Review of Seed of Chucky

Introduction

Chucky is apparently almost an iconic horror villain in the same way as hockey-masked Jason and Dennis the Menace t-shirt wearing Freddy. All made their mark in the public eye during the decade that film would like to forget during a time when video nasties were the `in-thing` and more was gore. The other thing they have in common is that they all spawned numerous sequels, although Jason and Freddy appeared together in their last outing. It would appear that, for better or worse, these characters just refuse to die…

Seed Of Chucky is the fifth outing of the Child`s Play series and introduces another new character to the `family` of dolls. Last time out it was Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) who joined up with Chucky (Brad Douriff), and now a child with an identity/gender crisis, Glen/Glenda (Billy Boyd) arrives on the scene.

The film starts with a flashback sequence that turns out to be a nightmare of the new character who is quite gentle by nature but also has a quite different name at this point. He is the `live` dummy in a ventriloquist`s act by a studded and leather clad idiot who is appearing at a ventriloquists festival at Glastonbury(!). The doll wonders who he is and what his origins are, then catches a piece of PR fluff on TV about a new film with Chucky and Tiffany. In the way that only happens in movies, the doll escapes and crosses several thousand miles to arrive in a UPS-style box in the exact room as his `parents`.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Tilly (playing herself in a spoofed role in a spoof. Er, yeah…) is struggling with her career and decides to go all out and join the casting couch in an attempt to beat Julia Roberts to the part of the Virgin Mary in a rap version of the birth of Christ. Hannah Spearitt (of S Club 7 fame) is her despairing PR who appears to be the only person with any kind of moral code, which inevitably means an explosive end, and tries to warn Tilly off this particular audition strategy.

The rest then just gets really silly in an attempt to not only spoof horror films but also the whole Hollywood/celebrity culture…

Video

Umm, good transfer…

The title sequence is a little on the nauseous side, even though it`s clearly CGI. Bad taste in my book, but start as you mean to go on.

Audio

5.1 soundtrack but is nothing special, bit like the film really…

Features

Commentary with Jennifer Tilly and Don Mancini - no idea what this sounds like. Aw come on, I already had to sit through the film…

Family Slideshow - short sketch involving the `family` showing off some of their holiday snapshots.

Conceiving Seed Of Chucky - featurette on both the background of the Child`s Play `franchise` and behind-the-scenes look at the current film. Once more (yawn), includes interviews with the puppets…

Jennifer Tilly`s Diary - text-based feature surrounding the development of the film and her involvement. Probably not even written by her and just seems to go on forever…

Fuzion Up Close - vacuous film/celebrity type show that you see every weekend. Hard to tell if it`s actually a real edition or a lame attempt at yet another spoof.

Conclusion

I`ve said it before (and quite recently too…) and I`ll say it again: I wasn`t expecting much and I wasn`t disappointed. I really found it hard to work out what this film was trying to be. Was it a horror spoof or a Hollywood pastiche? To be frank, it is such a mess that it manages to be neither. The script tries a little too hard and succeeds only in missing all its targets.

A lot of the jokes are just too obvious and generally fall flat. Chucky succumbing to road rage by running Britney Spears off the road after she cuts him up is one such example. Sorry, I`m sure there were people rolling on the floor during script sessions, but it wasn`t funny at all. The humour behind Chucky masturbating and Tiffany hovering over Tilly with a turkey baster to inseminate her is just too bad for my words to adequately describe.

The one funny thing I did get from this film was the appearance of Glen/Glenda. In what must be the only time a joke hits the mark, it`s with this character and most of the target audience probably won`t even get it. The doll looks exactly like a young Bowie around his Stardust-era and appears androgynous (yes, even that gets examination in this film) before having his/her gender crisis. Even Billy Boyd`s voicing of the character is to give the doll an English accent.

If the film is bad, you can sometimes rely on good extras to recover the DVD experience a bit. The extras, however, all look as if they are spoofed to fit in with the sense of humour/comedy displayed in the film. This would be fine if the film was actually funny, but is actually immensely irritating instead.

I guess this film is aimed at the teen audience as once more a film that is trying to bill itself as scary is marketed at the younger audience with a `15` certificate. Who are they trying to kid? A film rated at `15` is never going to be scary and it might bring the bucks in but will fail on an artisitic level. I sat and watched this with my son, who is part of this target audience. He knew about the series and was eager to watch this, but ended up as bored as I was.

Regardless of how I feel about this film, you just know there`s going to be another one. Hurrah! Let`s just hope I don`t get that one though, eh…