The Real Reason Cult Of Chucky Ended On A Cliffhanger

With Halloween season in full swing, horror franchise fans are revisiting their old favorites — and so is Hollywood. Movies like the "Candyman" reboot and the uber gory "Halloween Kills" are landing in theaters and on streaming platforms, bringing new scares to the world of classic movie monsters. Terrifying fiends Michael Myers and the Candyman are just the beginning. On October 12, another beloved horror villain will make a comeback with his own TV series.

Syfy's "Chucky" is based on the violent exploits of writer Don Mancini's serial killer doll of the same name. Fans of the "Chucky" films will remember that the sadistic child's toy (or "friend to the end," depending on how you look at it) last appeared in 2017's "Cult of Chucky," as he continued his reign of terror in a psychiatric hospital. The movie also saw the return of Alex Vincent as Andy Barclay, now all grown up and determined to put a stop to his childhood tormentor.

"Cult of Chucky" ends on a cliffhanger, with the soul of Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) possessing the body of Nica Pierce (Fiona Dourif). He and his girlfriend Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) are reunited, and Andy is trapped inside a cell at the hospital. However, a post-credits scene reveals that Kyle (Christine Elise), Andy's foster sister from "Child's Play 2," is in charge of keeping an eye on Chucky's severed head while Andy is away. With so many open plot points, fans wondered just what Mancini had in mind for the continuation of the beloved franchise. Well, according to Chucky's creator, this scene was part of a bigger plan.

With the premiere episode of "Chucky" nearly upon us, fans are eagerly awaiting to find out what happened to their favorite killer doll since they last saw him — not to mention the fates of the other characters. According to director and writer Don Mancini, the cliffhanger ending of "Cult of Chucky" was a deliberate decision for the franchise's future.

"Oh, I had a fairly solid plan [for the 'Chucky' television series] even when I was writing 'Cult of Chucky,'" Mancini recently told ComicBook.com in an in-depth interview tied to the upcoming TV show. "That's why I deliberately ended that movie with a series of cliffhangers [that] left all of the major characters with a question mark. It was very 'Empire Strikes Back' that way."

He then explained, "I knew that answering those questions and exploring the implications of where we left all of the characters" was better suited for television rather than film because it "was going to be a better place to explore all of that because it's so dense. There's so much going on. So yeah, I was sort of planning it out as back when I was writing 'Cult of Chucky' four or five years ago. I'm just a little amazed that it all worked out because it's so rare, you know."

Luckily, the risky creative move to have such an open-ended credits scene seems to have paid off. If Syfy's "Chucky" proves to be the success Mancini hopes for, then fans can expect lots of scares and wild antics from the unkillable psychotic red-haired playmate. The first episode of "Chucky" airs at 10 p.m. on SyFy on Tuesday, October 12.