'Chucky' May Have Changed When 'Cult of Chucky' Takes Place

When it comes to continuity, the Child's Play franchise under Don Mancini (I'm not counting the remake MGM did without him) has done a much better job than other iconic horror franchises. Each Psycho sequel felt like it retconned the previous one. We've seen how The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween franchises have retconned or flat out wiped away previous entries on more than one occasion, at times wanting to only acknowledge the original film as canon. And we've seen how Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street have gotten reboots that got no sequels and felt like dead ends. While Hellraiser has yet to be rebooted, there's not much continuity between each entry, which can feel pretty standalone. After over 30 years, the story of the original Chucky is still going strong, pushing the story forward without wiping away previous entries.

The new TV show Chucky has been continuing from the Don Mancini film series. It has provided years for flashbacks in the life of Charles Lee Ray, with the exception of the more vague 1980s flashback from the most recent episode "Little Little Lies." And it is this episode that seems to have changed when Cult of Chucky takes place. This probably won't matter for most viewers, as the show is very good regardless, and this error probably doesn't really cause anything contradictory within the actual order of events of the story, but it is a bit of a headscratcher.

Generally, the films have each taken place the year they were released, with Child's Play 3 being the exception, taking place in 1998 because the film needed a teenage Andy Barclay. The rule applied to the newer films. While Curse of Chucky suggested a 2013 placement based on Chucky's "25 years" comment, this was made more concrete with dates provided in the opening montage of Cult of Chucky, with the Pierce family murders taking place the first week of January 2013, and Nica's trial ending with her being sentenced to a mental institution in April (with the shot of this article being reused in the aforementioned Chucky episode). A caption at the beginning of the Curse of Chucky post-credits scene places Chucky's visit to the adult Andy Barclay six months later, which would be October 2013. In Cult of Chucky, a video dated November 1, 2013 shows Andy visiting Harrogate Psychiatric Hospital with Chucky's head to try proving Nica's innocence. So far, the chronology is pretty good.

Late in the Cult of Chucky film, Andy reads an online article about the murders at Harrogate. The article is dated January 24, 2017. This seems pretty natural for the winter setting. From just watching these two films, it seems like Cult of Chucky takes place 3-4 years after its predecessor, depending on from which point in Curse you count from. Makes sense.

In the Chucky TV series, it is clear that it is 2021. The third episode, "I Like To Be Hugged," has Jake Wheeler visiting the graves of his parents. The gravestone for his father Lucas Wheeler says he died October 19, 2021. So that would be about the time the series premiere ends.

In the fifth episode, "Little Little Lies," we finally see Nica Pierce, still possessed by Chucky as a result of the events of the last film. She and Tiffany Valentine have someone captive at a hotel in Hackensack, New Jersey. While Tiffany is out of the room, Chucky/Nica has a moment when Nica takes control of her own body again. She asks the captive what the date is, and he says it is November 8. Her response is that she has been possessed for two weeks, suggesting that Cult of Chucky may have ended around October 25, 2021, between the first and second episodes of the series, since the latter takes place on Halloween.

Based on what we saw in that film, this does not make complete sense. There was the passing thought that maybe Nica thinks it's still 2017, given that the captive does not specify the year. But still, two weeks before November 8 is not January. October seems like a little bit of a stretch for the winter aesthetic of Cult of Chucky.

To be fair, this would not be the first time that the franchise has provided contradictory dates. The beginning of Bride of Chucky includes a newspaper clipping placing the death of Charles Lee Ray on November 9, 1988 (a reference to the release date of the original Child's Play movie). This was later retconned by internet articles shown in Curse of Chucky, which place Charles Lee Ray's death on the morning of December 26, 1988. (Personally, I feel this would've made more sense for the winter aesthetic of the first film.) And, more recently, the Chucky series premiere reused a shot of the November 9, 1988 article, moving Ray's death back to that date again, as further reinforced by its appearance on his gravestone in the third episode.

Whether the 2017 vs 2021 discrepancy will be cleared up in the TV series is yet to be seen. It probably does not really affect the flow of the storyline. It's just that it may change how long we think Nica was at Harrogate, how long Chucky possessed Nica's niece Alice, and how long Andy had Chucky's head. Instead of 3-4 years, it would all be more like 8-9 years. For now, we know that the fifth episode ends November 8, 2021, and I predict that the next one will focus on the next day being the 33rd anniversary of Charles Lee Ray being gunned down.