6 Years after ‘Bride of Chucky’ introduced us to Tiff and bought our psychotic good guy back to the big screen in roaring fashion, I was honestly kind of surprised at the time to see Chucky reappear on the scene in ‘Seed of Chucky’. It had honestly been a long time coming and a lot of goodwill grew on ‘Bride’ in the years after its release. Unfortunately, ‘Seed’ to me feels like the cinematic equivilent of one of those guys who tells a mid-tier joke, gets a chuckle from the audience and then latches on to that quip/punchline for the entire rest of the evening reducing what could have been a quite enjoyable time to an insufferable and grating ‘trapped in an elevator’ experience.

The film picks up in present day 2004, and we’re introduced to Glen (Or Glenda!) the lovechild of Tiffany and Chucky as teased at the end of the last film, now all grown up (well…he’s 7 but apparently voo doo related pregnancies and births have an accellerated growth, so lord knows how old they actually are).

Glen was recovered by a gothey looking ventriloquist, who brought him back to the UK with him and basically abused him and used him as a dummy on the professional circuit. Glen has a ‘Made in Japan’ engraving on his wrist, and wouldnt you know it! One night while being allowed to watch TV, he catches an interview with Jennifer Tilly on the set of a new ‘Chucky’ movie thats being shot, and in the interview, Glen sees that Chucky has the same ‘Made in Japan’ tattoo on HIS wrist, meaning, Chucky and Tiffany MUST be his parents! SO! hitching a ride out of the UK over to LA, Glen is reunited with the dolls, ressurects them, and finds himself embroiled in a kidnapping attempt involving the actress Jennifer Tilly while ALSO coming to terms with the fact his parents are ACTUALLY notorious murderers AND having to battle a gender identity crisis that borders on transphobic (Not to get into TOO heavy a set of spoilers, but this DOES play on the murderous trans person trope…)

I just do NOT jam with this film…apart from the aforementioned mild transphobia (which somehow in some trans communities been reformed into Glen being an Icon? im not entirely sure how based on this film) the film is quite comfortable joking about sexual assault, gross out humour is the meal of the day, random nudity is pretty prevelent here (which, given NON of the childs play films up to this point have had ANY nudity at ALL really…was surprising.) It feels like an attempt at making a ‘Chucky’ film for a low brow audience, and I found myself tolerating the film for most of the runtime.

I landed on my exact feelings on this film a few years ago. If ‘Bride of Chucky’ was an independently rooted production from the mind of Don Mancini that married up the classic Universal monsters feel with undertones of John Waters style humour. Then ‘Seed of Chucky’ is an overt John Waters fan film. Its TOO blunt, TOO crass and TOO in your face, its not what the franchise is known for and not what its about. the tone of this film borders in places on ‘TV movie’ terratory, when I can compare your movie to the ‘Scary Movie’ franchise in terms of tone and humour, you know you’ve really lost your way.

The script is really more a series of happenings with the kidnapping and sexual assault of Jennifer Tilly being used as the THINNEST string to hold the whole production together. Make no. mistake, this is really just a vague series of happenings building to a rather predictable, parody heavy and eye rolling finale that feels tired…which is INSANE when you consider this was only the second ‘Chucky’ movie and that it had been 13 years since the series last had a regular and recurring sequel. This really could have been fertile ground. We had ‘Chucky in the 80s’, ‘Chucky in the post modern 90s’. and ‘Seed’ was ripe for a lampooning of post 9/11 celeb worship culture, cusp of social media..dom…and it just isnt…its Chucky and Tiff hanging around a mansion for 50 minutes occasionally picking people off for fun.

The scripts TOO self aware for its own good, theres too many pop culture references, too many 4th wall breaks, too many lazy attempts at humour, theres being inspired by John Waters, and then theres ACTUALLY cramming John Waters into your movie for some…random reason. I will overlook the occasional slur in this thing purely because of the time it came out (though that doesnt give it a free pass for the slurs it does use) But its SUCH a weak piece honestly.

The pacings all over the place and never quite right, its always either too slow and plodding, or too fast and incoherent. the tones totally off base, the characters are all too self aware and goofy for me. the good messages they TRY to promote get lost in a sea of banal randomness that seemed built more for online engagement, than for the benefit of making a coherent film.

The directions spot on for what its trying to do, but that doesnt mean I like it. its hypercolourful in a garish and unpleasent way, the planning for sequences is breakneck and equally incoherent, the overreliance on CGI is annoying and the quality quite poor even for the time. I didnt feel immersed in this films world, I felt like I was constantly on the verge of a commercial break.

The cine is probably this films strongest element, there are some strong shots in this, the compositions are both iconic and interesting, and even if the colour use in this made me feel nausious. I am at least somewhat grateful they DID bother to experiment with colour a bit more, given this film came out right at the start of the ‘Dirt brown and sludge orange’ era of horror movie colour grading.

What ruins it, is the editing. which is too fast paced, doesnt give the audience time to appreciate the shot structuring, experiments FAR too much with overlaying shots and just felt unpleasent to sit through.

Performance wise, Jennifer Tilly is the best thing in this film even somehow outshining the almighty Brad douriff in her duel role as Tiff and the actress Jennifer Tilly…its hardly a stretch lets be honest, she plays herself and arguably one of her most iconic characters…But, she does it really well and is arguably the one reason to really kind of check out this thing. I feel like this is Brads poorest performance as Chucky…he’s still great mind, but he just…doesnt really have a lot to do or say…most of his time in the film is just him reacting to things…it feels like he’s being upstaged in his own movie…

Billy Boyde as Glen really didnt do it for me, the english accent grated on me and left me desperately wishing they hadnt made that creative choice. Because Glen IS the movie…its a bit of a stink bomb performance that lingers WELL past my own tolerance level.

Add to this, the soundtrack just…isnt that great…its standard horror orchestral pieces and jukebox covers of pop classics…a BIG step down from ‘Bride’ that only further frustrated this production.

‘Seed of Chucky’ is an annoying film. while it absolutely has its moments, its trying SO hard to feel like a John Waters movie, it forgets what it ACTUALLY is and ends up, ironically, in a bit of an identity crisis over what it ACTUALLY wants to be. I didnt enjoy it particularly, I didnt hate it…But its absolutely not one i’ll be reaching for in future, and not one I can really recommend.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/seed-of-chucky/