Director and creator of the iconographic figure of Chucky, Don Mancini, keeps things fresh with his clever directorial debut, Seed of Chucky. After making the wise decision to shift gears with his doll killer, making him overtly comical fairly early in the series (verses six or seven sequels down the road, long after the character has been devoid of any potential to pose a threat), he does another about-face by taking the self-conscious awareness of Bride of Chucky and exponentially increasing it, thus fashioning a meta-film in the wake of Wes Craven’s post-modern classic, Scream. In so doing, we are presented with a cross between Wes Craven’s New Nightmare and an Ed Wood film, all to an ingeniously mocking effect.
A demonic Pinocchio come to life named Shithead (Billy Boyd), who lives in London and is confined to being part of a faux ventriloquist act, watches a news segment on the latest installment in the Child’s Play series titled, “Chucky Goes Psycho.” This prompts Shithead to locate what he believes to be his parents, Chucky (Brad Dourif) and Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly). Once in Hollywood, the boy inadvertently brings two of the film’s puppets to life and, much to the doll’s pacifistic chagrin, they start a murderous rampage as the serial killing duo attempt to conceive another child amid transferring their souls into the bodies of Stan (Steve Lawton), Tilly’s limo driver, and Jennifer Tilly (playing herself).
As with Ronnie Yu’s previous installment in the Chucky franchise, Seed of Chucky opens with a spoof, in this case an allusion to Amy Heckerling’s Look Who’s Talking as we follow a sperm collective up a vaginal canal. Shortly after the opening credits cease, we are greeted by a British family, seen through the POV of a doll (recalling Tom Holland’s camerawork in the original) brandishing a butcher knife. Yet, it is obvious that the opening sequence wasn’t merely posited in order to strike a cord of familiarity with the audience because the doll quickly dispenses with the father (Simon Morgon), who falls down a stairwell backwards, before locating and killing the mother (Stephanie Chambers) while in the shower. For any disbelievers, we then cut to a movie set where, “Chucky Goes Psycho” is being filmed. Thus, the self-referential nature of Seed’s predecessor is far from having been abandoned as we are issued a latter day homage of Alfred Hitchcock’s horror classic in a less than serious guise considering our undisclosed antagonist.
The film’s self-awareness continues as Mancini, obviously a fan of Stanley Kurbrick’s horror classic due to the frequency in which it is alluded to throughout the series, has Chucky chop through a door with an ax before placing his head inside the makeshift opening (see the original for the first such homage). Cunningly, the doll pauses, before quipping, “You know, I can’t think of a thing to say.” However, for anyone unsure whether the director is taking the genre movement to post-modern reflectivity seriously, we are given a new doll, the “seed” of Chucky, which happens to be an androgynous (remember, ambiguity is key in deconstruction!) Saturday Night Live-esque Pat throwback and Michael Jackson look-alike whom his father calls “Glen” while his mother refers to as “Glenda,” a wink and nod to Ed Wood’s 1953 cult classic. For the cinema buffs, just to secure the deal, the modern day equivalent to the famed B-movie director, John Waters, appears as Pete Peters, an annoying paparazzi photographer. The eyebrow-raising nature of the title, considering what came before, is legitimized in that one, we aren’t technically sure if it is the “Son of Chucky” or the daughter and two, the title is deliberately ambiguous because whom we believe the title designates is indeed not the character in question as the finale cleverly reveals.
Not only does Mancini thumb his nose at film in general and his horror contemporaries in particular, but he creates his most potent satire to date which, for the first time, culminates into a cohesive whole. The masterstroke lies in that the personality of Chucky is perfectly suited and compliments such a cynical philosophy as we watch his wife, Tiffany, attempt to thwart her addiction to killing via a twelve step program, even going so far as to call the AA hotline fearing she’s about to slip. Yet, she isn’t doing so in order to improve herself. She attempts to clean up her lifestyle because, as she tells her plastic husband, “Killing is an addiction like any other drug. But we’re parents now. We have to set an example.” The caustic wit continues as the director holds a mirror up to Hollywood by issuing a film about the making of a film (think Robert Altman’s The Player and Spike Jonze’s Adaptation., only cast in an intentional B-horror sensibility). As such, we have Jennifer Tilly playing herself as she attempts to convince Redman, the slated director of an in-production Biblical epic (Mancini thus aligning Mel Gibson’s efforts with a character who obviously has no talent whatsoever), that she is perfect for the job by seducing her potential employer. However, Tilly’s assistant, Joan (Hannah Spearritt), unable to contend with the contradiction, explicates (perhaps a bit heavy handed) the irony, “You’re prostituting yourself to play the Virgin Mary!”
Yet for all of the satirical mayhem, there are a few moments which causes the viewer to pause, logistically baffled, the foremost of which is when Chucky spots Peters and, unable to contain his murderous impulses any longer, goes to the photographer’s house. However, we do not see the killer following Peters home (he is busy doing the world a justice by running Britney Spears off the road), thus we stop and wonder how he knew who the person was and where the lives. Yet, some cite that the “Made in Japan” imprint which Shithead uses to identify his parents runs counter to the Child’s Play mythos in that the Good Guy line is manufactured in Chicago. However, this accusation does not acknowledge that time has lapsed (Shithead is six years old and Andy had aged eight years between parts two and three and two years have lapsed between the original and its sequel, thus we are contending with a period of at least sixteen years). As such, perhaps too subtly, the director is sardonically hinting at the reliance upon oversees labor. Also, considering the movie props are just that and not actual Play Pals, the possibility that they are made elsewhere isn’t entirely forcing a large amount of the viewer’s disbelief to be suspended.
Don Mancini is to be applauded for his Seed of Chucky in that it is a well-crafted write up of Hollywood, the film industry, and the horror genre all wrapped into one. The character of Chucky succinctly fits the bill as the poster boy for discontent in this regard as we are issued spoof upon spoof while the wry wit finally aligns itself into an interesting, however anarchic (though fitting), whole. As such, the fifth installment in the Chucky series stands as arguably the second best to the original and even posits more substance in many regards than it paterfamilias.
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
