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Review by: Jack Foley | Rating:
One
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: Audio commentary with writer-director
Don Mancini and actress Jennifer Tilly. Family Hell-iday Slideshow.
Conceiving The Seed of Chucky. Jennifer Tilly's Diary. Cast and
filmmaker's biographies.
IN terms of exhausted horror franchises, you can't get much more
worn out than the Chucky series, featuring that notorious killer
doll.
The latest installment, Seed of Chucky, reaches new depths of
desperation, attempting to merge horror with comedy and failing
on both counts.
Having got wed in Bride of Chucky, the killer doll now finds
himself faced with an extended family, having been resurrected
by a gender confused orphan, Glen (or is it Glenda?), who wants
to find out more about his 'celebrity family'.
Emerging in Hollywood, Chucky (voiced once more by Brad Dourif)
and co find themselves at the centre of a movie but seem more
content on finding a way to become human, while resolving their
own family issues into the bargain.
Hence, Chucky wants nothing more than to be left alone to continue
his killing spree, while his bride, Tiffany (voiced by Jennifer
Tilly), struggles to get in touch with her maternal side.
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In the meantime, the real-life Jennifer
Tilly (played by Tilly herself) is desperate to get her movie
career back on track by playing the Virgin Mary in a film directed
by the rapper, Redman, but finds herself an unlikely accomplice
in Chucky's attempts to find human form.
Writer-director, Don Mancini, attempts to breathe new life into
the Chucky franchise by turning it into a Hollywood satire but
is neither clever nor funny enough to make it work.
The in-jokes appear laboured from the outset, while the humour
is mostly crass, involving such visual gags as doll nudity, masturbation
and the artificial insemination of a woman by a doll.
Die-hard fans of the series might get a kick out of seeing John
Waters as a seedy paparazzo who meets a grizzly end, while the
obvious nods to the low-budget horror films of Ed Wood raise the
occasional smirk.
But they cannot hide the overall ineptitude of a movie that struggles
to justify being made from the outset.
In horror terms, it lacks a single scary moment (despite being
too violent for its 15 certificate), while its comedy is mostly
wretched.
One can only hope that the open-ended nature of the finale doesn't
give birth to another film in a series that should have been left
on the toy shelf ages ago.
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