif Jr.’s acting skills are frustratingly underused in the lead role, reduced to a wan spectator for much of the action until a final-act twist puts a much-needed spring in her step. Inevitably, the gothic, revved-up, kick-ass conclusion leaves the door open for further chapters. And they will come. The Chucky franchise is hardly Toy Story, but it is reliably pulpy good fun, the gift that keeps on taking.

However, not everyone was happy with how Chucky won in the end. In a Reddit thread, Nash-Override appreciated how the movie brought Andy and Kyle back and set up the TV show, but he was disappointed that the film let Chucky win. "I still can't figure out why Mancini chose to let Nica get tossed to the wolves and more to the point, why he would create an ending that sharts all over Andy's rescue op. of Nica," they wrote.

However, not everyone agreed. Redditor Hefss wrote, "Chucky winning in Cult and even Curse was to show how much he progressed from his character arc in Bride-Seed. Since Chucky isn’t blinded by rage over being a killer doll anymore, it allows him to be more focused in accomplishing his goals." This basically comes down to Chucky being able to plan out his moves in a more calculating manner, which really played out in the Chucky TV series, where he was much more than a rage-filled slasher killer.

The Cult Of Chucky Ending Set Up The TV Show

Chucky & Tiffany Used Nica For Four Years To Continue To Kill

In the Chucky TV series, Don Mancini continued his story from Cult of Chucky, and that made many fans happy after the disappointing reboot. However, what happened was a little disappointing for fans of Nica, who was a strong fighter in Curse and at least ready to fight in Cult. When Chucky and Tiffany went on the run in Nica and Jennifer's forms, it seemed interesting to see what they planned to do with the new bodies. However, the TV series made Nica a prisoner for Chucky and Tiffany's amusement.

Things in the series picked up four years after the events of Cult of Chucky, meaning that the dolls controlled the girl for a very long time after she fought so hard to beat them. Things get even worse when Tiffany amputates Nica's arms and legs to keep her prisoner further. This seems like a hugely degrading moment for Nica, but the series' writing was so strong that she eventually became an even stronger protagonist by the show's second season and pays off the story building through the last two movies.