Seed of Chucky

Seed of Chucky (Director: Don Mancini)

This is Mancini's feature debut but the Child's Play series, for what its worth, owes a lot to him as he has been credited as screenwriter or co-writer of all five movies. He directed an episode of "Tales From the Crypt" and that is the total range of his experience.

And Seed of Chucky is clearly the worst movie of the year so far, and with little time left, might have a hard time losing that distinction. Following the actually OK Bride of Chucky which introduced us to an early, silhouetted glimpse of dolls having sex that Team America would later make explicit, Seed of Chucky was made as a complete horror spoof. The results are jaw-droppingly bad.

Jennifer Tilly plays herself and the voice of psychotic wife of Chucky, Tiffany. The movie contains an exhaustive collection of jokes about her career, her voice, and her boobs. It is as if the filmmakers, when confronted with the crap that they were about to make, went the "shrug" route and decided to make fun of themselves. But these self-inflicted punches are merely glancing blows when it should have been a lot harder. This could have been a fairly hilarious farce if given the proper treatment, but no one was willing to truly pound themselves in a respectable masochistic way.

Two Lord of the Rings alums lend voices. Billy Boyd, who played Pippin, voices the "seed" of Chucky, an androgynous, peace-loving waif who tries to find its parents, only to discover they are homicidal. Brad Dourif, who played Wormtongue, was Chucky before that and has voiced the doll in all five movies. The presence of these actors adds to a long list of LOTR brethren who have failed this year to be a success in anything else. The only true success is on TV, Dominic Monaghan in "Lost."

Oh yeah, for any of you who may enjoy John Waters, the Baltimore director behind Pink Flamingos and several other trash-art movies, he plays a sleazy reporter who, of course, will die horrifically. His presence in the movie would have suggested at least a little bit of inspiration for this film, and his performance may be the best thing about this movie (which might amuse Waters, who doesn't take his filmmaking seriously), but he's in this all too briefly.

The plot...Tilly is trying to make herself a success again, and the role of the Virgin Mary is up for grabs in a movie directed by rapper Redman. Being turned down because Julia Roberts is the first choice, Tilly plans to sleep with Redman to get the part (ha, ha). In the meantime, Chucky's kid, later to be named Glen by its father but Glenda by its mother (ha, ha...Glen or Glenda...) tries to rehab his parents for the family, which they can't do, and decide that they will artificially inseminate Jennifer Tilly to make another child, one that I guess they hope will want to kill as they do. If that sounds like a terrific time at the movies, keep in mind that you'll see about three or four scenes where Glen wets himself, a silhouetted Chucky masturbatory scene, death scenes that feature as much blood as possible (I believe in one scene, blood, semen, and urine are all present) and try to be funny but the whole schlocky bloodbaths are as stale as those that try to be scary.

I don't know why it is, but bad horror movies are usually the worst movies of any genre. Since horror movies are one toe away from being comedies if not done correctly, they may be the most dangerous high-wire act in filmmaking. This movie set out to be a comedy, so that balancing act went out the door, and with it, the reason to try to make something good at all. The hands are up in the air, anything goes, it's crap, so why try? An effort would have been rewarding.