One of my all-time favorite theme park attractions is the E.T. Adventure ride in Universal Studios Orlando, which has been going strong since way back in 1990. Putting you on a bicycle, just like Elliot in the film, the ride actually serves as a sequel to Steven Spielberg’s beloved classic, flying you straight out of Earth and onto E.T.’s bizarre home planet, the Green Planet.

Why am I bringing up the E.T. ride today? Because, much like that ride, the “Revenge of Chucky” attraction at Halloween Horror Nights Orlando this year immerses you in a sequel that doesn’t actually exist. Rather, the event’s “Scare Zone” builds off ideas introduced in last year’s Cult of Chucky, picking up where Don Mancini left off for a really fun new follow-up.

Cult introduced the idea of Charles Lee Ray being able to put his evil soul into multiple Good Guys dolls, and “Revenge of Chucky” expands upon that concept by having the pint-sized killer doll take over the entire Play Pals toy factory, possessing literally *all* of the toys!

Bloody Disgusting was on hand at Halloween Horror Nights to experience “Revenge of Chucky” this past weekend, which features a short one-man-show from Chucky himself, voiced and puppeted live by an unseen performer. After Chucky casts his spell, actors dressed as scary versions of various different retro toys wander through the scare zone and dish out scares.

In addition to the actors, dressed as everything from army men to an evil Cabbage Patch doll, as well as possessed Play Pals employees, the scare zone is highlighted by two stages that turn Barrel of Monkeys and the Easy Bake Oven into pure nightmare fuel. Not that Don Mancini needs any help keeping the franchise fresh and exciting, but we’d love to see THIS movie!

After attending, we talked “Revenge of Chucky” with Michael Aiello, the Senior Director of Entertainment: Creative Development for Halloween Horror Nights Orlando. He told us why the decision was made to make a sequel to Cult of Chucky rather than adapt it outright for this year’s scare zone, while also talking Mancini’s involvement in the maze’s creation.

“We wanted to incorporate Chucky into the event first knowing he’s an 80’s horror icon and it fit nicely in our events overall 80’s thematic and also knowing it’s the 30th anniversary of him as a character,” Aiello explained to us. “Discovering in Cult of Chucky that he can possess other dolls, we decided to expand on that idea and bring forth the thought that he could possess all kinds of toys, growing his cult so to speak. This was in our favor as a way to offer a diverse collection of characters for our guests to encounter, because we did not want a bunch of people running around in Chucky costumes and masks.”

He continued, “We wanted to remain authentic to his scale and look and there’s only one Chucky! So he had to be a fully realized puppet that could talk to our guests and if need be initiate them into his cult as well! So this scare zone is a tangent story jumping off the Cult story beat.”

“The team brainstormed all kinds of things. We’ve got some nostalgic 80’s versions of classic dolls but with our HHN filter and overlay; barrels of monkeys, operation-like games, baking ovens, toy soldiers, all of them have this 80’s flair to them. We really wanted to tap toys we grew up with as kids!”

So what does Don Mancini think of “Revenge of Chucky”?