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Synopsis:
Rejected for being hideously ugly, a small figure runs through a house
in England, slaughtering the inhabitants until, after suffering ridicule
from one of its potential victims, it wakes from its nightmare to an
even worse reality: as a living doll posing as a ventriloquist’s dummy
called “Shitface”. As it unwillingly performs with its captor, Psychs
(Keith-Lee Castle), the doll ponders its existence, in particular the
‘Made In Japan’ logo on its wrist, and who and where its parents could
be…. In America, a man dressed as Santa Claus walks through a cemetery,
where he is attacked by the notorious living killer dolls, Chucky and
Tiffany. As Chucky stabs his victim again and again – and again
and again – head puppeteer Tony Gardner comes forward to announce
apologetically that Chucky is stuck in a loop and will have to be
repaired. “Santa” – actor Jason Flemyng – stalks off in disgust,
muttering about unprofessionalism, while the rest of the cast and crew
of Chucky Goes Psycho take a break, and an on-set reporter
broadcasts her story on the “killer doll” urban legend behind the
production. Elsewhere on the set, the film’s star, Jennifer Tilly, hides
out while sneaking chocolate bars. Later, as she squirms under the
praise of her personal assistant, Joan (Hannah Spearritt), for the way
she is sticking to her diet, Tilly complains about the direction that
her career has taken, and that no-one takes her seriously as an actress.
Hearing that hip-hop star turned director Redman is looking for an
actress to play the Virgin Mary in his upcoming biblical epic, Tilly
determines to reinvent herself. In England, Shitface sees the television
report on Chucky Goes Psycho – and stares, overwhelmed, at the
‘Made In Japan’ logo on the wrist of “Chucky”. While still coming to
terms with this clue to its identity, Shitface is tormented by Psychs,
who tells the doll that it has to learn to be “more scary”. Psychs puts
a rat into Shitface’s cage, hoping that the doll will give in to its
killer instincts – only to recoil in disgust when it makes a pet of the
animal instead. In one last effort to rouse the gentle Shitface, Psychs
threatens it with a lighter. The rat bites the ventriloquist on the
wrist, and in the ensuing confusion Shitface escapes, riding to freedom
in the back of a passing van, and subsequently arranging to be shipped
to the set of Chucky Goes Psycho. Back in Hollywood, Jennifer
Tilly auditions for the role of the Virgin Mary, assuring her potential
director that she will do anything – anything – to win the part.
Meanwhile, the package containing Shitface is delivered to the special
effects department of Chucky Goes Psycho. The doll frees itself
and looks around nervously. Amongst all the models, make-up and drums of
stage blood, it discovers the inert figures of “Chucky” and “Tiffany”.
Summoning up all its courage, Shitface addresses the puppets as “Dad”
and “Mum”, and becomes distraught when they do not respond. Then, with a
flash of inspiration, Shitface pulls out the amulet that it has carried
all its life, and reads aloud the mysterious inscription on the back. A
surge of strange power rips through the room – and Chucky and Tiffany
are resurrected….
Comments:
For almost as long as there have been horror movies, there have been
horror movie franchises; and for almost as long as there have been
horror movie franchises, there have been examples of the bizarre and
mind-bending – and frequently desperate – lengths to which studio
executives will go in order to keep a profitable series alive. In most
cases, these efforts are failures, the string of sequels doing nothing
more than illustrating the law of diminishing returns, with ever more
perfunctory storylines, lower production values, and worse special
effects. Every now and then, however, we encounter an exception to the
rule. Child’s Play is one of the eighties’ most fondly remembered
horror outings – “fondly remembered”, that is, in the sense that people
tend to have a lot more affection for it looking back than the film
itself actually warrants. The killer doll is one of the horror genre’s
most reliable stand-bys, of course, that rare plot device that is almost
impossible to get really wrong. Thus, essentially unsatisfactory
outings like the Puppet Master films, or even the big-budget
Magic, can succeed in getting a reaction from the viewer, just so
long as their animated inanimate stars are on screen; while when the
thing is done just right – the Zuni fetish doll, anyone? – the effect
can be nothing less than terrifying. Child’s Play sits somewhere
between these two extremes, although certainly closer to the former
examples. In truth, its only real virtues are its knife-wielding
non-human star, the soon-to-be-infamous Chucky, and the virtuoso vocal
performance of Brad Dourif that brings the doll to life. The same is
true, and to an even greater extent, of the first film’s two obligatory
sequels. After 1991’s limp and unconvincing – even by killer doll film
standards – Child’s Play 3, it was no surprise to see Chucky fade
quietly away.
What was
surprising, however, was the doll’s resurrection seven years later in
Bride Of Chucky; not for the resurrection itself, of course – if the
horror film has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t keep a
wise-cracking killer down….no matter how much you might want to – but
for it happening in a film that was such an enormous improvement over
any of its predecessors. Part of this was due to the wonderfully
off-kilter hiring of Ronny Yu to direct, and part to the franchise
finally embracing the inherent ludicrousness of its central premise.
(Previously, only Chucky himself seemed aware of just how ridiculous he
was). Bride Of Chucky is a film that pulls off some interesting
shifts in tone, being largely played for laughs, but managing to keep
its dolls eerie, occasionally even menacing. Seed Of Chucky,
however, takes that inevitable final step, tossing aside any notion that
anyone could really find Chucky and Tiffany scary any more, and
assaulting the audience as a fully fledged horror-comedy – and a
gross-out comedy, at that.
Seed Of Chucky
picks up six years after Bride, which closed with the birth of a
baby to its no longer so happy couple. The offspring of the killer pair,
when we first meet – it (the doll, we learn almost immediately,
suffers the crushing shame of being “anatomically incorrect”) – is eking
out a living of sorts in England as the stooge of the world’s most
unlikely professional ventriloquist, a Motorhead-wannabe named Psychs,
and bearing, on account of its unfortunate appearance, the sobriquet “Shitface”.
(I don’t know whether the film-makers missed their mark here, but
personally I think poor Shitface is adorably cute. On the other hand, I
always found the early pre-Chucky “Good Guy” doll unbearably creepy, so
maybe it’s just me.) Knowing nothing more of its origins than can be
inferred from the brand ‘Made In Japan’ on its wrist, Shitface escapes
its miserable existence by dreaming of parents who (cue “generic
Japanese chords”) were “Zen masters” or “ninja assassins” who “served
the Emperor”. Needless to say, Shitface is in for a bit of a shock. The
broadcasting of a puff piece from the set of Chucky Goes Psycho
provides the impetus for the doll’s escape from its tormentor, and – in
a manoeuvre that the script wisely leaves unexplicated – it manages to
get itself boxed, addressed, and shipped to Hollywood. In the special
effects department of Chucky Goes Psycho, Shitface finds the
heavily cabled, defective puppets that are standing in for its parents
in the story of their, uh, lives. Unable to get a response from the
inert figures, Shitface suddenly produces from its pocket the “Heart of
Damballa”, the unashamedly MacGuffinish amulet that nobody had heard of
before Bride Of Chucky, but which in that film suddenly became
the crux of the whole soul-transference thing. One brief incantation
later, and everyone’s favourite homicidal dolls are up and around and
doing what they do best….
Ostensibly, Seed Of
Chucky concerns the three dolls’ endless quest to transfer their
souls into human bodies. In actuality, the film is a slapdash satire of
movie-making in general, and in particular of those turgid “meaningful”
family dramas that the Academy voters always feel compelled to pretend
that they like, come Oscar time. Hey, Hollywood – you want family
values? You got it! Chucky and Tiffany are, not unnaturally, taken aback
by the sudden revelation that they are parents, but embrace their new
roles with enthusiasm. (A slight difference of opinion does arise
between the two over the re-naming of their offspring. Chucky wants a
boy, Tiffany a girl; Shitface’s sexual ambiguity allows them both
to have their way, with the child dubbed Glen….or Glenda.) Chucky dreams
of a real father-son relationship; of a manly little boy that he can
take, uh, hunting. Tiffany, recognising that she and her paramour have
“a problem with killing”, immediately puts herself into a 12-step
rehabilitation program (one that goes remarkably well until it comes to
her making amends to the people she has hurt in the past: a victim’s
widow is….less than appreciative). Glen/Glenda, no longer a lonely and
bereft little orphan, becomes rapturously happy in the new security of a
nuclear family – at least until it is somewhat forcibly borne upon
him/her that his/her loving parents are a pair of raving psychotics….
Watching your standard
Hallmark “quality drama” heart-warming moments and heart-rending
conflicts being enacted by a trio of homicidal puppets lends Seed Of
Chucky much of its humour, of course. A great deal of the rest lies
– inevitably, it seems, in this day and age – in the film’s relentless
referencing of other movies. Even the credits are a spoof, enjoyably
ridiculing the unbearable cutsieness of the Look Who’s Talking
films. All the usual suspects are here: Halloween, Psycho,
Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining….along with a few others that
one wonders if today’s younger viewers will even get. (Driven to
distraction by Chucky and Tiffany’s ceaseless squabbling, Glen/Glenda
clutches his/her head in anguish and shrieks, “You’re tearing me
apart!”) More specifically, Seed Of Chucky puts a great deal
of effort into poking fun at itself. This self-reflexiveness has
inevitably drawn comparisons with Scream; but with the
film-within-a-film subplot, and the knowingly mocking conversion of the
story of Chucky from a “real life” urban legend to the cinematic version
of the same, Scream 2 is a much better point of comparison, and
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare a better one again. Seed Of Chucky’s
two loosely parallel plots collide on the set of Chucky Goes Psycho,
in the pivotal character of Jennifer Tilly….played by Jennifer Tilly. In
Bride Of Chucky, Tilly – the real Tilly – played the human
Tiffany, who was once the girlfriend of Charles Lee Ray back in the days
when he was just the good old Lakeshore Strangler, and subsequently
(following a bit of soul transference) lent her voice to the doll
version of Tiffany. Here Tilly does, not merely double, but triple, even
quadruple duty as (let’s get this straight): (1) Jennifer Tilly,
the human star of Seed Of Chucky; (2) Jennifer Tilly, the voice
of Tiffany; (3) Jennifer Tilly, the in-film star of Chucky Goes
Psycho; and (4) Jennifer Tilly, unimaginable good sport.
Actors making fun of
themselves onscreen is nothing new, of course, but I can’t honestly
think of anyone who has taken it to the lengths that Jennifer Tilly does
in Seed Of Chucky, with a performance that rockets straight past
mere good sportsmanship into the realm of outright masochism. The
“Jennifer Tilly” we see here is a cruel – and let’s be quite clear about
this, wholly inaccurate – parody of the real thing: a dim,
pathetic, talentless bimbo constantly pouring herself into
size-too-small dresses and struggling with her weight; unable to
comprehend the unchecked downward spiral of her career (“I was an Oscar
nominee, for chrissake, and now I’m fucking a puppet!”), and eternally
bitter on the subject of Julia Roberts who, she believes, keep stealing
her roles….probably by sleeping with her directors. (There is a
lot of spiteful joking about Julia in Seed Of Chucky, but as
someone equally mystified and irritated by the magnitude of Ms Roberts’
professional success, it’s a spitefulness I can get behind. And in any
case, Tilly’s specific gripe, that she would have made a much
more convincing Erin Brockovich – and without any need for a
Wonder Bra – is too true even to be considered a joke.) Determined to
reinvent herself, Jennifer resolves to win the lead in the new “bible
epic” of – and I quote – “hip-hop superstar turned director” Redman, and
not to be too fussy how she goes about it. (Or as Tilly’s appalled P.A.
puts it, “You’re going to prostitute yourself to play the Virgin
Mary!?”) Before taking this desperate step, however, Jennifer fortifies
herself by sneaking into the special effects department of Chucky
Goes Psycho to retrieve the chocolate bar that she earlier secreted
in the overalls of her pint-sized co-star, thus crossing the paths of
the newly resurrected Chucky and Tiffany, who immediately decide that
she would not only make the perfect surrogate mother of a child into
which the soul of Glen/Glenda could be transferred, but an equally
perfect repository for Tiffany’s own soul….
The second half of
Seed Of Chucky careens from one extraordinarily tasteless moment to
the next. Some of this is funny, some of it just disgusting; while in
the film’s most notorious sequence…. If Bride Of Chucky was happy
to tell the world everything that it wanted to know about the biological
functioning of living dolls, Seed Of Chucky takes it to the point
where the audience is left begging for mercy. John Waters’ appearance in
the film at this stage, playing the “scumbag paparazzo” Pete Peters, is
a clear indication of the film-makers’ intention here, which is to mount
a serious challenge to the most nauseating section of Pink Flamingos
(by which, for the record, I do not mean the doggy-doo scene).
They don’t succeed in outdoing, or even matching, their inspiration;
nothing could; but it’s enough; more than enough. So calculated a move
on the part of Don Mancini can hardly be called a misstep; but Seed
Of Chucky definitely crosses the judgement line in the killing of
Jennifer Tilly’s P.A., Joan. For the most part this film displays an
agreeable level of mean-spiritedness, with rotten things happening to
rotten people; but to have the sweet and inoffensive Joan on the
receiving end of the film’s worst fate is a real miscalculation, one
that takes all the fun out of the revelation that Glen/Glenda has
finally become the killer his father always wanted by becoming the
daughter her mother always wanted; that is, by evolving from
David-Bowie-as-Ziggy-Stardust into Faye-Dunaway-as-Joan-Crawford. With a
sufficient number of captive people at their disposal, the time finally
arrives for the trio of dolls to take that last giant stride and become
fully human….only for Chucky, at long, long last, after four and
three-quarter films’ worth of striving, to step back and ask himself –
why? Why would he want to be human? Why not go on being
just who and what he is: “One of the most notorious slashers in history!
Chucky, the killer doll!” But Tiffany, it seems, does want to be
human. More than that, she wants to be a star. She wants to be….Jennifer
Tilly. Of course she does. What woman wouldn’t? Alas, alas….it all
ends in tears….
Perhaps the most
remarkable thing about the Child’s Play/Chucky franchise
as a whole is the way that it reverses the usual pattern of degeneration
over time. It is a given that over the course of a series of films, the
films will get worse, the budgets will get lower, the production values
will get more and more shoddy, and the special effects worse and worse.
With the first three films, this series certainly looked well on
its way downhill….but with both Bride and Seed the trend
has been thoroughly inverted, not least because their special effects
are remarkably good. Here, Chucky, Tiffany and Glen/Glenda are
extraordinarily well-realised, to an extent that lends this entire
exercise in absurdity a degree of credibility than many more serious
genre films can only dream about. It helps enormously that the dolls are
“real”, that is, mechanically- and computer-controlled puppets, not CGI
effects; and the puppeteering is just first-class. (As the DVD extras
reveal, at any given moment up to nine individuals might be involved in
bringing one of the dolls to life. Chucky sure has come a long, long way
since they stuck a midget in a doll suit….) Equally good is the vocal
work; good enough for the audience to forget that it is listening to
“acting”. Brad Dourif returns as Chucky, of course, and it is pleasing
to note that he continues here in the more naturalistic tones that he
used in Bride Of Chucky, as opposed to the exaggerated style to
which he increasingly resorted in an effort to enliven the first three
films, which was just too Jack Nicholson for words.
(Speaking of The
Shining…. I’m more than a little tired of take-offs of that
scene; you know the one I mean; so I’d just like to say, bless
Don Mancini for the scene here in which Chucky breaks through a
door with an axe, pops his face into the gap….and then comments after a
reflective moment, “I can’t think of a thing to say….”)
Jennifer Tilly does
sterling work as both Jennifer and Tiffany (the latter comments of the
former, “She has the voice of an angel!”, while the former similarly
recalls the latter’s less-than-dulcet tones as, “The sweetest voice I
ever heard!”), but the real bonus here is the contribution of Scottish
actor Billy Boyd as the voice of the sexually indeterminate Glen/Glenda,
which is a wonderfully comic – and occasionally even touching –
performance. (Billy Boyd has what must be the best recent résumé of
anyone working in film today: Master And Commander….the three
Lord Of The Rings films….Seed Of Chucky…. Boy, for some
people life just gets better and better, doesn’t it?) The gore effects
are also generally excellent. Seed Of Chucky’s head puppeteer,
Tony Gardner, is among the many people who play themselves here, and is
rewarded for it by being on the receiving end of – what else? – a gnarly
decapitation. There’s also an incineration, a face-melting acid bath, a
ridiculously bloodless disemboweling (deliberately ridiculous, that is),
and a wide variety of stabbings, axings and limb-loppings. Ah, good
times!
By now, I’m sure I’ve
said more than enough to let you know whether Seed Of Chucky is
really the film for you. Yes, it’s gross. Yes, it’s puerile. Yes, it’s
very frequently extremely stupid. On the other hand, I believe that I
can say this with confidence: Seed Of Chucky is one of the best
films about familially challenged, sexually active, voodoo animated
homicidal dolls that you will ever see.
Material for this review generously
provided by Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
SEED OF CHUCKY
– Unrated And Fully Extended – released on Region 1 DVD 7th
June 2005
Running time:
88 min
Aspect ratio:
1.85:1, anamorphic widescreen
Layers: Dual
Technical info:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround/English DTS 5.1 Surround
Subtitles:
English captions; Spanish and French subtitles
Extras include:
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Audio commentaries
with writer/director Don Mancini, star Jennifer Tilly and head
puppeteer Tony Gardner
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Conceiving the
Seed Of Chucky: a three-part
documentary looks into the legacy of Chucky through nearly two
decades, five films, hundreds of gallons of blood, numerous puppeteers
and countless victims
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A storyboard to final
feature comparison
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Heeeere’s Chucky:
Chucky interviewed by Jim Monet
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Tilly on “The Tonight
Show”: Jennifer Tilly fills in The Tonight Show’s Jay Leno about the
blood, sweat and tears that go into working with Chucky and Redman.
Particularly the blood.
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FuZion Up Close
with the Seed Of Chucky stars:
behind-the-scenes revealing interviews with Chucky and Tiffany, who
speak publicly about their lives as a Hollywood couple
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Family Hell-iday
Slide Show: Chucky, Tiffany and Glen(da)
host the first viewing of their exploits and axe-wounds through Paris,
New York and Hollywood, proving that the family that slays together,
stays together
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Slashed Scene:
with commentary by writer/director Don Mancini and actress Debbie
Carrington
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Chucky’s Insider
Facts On Demand
Also available on
DVD (R Rated, Full Frame and Anamorphic Widescreen) and VHS (R Rated,
Full Frame)
"Hell hath no fury like the vast robot
armies of a woman scorned." |
