Harefooted Halloween: Seed of Chucky

Look I’m gonna skip the usual format for this one and go straight to…

Overall Impressions: Seed of Chucky is supposed to be campy and outrageous and goofy so to simply say “I didn’t like it, it’s stupid” is doing the movie a disservice.  Sure, it’s wacky as shit but that’s also sort of the point.  To give you an idea of what you’re in for John Waters plays a paparazzo who takes pictures of Chucky masturbating through a window.  If that sounds like your cup of semen then the ball’s in your court.  If not then you’re not gonna have a good time.

We start out with Chucky and Tiffany’s offspring running away from a miserable traveling sideshow to go look for his/her/their parents (I’ll elaborate on the multiple pronouns in a moment).  When they’re found they’re in an inanimate state.  So through Damballa they’re magically brought back to life and the killing begins all over again.  The other major part of the plot is a meta reality bending twist on Hollywood and the Child’s Play franchise.  Jennifer Tilly, the real life actor, is fed up with being associated with Chucky and attempts to branch out into more diverse roles.  Redman, the famous rapper, is making a new Jesus biopic and Tilly plans to sleep with him to secure the part of the Virgin Mary (funny irony there).  Chucky and Tiffany decide to transfer their souls into Redman and Tilly but they need another body for their newly reunited kid.  So the plan then morphs into impregnating Tilly with Chucky’s semen to produce a vessel.  As you can see it’s like a lot.  And it’s like pretty fuckin’ weird.

Ok, I just wanna quickly comment on the blurring of the line between film and reality that they went for.  If Wes Craven hadn’t already done this same exact premise ten years prior of people making a new Nightmare on Elm Street film while simultaneously and unwittingly being in a new Nightmare on Elm Street film this would’ve come off a lot fresher.  New Nightmare is great too (until the finale) so Chucky treading the same territory is an uphill battle.  They don’t do that bad of a job with it but ultimately the idea comes across kinda lazy and like they were taking shots in the dark.

The part that’s an actual Chucky movie continues down the horror comedy path the previous installment set up.  But they double down on silly here.  Like Chucky and Tiffany treat their bloodlust as an addiction and she reads a twelve step book and they try to abstain from murdering.  Or Chucky runs Brittany Spears off the road and her car explodes with the quip “oops, I did it again!”.  Sometimes it’ll turn into a spoof movie like that except the jokes aren’t very clever.

One interesting aspect is the picture was ahead of the curve when it comes to gender identity.  Chucky and Tiffany’s kid doesn’t know if it’s a boy or a girl and goes back and forth throughout the movie with the dilemma.  Should the name be Glen or Glenda (a nod to Ed Wood, one of many nods to other films)?  They designed the doll in an androgynous manner as well as leave out any genitalia when Chucky pulls his/her/their pants down.  In the end Chucky and Tiffany accept their child for who he/she/they are which is touching.  Some of this subplot is played for laughs but at times it’s certainly taken seriously too.  Never would’ve expected something like that from this movie.

What this sequel is all about though is Jennifer Tilly.  It’s her film.  She plays multiple leads (including herself) and is in almost every scene.  The roles don’t offer quite enough emotional range to really call this a showcase exactly plus the material is exceptionally ridiculous, but there’s no doubt she carries the whole thing.  She has to go through being typecast as a ditzy actor, attacked by maniacal dolls who want to get her pregnant, charm Redman into casting her in his upcoming movie, give childbirth, debate prostituting herself to advance her career, see people get killed in front of her and etc.  I think she does a nice job here.  She also ends up screaming a helluva lot.

So I mean I dunno.  The picture’s kinda messy in that it’s two totally different and very bizarre ideas mashed together.  None of it makes a lick of sense, the horror elements feel tired and while there are a couple of amusing tidbits none of the humor I found to be laugh out loud funny.  At the same time I can’t get all that mad at the film because it’s meant to be outlandish, twisted and perverse.  This and Bride don’t work great for me.  I still prefer the original trilogy to this version of Chucky.