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SEED OF CHUCKY (2004)
It'd be great fun if it didn't have Chucky It really doesn't get much sillier than this, like you couldn't tell from the fact that this is the fifth movie to star Chucky, the killer doll. 1998's Bride Of Chucky was a howl, managing to fuse its goofiness and its excitement pretty seamlessly into a fun whole. Six years on, that's clearly the spirit which is trying to be re-created here, this time directed by longtime Chucky writer Don Mancini. So, here's the good: in probably the most self-effacing self-portrayal I've ever seen, Jennifer Tilly deserves some sort of carved-out-of-a-mountainside statue for this movie. "Good sport" doesn't even begin to describe it. Elsewhere, it's got John Waters, and that slack-jawed skinny British guy we see all the time. It does have a rapper (Redman), but to his credit, he's a really good sport too, especially for someone who was replaced by Bam Margera to shill deodorant. All sounds fun, at least the sort of fun you'd find fun if you found Bride Of Chucky fun, right? And all of that is, but all of that is not all the movie. The rest of the movie - which is the part that focuses on Chucky - is turdsville. Which is a problem, because there's no market for a Chucky movie where the Chucky bits don't work. There's barely a market for a Chucky movie where the Chucky bits DO work. Chucky at this point has sired a son with his doll bride, resulting in a new doll that's half Chucky and half drag queen. Named Glen. Or, Glenda. Get it? Neither half is funny, neither half is scary, and the fact that the doll kid looks like a red-haired version of Michael Jackson (before his nose fell off) could've been funny or scary but, again, is neither. The kid can't decide whether to dress up as a lady like mom (who loves him unconditionally), or kill people like dad (who loves him on the condition that he kill people), so he eventually figures out that these things are neither mutually exclusive or even without substantial precedent. Chucky himself is dealing with his serial killing (that is, being made to deal with it by his responsible bride) the way Marge made Homer deal with alcoholism; which lead to a lot of expected "I can quit any time I want!"-type jokes, but there's no equivalent of, say, "Does whiskey count as beer?" On the Chucky side of things, that's the whole movie. It's the Jennifer Tilly side of things which is worth watching. Tilly more or less plays herself, which is reason enough for me to watch right there, but she's playing a brutally unflattering, loser-riffic version of herself where she'll wallow in any character flaw or humbling career low (real, exaggerated or invented) for a laugh. The Child's Play movies have long since crossed the line where they're never going to get a scare out of anyone again, so its transition into more or less pure comedy (violent, gory comedy) is perfectly natural and unlike other wacky-fied horror franchises, I can't imagine there being a core group of Chucky fans which want the doll moved back into the shadows so he can be a creepy killer again. So, great. Chucky's sixteen years old at this point, and he's grown up to be a comedian, which is fine. Is it too much to ask that he be funny? His show is stolen by - actually, more like handed over to - Tilly, Redman, and the hilarious closing credits, which show each cast member at their most undignified. (c) Brian J. Wright 2006 BACK TO THE S's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE |