Recap #257: Seed of Chucky (2004)
Title: Seed of Chucky
Director/Writer: Don Mancini
Released: Nov. 12, 2004 (US release)
Tagline: Get a load of Chucky/Fear the second coming/Deliver us some evil (I could have sworn it was “The family that slays together stays together,” but apparently I’m imagining that.) [Dove: Nope. That’s the tagline I remember too.] [JC: Maybe it was in promotional stuff, but never made it to official tagline status, then?]
Description: Gentle Glen (Billy Boyd) is a ventriloquist’s dummy, the offspring of evil doll Chucky (Brad Dourif) and his doll bride (Jennifer Tilly), both of whom are now deceased. When the orphaned Glen hears that a film is being made about his parents, he goes to Hollywood and resurrects them in an attempt to get to know them better. He is horrified when Chucky and his lover embark on a new killing spree, and Chucky is equally horrified that his son has no taste for evil.
Initial Thoughts
You know, before I rewatched this for this recap, I thought my biggest problem was going to be the fear of misgendering Glen/Glenda the doll. Then I rewatched it, and realized I was going to have to recap a scene with a turkey baster full of cum. We recappers lead charmed lives. [Dove: JC texted me that phrase about sixteen times during her recap session.]
So, this movie has a 4.8/10 on IMDb and a 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. Interestingly, Child’s Play 3 has a 5.1 on IMDb but a 29% Rotten Tomatoes. Which means that there are people who think this movie is better than Child’s Play 3. I don’t know how that’s possible, but there we have it. (Brad Dourif himself dislikes 3 the most, but now I’m wondering if that quote was from before this movie was made. Because holy shit, dude. Holy shit.) [Dove: Or possibly he was made aware of the tenuous connection I mentioned to the murder of James Bulger? I know it didn’t make major news in the US, but apparently Michael Jackson heard about it and contact the family, so perhaps Dourif was made aware as the lead in the movie in question? If so, that could explain how an average movie is more disliked than a genuinely terrible one.]
Okay, so I said in an earlier recap that I have some affection for this movie, which stems from it being the only Chucky movie I’ve ever seen on the big screen. I’m now thinking of the missed opportunity I had to see the original Child’s Play a few years ago, and getting more and more annoyed about it. Seed doesn’t deserve to have the distinction of being the only Chucky movie I’ve experienced in the movie theater! It’s not fair!
Let me explain. Several years ago, I was online dating. I started talking to a guy we’ll call Major Tom. Now, I liked to (and still do) ask people what their favorite bad movie is as a conversation starter. When I asked Major Tom this question, he hemmed and hawed a bit, at least as much as you can over email, then finally named Child’s Play. Okay, I thought that answer was a little strange since the general consensus on the first movie at least is that it’s pretty good. But whatever; we hadn’t even met yet, and I didn’t see the point in arguing. Cut to us deciding to meet, and trying to decide on an activity for our first meeting/date. It was October, which I basically treat as Halloween all month long, and the local second-run theater (that has since been torn down; there’s a Cracker Barrel there now) was showing Friday and Saturday late night showings of Child’s Play. Now, I would never normally suggest a movie as a first meeting, but this was fucking perfect! It’s Major Tom’s favorite “bad” movie; I would fucking love to get to see it on the big screen (since I was 7 when it was first released, that was never really an option before); let’s go! Right?
So, I text Major Tom and tell him, hey, you said you like Child’s Play, right? The Palace is showing it as their “midnight” movie (they would usually have a showing at 8 or 9 pm, then again at 10 or 11pm), what do you say we do that? And the text I got back was . . . weird. I don’t remember exactly what Major Tom said, but the impression was along the lines of “Um . . . okayyyyyyy . . . why are you suggesting this?” along with a strange emoticon I neither remember nor can describe. (Helpful, I know.) So, confused, I ask him what this reaction is all about, and he responds that, well, when I’d asked about bad movies, he’d thought that was a bad movie. Still confused, I replied that no, I’d asked what his favorite bad movie was and that was what he’d said. FAVORITE. Anyway, he started backpedaling and saying well, it had been a long time since he’d seen it, he didn’t remember it, and we could still go if I wanted to. But since watching something I love with someone who’s hating every minute of it is a thing that makes me horribly uncomfortable and miserable, I declined. We ended up eating sushi and playing pool instead. And then dating for three of the most miserable months of my life. But that trainwreck is another story.
Anyway, that’s how this trainwreck remains to this day the only Chucky movie I’ve caught on the big screen. I’m sure it’s probably someone’s favorite bad movie, but that person is not me.
[Dove: Asking that question also led you to watching Necromentia. This question, while interesting and engaging, is bringing you nothing but bad things.] [JC: I wish I had a brilliant, glowing example to counter this, but the best I’ve got is Shakma – a “killer baboon runs amok in Roddy McDowall’s laboratory while Tina from A Nightmare on Elm Street and her friends have a LARPing game session in this building for some fucking reason” movie. It was recommended to me through that question, and all in all was quite a bit of fun.] [Dove: I can’t remember what the movie was called, but there was a movie on LoveFilm (remember them?) that had a summary along the lines of “Suzy is sick of her abusive father. She comes home from work and he beats her up and steals her money. He storms out and comes back with a BENGAL TIGER. Now she’s home alone, during a storm, with A TIGER.” And Raven and I were just like, “wow”.]
Recap
We open . . . oh for fuck sake, that’s supposed to be cum dripping down our screen, isn’t it? Stay classy, Don fucking Mancini. So, yeah, while the credits play, we’re treated to CG sperm swimming through a CG vaginal canal, cervix, uterus, what have you. Can I retroactively punch Look Who’s Talking for making this opening credits sequence a thing? (Also, it looked so much better in that movie. Also also, when I was 8ish years old and saw that movie for the first time, I had no idea why we were being shown all these white tadpoles or what the fuck they had to do with the movie. And now I’m suspecting this recap is going to be full of side-tangents, because as Dove texted me when she read my Major Tom story up there, “anything that isn’t about Seed is a good step forward.”) [Dove: I also texted you “THREE MINUTES OF ANIMATED SPAFF CREDITS? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” So yes, I stand by what I said.] [JC: “Spaff” is very British, isn’t it? I don’t think I would have known what it meant out of context. Thank God for this context, amirite?]
We’re shown the formation of the doll fetus (there’s a brand new sentence), complete with needle-sharp teeth and a “Made in Japan” stamp on the wrist, and I’m annoyed that we’re starting here when we already saw the fucking birth at the end of the last movie. This shit goes on for two and a half minutes, by the way.
We have doll POV as a little British girl rips wrapping paper away from us and tells her parents we’re the ugliest thing she’s ever seen. There’s no name on the card, and Dad speculates that we’re probably one of Uncle Arthur’s little jokes. The little girl locks us in a chest, which we escape from what I can only assume is hours later, to go on a rampage through the house. A tiny little doll hand reaches out from us and grabs the world’s largest butcher knife out of the birthday cake just sitting on a table in the living room. Dove, are there ants in England? Because I’m pretty sure this is a recipe for an ant infestation. [Dove: Raven and I are still not talking about who was to blame for the great ant infestation of 2017 after a lolly wrapper was found on the floor. Also, those generic British accents are terrible, even though the mum is actually from Birmingham (and thus, should sound nothing like she does in the movie).]
Also, when the doll hand pulls the knife out of the cake, there’s a metallic ching! noise for some fucking reason. Apparently this cake is made from adamantium.
There’s heavy breathing amid plenty of thunder and lightning as we/the doll make our way through the house, eventually being picked up by Dad, told again how hideous we are (I’m starting to get a complex here), and Dad condescendingly reams out Daughter (Claudia) for leaving her toys lying around. Then we stab him, because fuck this prick.
We make our way back up the stairs to the bathroom, where Mom is taking a shower, and here we get the very first nudity in a Chucky movie. Lucky us. Mom screams at us, slips in the shower, wraps herself up in the shower curtain, and falls out of the shower, cracking her head open on the floor. But, you know, still managing to be positioned with one nipple prominently displayed.
We catch a glimpse of our doll self in the mirror, then head into the little girl’s room to stab her, but she’s placed another doll under the covers as a decoy. We stab the knife into the doll’s face in frustration, then turn to see the little girl accuse us of killing her Mummy and Daddy. Then we look down, and we’ve pissed our pants. As little Claudia is kind enough to point out, repeatedly, until we wake up. Yup. This was a fucking dream sequence.
We’re thrown out of the first-person POV and treated to this fucking monstrosity screaming, and a long-haired man yelling at the doll to wake up because the doll is pissing its pants.
And here I realize that although I tend to think of this doll as male, it’s deliberately ambiguous so they can make all their Glen or Glenda references later, and now I hate this movie for making me worry about misgendering a fucking doll. I’m going to use he/him until it’s actually addressed later on.
Anyway, we’re at the International Ventriloquists Competition in Glastonbury, England. For some reason, Long-Hair and Doll have their own stage, and the lights above it tell us that their names are Psychs and Shitface. Their routine is about what you’d expect from that name, with the routine alluding to the fact that Shitface isn’t even anatomically correct ( . . . are dolls normally? None I ever had were. I know there are some now that are, but that’s a pretty recent thing.), and that Psychs found him six years ago in a cemetery back in the States. Cool, glad we got through that backstory gracefully. *eyeroll*
Then we get some voiceover narration from Shitface, waxing poetic about his parents, wondering if they were zen masters and served the Emperor. Due to the “Made in Japan” stamp on the wrist, you see. Shitface wouldn’t hurt a fly, and doesn’t know why he has such violent dreams. [Dove: The horror references in Bride were a lot. Referencing one of the most prominent movies in the genre (Psycho) with this piece of garbage is kind of like when new Point Horror references Hamlet: it makes you hyper-aware of how shit this really is.] [JC: One of the first books I recapped was so very terrible, and it just kept referencing Ray Bradbury and Clive Barker stories. Way to make yourself look even worse by comparison, Author.]
As Shitface wonders about who his parents were, we fade to Jason Flemyng, dressed as Santa, walking through a graveyard and talking on the phone telling someone he’s going to make them believe in Santa tonight, you naughty girl. Now, I like Jason Flemyng a lot, and under normal circumstances probably wouldn’t mind him calling me a naughty girl, but in this movie . . . it’s just cringe as fuck. Also, Flemyng has said that the only film he’d erase from his filmography is this one, stating “I was dressed as Santa, getting killed by a doll, on a set in Romania, thinking ‘Where did it go wrong?'” I mean, I get it. But they can’t all be Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, can they? (God, I love that movie. I think I’m gonna go watch that instead.)
The woman on the phone breaks up with Jason, a knife stabs its way out of the bag slung over his shoulder and proceeds to spill all the toys out on the ground behind him. I have no idea why Santa is walking through a cemetery with a bag of toys, but whatever. Then Jason spots Chucky leaning against a tombstone, and as they stare at each other, Tiffany comes up behind him and starts strangling Jason with a Slinky. Then Chucky stabs him, the dolls lament the fact that Santa isn’t real (sorry, kids), and Chucky continues stabbing while asking if he has any idea how that can fuck with your mind (stab) fuck with your mind (stab) fuck with your mind (stab) . . .
Jason sits up, wipes blood out of his eyes, and complains that Chucky’s broken again. Then the camera pulls out and reveals we’re on a movie set, complete with animatronic Chucky and Tiffany. And the dolls look different enough in this movie that it really bothers me, but I can’t put my finger on what it is. I know the designs/effects change with every movie, but this one bothers me more than anything before this, and I just don’t know what it is.
[Dove: I live-texted my reaction of this movie to JC, (because apparently I hate her?) [JC: Shut up; I’m disappointed when you don’t live-text me your reactions.], and while talking about this issue, we’ve narrowed it down to several things:
- The cost of needing three puppets instead of two meant all three looked cheaper and had fewer details.
- They look like they’ve been photoshopped so they are perfectly smooth – which is probably down to less detail on their faces. [JC: I think this is what it is for me. They’re so smooth and shiny that they look like bad CGI.]
- They look like they’ve kept the heads the same size but made them squatter and wider.
- Tiffany, for some inexplicable reason, now looks like Sarah Michelle Gellar.]
Anyway, we’re 11 minutes in, and we’ve already had a dream sequence and a movie-within-a-movie. Things aren’t looking good for us so far.
Jason storms off the set, complaining about how unprofessional this is, and the crew are calling him “Jason,” so I assume he’s playing himself. Also, given how he apparently feels about this movie, probably not acting. (He was good friends with one of the producers, who talked him into appearing here.)
It’s revealed that the title of the movie is Chucky Goes Psycho, and I’m glad the real titles of the movies never stooped that low. (I say, as I watch a movie whose title is literally about cum.)
Cut to Jennifer Tilly, in a wedding dress, sneaking a candy bar on set. She’s playing herself, but I’m trying to figure out the movie-within-the-movie. She’s clearly the voice of Tiffany, but is she also physically appearing in the movie, and if not, why is she wearing a wedding dress? And if so, what is the story of this movie that involves her in a wedding dress? [Dove: I hadn’t even thought of that. I was already stuck on the first level of stupid, never mind that it goes on like the mirror image of a mirror.]
Also, this movie will spend its run time fat-shaming Jennifer Tilly as a “joke,” and I’m sure there’s a conversation to be had about unrealistic body standards in Hollywood, but this isn’t the movie to start that conversation. I just keep thinking that if we’re supposed to think Jennifer Tilly is fat, the rest of us regular non-Hollywood women must be absolutely grotesque hogs. So, thanks for making me feel like a fucking whale, movie.
Jennifer’s assistant, Joan, gives her a Skinny Quick, which I assume is this universe’s Slim Fast, and compliments her on sticking to her diet as Jennifer hides her candy bar in Chucky’s overalls and complains about Julia Roberts stealing parts out from under her by sleeping with the director. And I’ll say this now – Jennifer Tilly as Tiffany is delightful. Jennifer Tilly as Jennifer Tilly is . . . less so. They’ve somehow made the character of Jennifer Tilly unlikable, so fuck them for that.
Joan reads from the casting paper, telling Jennifer that hip-hop superstar turned director Redman is looking for a female lead to cast in his upcoming Bible epic, and Jennifer gets excited. At least, until Joan snickers that he’s casting for the Virgin Mary. So now we’re slut-shaming Jennifer, too. Cool cool cool. This movie isn’t nuanced enough to get away with passing this off as biting commentary on the assumptions society has based on a person’s appearance, so it just comes off as a trashfire and makes me want to throw things.
Goddammit. Where was I?
Back in England, Shitface is watching the Chucky and Tiffany dolls give an interview on Access Hollywood, and when Chucky waves, Shitface sees the “Made in Japan” stamp on his wrist and deduces that he’s not an orphan after all! Now, you may be thinking, “But JC, the Good Guys dolls are manufactured in America, right down the street from Fuckwit Phil and Jerkass Joanne, in fact!” [Dove: God bless you for using those names.] [JC: I thought you’d like that.] and I would agree. However, in the last movie, Tiffany put Chucky back together with her own random doll parts, and presumably one of those was made in Japan. Also, I wonder why we get the “character” of Jennifer Tilly in this, doing Tiffany’s voice, but we never see Brad Dourif as himself, even though he’s presumably the voice of Chucky in this universe, too. I mean, by this point he looked nothing like he did at the start of the series, so it’s not like it was because there would be confusion between “Brad Dourif” and “Charles Lee Ray.” Anyway, this movie is so disgustingly, confusingly meta that I doubt they would have given a shit about that. [Dove: I initially wrote the same question above before reading this paragraph. Recap twin brain. Couldn’t we at least have had Robert Englund show up to be the voice of Chucky if Dourif’s appearance would be confusing? That would have been a really nice horror nod.]
Psychs comes in and insults Shitface, then throws a rat into his cage to try to torture him, but Shitface promptly makes friends with the rat. The rat then bites Psychs to protect Shitface, and this doll remake of Willard is really weird.
Shitface escapes, runs down the road, jumps in the back of a garbage truck, then somehow gets on a plane and flies to Hollywood. Yeah. I don’t know, either. [Dove: Also, the run animation was reminiscent of The Snowman. Hi, non-Brits, this is a staple of a British Christmas.]
Cut to Jennifer on the casting couch, auditioning for Redman. He’s paying more attention to her boobs than her words, then tells her he’s got someone else in mind. She offers to do the audition another way, including as a rap, to which he and I are both like, NO! Oh, and the other person he had in mind? Julia Roberts. Jennifer invites Redman over to her place so he can reconsider his choice in a more “intimate” setting. Oh, honey.
Cut back to Shitface cutting his way out of a shipping box in a special effects room, then being slightly horrified by the props all around him. He comes across the Chucky and Tiffany dolls under a tarp, and starts talking to them, thinking they’re just sleeping. He pulls out the amulet that never existed before the last movie (as Dove has named the trope, “that brand new tradition we’ve always had”), and asks if the words on it are the family motto. I mean . . . kinda, yeah. [Dove: Also for the Dourif fam. Hi, Fiona, we’re nearly at her movie now!] [JC: She’s a delight. I can’t wait for the next two movies.]
Shitface thinks the reason they’re ignoring him is because of the way he looks, and then begs them to wake up. Then he remembers the words written on the back of the amulet, and reads them aloud: “Ade due Damballa, awake!” All the lights start exploding, and . . . Chucky and Tiffany are suddenly alive again.
Really? REALLY?! That’s all it fucking takes? Since. Fucking. When.
[Dove: Is anyone else really really sad that all the other dolls, animatronics and Stan Winston knock-offs in the room didn’t also come to life? This movie is a piece of shit. It would have been better if they just clusterfucked it with loads of horror icons.] [JC: Frankenstein’s monster on a rampage would have been a nice touch after that movie was referenced so hard in Bride.]
Chucky asks who the hell he is, and both dolls laugh when Shitface introduces himself as such. Tiffany asks about his parents, and Chucky insults Shitface’s appearance and, by extension, his parents’ looks. Then Shitface raises his hand, revealing the Made in Japan stamp, Chucky looks at the stamp on his own wrist, Shitface greets them in Japanese, Tiffany is thrilled, while Chucky promptly passes out.
Tiff realizes she’s got animatronic shit coming out of her back; Shitface points out that they’re movie stars and he saw them on the telly. Then an effects guy comes into the room, and Chucky commands that they go into “Barbie mode.” Which looks like this:
The special effects guy comes in and unhooks Tiffany, telling someone over his headset that if they want the dolls to work right, he’s going to have to take them apart. Shitface asks Chucky if Mummy is ill, and Chucky comments that the courts thought so. And yet Tiffany was out walking around free instead of locked up in a “mental institution”? I’m now kind of picturing Tiffany with a Harley Quinn type backstory. [Dove: I’m pretty sure she was regarded as trailer trash, but not, y’know, dangerous. Can we have a Tiffany movie to explain it?] [JC: Huh. From the things she says in Bride, I assumed she was always a killer herself, either with Chucky or she kept up the tradition after he died. I mean, she didn’t seem to have any qualms about killing Bailey, so I assumed that wasn’t her first kill.] [Dove: Oh, yes, I agree. She’s not new to the killing. I just meant that she’s far better at it than her fella, since I read it that she’s never even been suspected, never mind caught.]
Special FX Dude unscrews a panel in Tiffany’s back, and we see a very organic spine and meaty . . . stuff. And this seems awfully fast to be turning real compared to everything we’ve been told before, but this is the movie that pisses all over all the previous rules, so I’m not even going to bother going on a tangent about it.
Tiffany’s head spins around, she quips, “Head’s up” and Chucky tosses some sort of tension wire around FX Dude’s neck, where Tiffany catches the other end and they pull, decapitating him. (At first I thought this might count as a strangulation, but then the head pops off, so I guess not. Dove? [Dove: Hard nope. His head pops off before he can die from the oxygen loss.]) Blood splatters across the dolls’ faces and they look at each other as romantic music swells. Then Shitface promptly pisses their pants again. [Dove: Also, this kill came across as “here’s the cool 3D you cool kids love so much because it’s coooool“, even though it wasn’t in 3D.]
Chucky and Tiffany stop making out so Chucky can point out that Shitface is pissing their pants, and Tiffany tells him it’s okay, she just had an accident. Chucky corrects Tiffany – “You mean he had an accident.” Then they look at Shitface, who says “Don’t ask me.”
Cut to them pulling Shitface’s pants down and looking at the smooth plastic between their legs. This is a movie I paid money to watch. (Twice, in fact, as I rented it on DVD at some point, along with paying for me and a date to go to the cinema to watch it.) This is a movie I arranged the recapping schedule so that I would be the one covering it. I did this to myself. [Dove: Yeah, I’ve been known to gently engineer my way out of things I don’t want to recap. I didn’t even have to make the effort here. JC volunteered.] [JC: I am a chump. A chump who had forgotten vast swaths of this movie.]
Tiffany gloats that see, it’s a beautiful little girl, while Chucky counters that he just hasn’t had his growth spurt yet; he’s just a late bloomer and that’s perfectly okay! I . . . guess good for Chucky for being a supportive father . . . ? I’m reaching here, I know.
Then Chucky says it’s time for Shitface to have a real name, and names them Glen. Tiffany prefers Glenda for her beautiful daughter, and I can’t decide if this movie deserves to be winking at Ed Wood or not. Also, the boyfriend-at-the-time that I originally saw this with, despite being 20+ years older than me, had never heard of Glen or Glenda and didn’t understand why I thought the reference was funny. Then again, when we saw Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, he thought that was the weirdest movie he’d ever seen. While it has its moments, it doesn’t even come close to anything I would consider the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen, so I guess I can’t be surprised he wasn’t familiar with Glen or Glenda, even though I thought it was a pretty common knowledge reference.
Then Jennifer Tilly sneaks into the prop room to retrieve her candy bar from Chucky’s overalls, kicking the FX Dude’s head around because she thinks it’s fake. Tiffany is star-struck by Jennifer Tilly, which is actually pretty cute and deserves to be in a better movie. Jennifer picks the head up and starts giggling at it, kisses it, then suddenly realizes it’s real and starts screaming.
Cut to a police car screaming onto the lot, and Jennifer leaving the building surrounded by paparazzi scumbags firing questions at her. One of them is John Waters, who wanted to be in this because he loves the series so much. His character is named Pete Peters, and seems to be the most egregious of the scumbag paparazzi. Meanwhile, we cut back and forth to Jennifer’s chauffeur practicing telling her he loves her.
Jennifer sits up front with Chauffeur and makes out with him a little while the dolls somehow sneak into the backseat. Tiffany gawks out the window at the Hollywood sights, while Chucky drinks champagne straight from the bottle and Glen/Glenda asks if they’re ninja assassins, or hitmen for the Yakuza. Chucky tells them they’re not from Japan, they’re from Jersey!
Uh, okay. That validates my theory from Bride, but it sure seems like Chucky spent a hell of a lot of time in Chicago for a Jersey boy. Does this also fit into “that brand new tradition we’ve always had”? [Dove: Yep. I mean, you pointed out that the montage scenes in Chicago had the word “Chicago” on every building to hammer it home. They can’t make fetch happen, and then complain that fetch happened.]
Tiffany is excited that Jennifer Tilly is playing her in a movie, and thinks she has the voice of an angel, despite Chucky’s obvious opinion to the contrary. Tiff states that she’ll transfer her soul into Jennifer, and Chucky can transfer into Redman. Chucky says he’s “down with that.” Again, cringe, but also again, at least Chucky’s not racist . . . ? How did I accidentally assign myself both the movies where Chucky wants to transfer souls into a black character?
Glen/da asks what about them, and Tiff says she’s got it all worked out – she’s not getting pregnant again, because her mother always said once was a blessing and twice was a curse (Chucky mutters that that explains her sister. I’m my mother’s second-born, so . . . guess I’m the curse!), so the only option is a surrogate mother. Then Glenda will get to be a real live girl! (“Boy,” Chucky counters.)
In the front seat, Jennifer calls Joan, who is busy forging fan mail to Jennifer, and asks her to get a bottle of champagne for her (since Chucky drank everything that was in the back of the limo), because she’s got a big night planned. Chauffeur (Stan, because I can’t keep typing “chauffeur” every time) thinks he’s getting lucky and puts a hand on Jennifer’s knee until she tells Joan her big night is with Redman. Jennifer then tells Stan that it’s just business, and Redman will be out of there by midnight. In the backseat, Tiffany is horrified that Jennifer is “a complete slut.”
[Dove: Note: at this point, I realised that Jennifer’s assistant was in S Club 7. One of Raven’s friends was nearly in S Club 7, so I feel I should have noticed this before now.] [JC: That is not a thing that’s well known in America. I recognized this actress, Hannah Spearritt, from the show Primeval. Which, come to think of it, also isn’t well known in America.]
Tiffany has an interesting moral compass – she’ll kill anyone, but she’ll only sleep with someone she loves. (Quote from Bride of Chucky that we didn’t quite manage to work into that recap.)
For someone whose career is supposedly on the decline, Jennifer has a huge house. I don’t know LA market prices, but that’s gotta be an eight-figure home right there. The dolls appear to have taken up residence in the attic, and as they tuck Glen/da into bed, Glen/da asks why they kill. Chucky responds that, you know, it’s a hobby really; helps them relax. When Glen/da asks if they’ll turn out to be a killer, too, Chucky states that of course! Killing is a family tradition that goes back for generations!
Is it bad that I want that story now? The Charles Lee Ray prequel, little Chucky going out killing with daddy? I mean, what the fuck is this family?
Glen/da says that violence is bad; the people on TV say so, and Chucky counters that no, they said “violins” are bad. Tiffany argues that Glenda is right, killing is an addiction just like any other drug, and they need to clean up their act now that they’re parents. Chucky finally agrees, but he had his fingers crossed behind his back. Also, he’s been tapping a very large butcher knife against the edge of Glen/da’s bassinet this whole time, and like Dove pointed out in the last movie, his hand seems way too big. I can’t tell if it’s the perspective or what, but I can’t unsee it now. [Dove: So glad I broke it for you too.]
Downstairs, Joan is trying to talk Jennifer out of fucking Redman for the part, pointing out how ironic it is to prostitute herself to play the Virgin Mary, and telling her she’s evil and going to hell. Jennifer replies that hell would be ending up on Celebrity Fear Factor in a worm-eating contest with Anna Nicole Smith, and oh my that didn’t age well. I had to check when Anna Nicole died, and looks like it was 2007. [Dove: I wasn’t sure when she died, and wondered if it was a really crass joke, given that we started with three minutes of animated sperm.]
Jennifer fires Joan as Redman rolls up in a Hummer, excited about how he’s gonna hit dat ass. Meanwhile, in the bathroom, Tiffany and Chucky are planning the artificial insemination. They have to get the timing just right. Tiff hands Chucky a cup, he asks isn’t she going to give him a hand, and she pulls down the top of her dress to show him her doll boobs. Complete with nipples. Excuse me, I’m gonna swap out my Dr. Pepper for something with alcohol in it; brb!
Chucky rejects various masturbatory materials until he finds an issue of Fangoria with a zombie girl on the cover. Outside, as Joan leaves, Pete Peters sneaks in the gate with a camera. My personal soundtrack to this is Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi,” by the way.
Inside, Tiffany drops half a bottle of pills into an open champagne bottle as Jennifer and Redman canoodle on the couch. Tiff looks on in ragey judgment as Redman talks about how much he loves the movie where Jennifer was making out with that one chick and asks if she’s still in touch with homegirl, then Jennifer asks what it’ll take to make him see her as a virgin. Then they start making out, having drunk none of the champagne, while Tiffany stares at an E! Golden Hanger award naming Jennifer Tilly the “most improved” in 2002.
Outside, Pete Peters (it’s impossible not to refer to him with first and last name) takes photos of Jennifer and Redman going at it on the couch, then looks to an upstairs window where he (and we, unfortunately) sees Chucky jerking it. Or, as he marvels, “a masturbating midget?” But where he only sees a silhouette, we get to see Chucky in all his plastic glory, flogging his hog. *slams drink*
Inside, Jennifer doesn’t think she can go through with this, but Redman tells her that Mel Gibson isn’t the only man in Hollywood that God talks to (well, there’s another reference that couldn’t have aged worse if it tried), and the man upstairs told him that Jennifer is his virgin. Then he unzips his pants and shoves her head down. Fortunately, Tiffany slams him in the head with the award (which looks like it weighs maybe two pounds at most), while Pete Peters looks on from outside and tries to figure out just what the blue fuck is going on right now.
Jennifer looks on in shock as Tiffany calls the unconscious Redman a pig, then slut shames her (like her mother used to say, “You can always smell it on girls who sell it.” PSA – sex work is a valid choice and we don’t need to shame people for making a living.), then asks for her autograph. You’re kinda giving me whiplash here, Tiff.
Jennifer screams and runs away, which is probably the logical reaction here, and runs into Chucky, who’s holding his cup full of . . . well, the seed of Chucky. She turns around and starts running again, but trips and falls. Tiffany says they can do this the easy way (holding up the champagne bottle) or the hard way (holding up the Golden Hanger award, which I’ve reassessed and now believe only weighs a maximum of three ounces. That’s about 85 grams in metric, because I’ve got a nice buzz now and don’t mind googling measurement conversions for my lovely British friend Dove. [Dove: Did you pause the movie for 15 minutes to look that up as an excuse for a breather? Either way, it’s appreciated!] [JC: By this point, I was pausing every few minutes to randomly wander around the house. Bathroom, kitchen, “hey, doggies, you wanna go outside?” “hey, chinchillas, do you want some more hay?” Etc.]) Anyway, Jennifer screams again, and Tiffany chucks this award at her head, where it improbably knocks her out.
They drag Redman and Jennifer upstairs, Tiffany comments that “fuck, she’s fat,” because . . . I dunno, this movie thinks having someone call herself fat is hilarious or something, IDK. [Dove: Urgh. All the shaming is tiresome as fuck.] Chucky looks out the window and sees the “paparazzi scumbag” jump over the fence to leave. I’m not sure what Chucky’s beef is with the paparazzi, but okay. Pete Peters is clearly not long for this world.
Redman and Jennifer are now tied to the bed, still unconscious, while Tiffany holds a turkey baster full of Chucky’s cum between Jennifer’s legs. And since I had to see this, so the fuck do y’all.
“No, DoVe, I’d ReAlLy LiKe To ReCaP sEeD oF cHuCky MySeLf; I’lL hApPiLy TaKe ThE oDd-NuMbErEd MoViEs!” What the fuck have I done to myself? *bashes bottle into own face* [Dove: Yeah, I was surprised we didn’t fight over who was lumbered with this. So… you ok, hon?] [JC: . . . honestly, I may be succumbing to Stockholm Syndrome with this movie. I’m already starting to think to myself, “wait, it wasn’t that terrible, was it?]
Upstairs, Glen/da is having nightmares until Chucky wakes them up for a boys’ night out – hunting, he explains as he brandishes the butcher knife. It again makes a metallic noise with nothing there to cause it. Cut to father and child rolling down the street in Redman’s Hummer, with Glen/da working the pedals while Chucky steers. They run a girl in a pink beret and a license plate that says BRITNEY1 off the road, where her car explodes and Chucky quips “Oops, I did it again,” and his iconic laughter follows us far too long into the next scene. [Dove: Yeah. Chucky. The dude who, in the last movie (though I didn’t mention it in the recap), complained about the state of music in 1998, knows Britney lyrics. And when I raged about this to JC, she pointed out that while Chucky knows who Britney is, he hasn’t got a clue about Martha Stewart. So, yeah. Fuck the writers.] [JC: Hilariously, when they started showing this on TV, Britney’s people insisted that they put a disclaimer on this movie stating that “Britney Spears does not appear in this movie.” I mean, by this point she’d already had her 55-hour marriage and gotten together with K-Fed, but her people were worried Seed of Chucky would ruin her reputation? . . . actually, you know what, I get it. Carry on.]
Inside the Celebrities Revealed offices, Pete Peters is developing the masturbating Chucky photo. Chucky and Glen/da are hiding in the office as he does this. Chucky laughs, Pete spins around to see him just chilling on the counter, turns back to the computer, zooms and enhances the photo so he can see that it’s the doll that’s sitting right fucking behind him, then whirls back around to see that Chucky is gone. Glen/da watches from under a counter as Chucky lowers himself down from the ceiling, upside down with the knife between his teeth, Mission Impossible style. Glen/da screams “nooooo!” and Pete stumbles backward in horror, slamming into a rack of chemicals and knocking a bottle of sulfuric acid (which apparently actually is used by photographers) down on his head.
Glen/da is horrified, but Chucky is elated by his child’s natural killer instinct and insists on taking a picture of them with the corpse. Don’t worry, he says, they won’t tell Tiffany.
The next day, Jennifer and Redman wake up with no memory of the night before, although he remembers her screaming a lot, and she remembers her guardian angel with the sweetest voice she’s ever heard telling her to respect herself. Then asking for her autograph.
Upstairs, Tiffany is reading a self-help book titled “12 Steps in 3 Days,” and apparently this is an allusion to the Child’s Play movies each taking place over the course of three days. Well, I wish I’d known that was a thing I needed to be keeping track of. [Dove: It was? Well, fuck. You know how I love maths. And also how you went into the future trying to figure out the logistics of how long Team JJ were driving.]
Tiff skips from Step One to Step Nine – making amends. She calls the widow of Bob Bailey, the cop from Bride who brought her the mangled remains of Chucky from the evidence lockup, and admits to and apologizes for killing him. At first Mrs. Bailey thinks it’s a joke, then breaks down screaming and crying as Tiff hangs up and comments that she feels better already! This concept is really funny, but somehow it just doesn’t work for me in this movie. I don’t understand how this is so bad. Don Mancini has written all the previous Chucky movies; why did he drop the ball so hard here? [Dove: I have insight. I used to write fanfic (under a different pseud). It was neither terrible nor great, but solid. But somehow on one particular fic, using a style I hated (first person, present tense), I somehow became a BNF overnight. What followed was about 200k words of the least intelligent but most highly read and reviewed shit I’ve ever written in my life. It’s so bad that my ex-co-writer and I still aren’t talking. And that happened 18 years ago. So yeah, that’s what I think happened.]
Redman leaves, Jennifer gets into the front seat of her limo and pukes into her handbag, which also has a picture of her face on it. Because META, MOTHERFUCKERS! Stan is still unable to tell Jennifer he loves her.
Later that night, Redman is again at Jennifer’s, eating enough food for an entire entourage, when she tells him she’s pregnant. He doesn’t react, then asks who’s the baby daddy, then tells her it can’t be him; he got a vasectomy as soon as he got to Hollywood because he’s not stupid. I know this is a supernatural pregnancy, but really, that’s the reason he insists it’s not his, and not the fact that it’s only been a day? LOL okay. [Dove: Eeyup. Knowing you’re pregnant the day after (alleged) sex is some seriously reddit shit.]
Jennifer is confused, because she hasn’t slept with anyone else to advance her career lately, and when Redman expresses disbelief, she explains that it’s just her reputation, and no one would keep casting her in these sexpot roles if they knew she hasn’t been laid in a year. And I highly doubt it, because she’s sexy as hell and I don’t see the frequency (or lack thereof) of her getting laid changing that. [Dove: If Neil Patrick Harris can play a womaniser, I think Jen’s fine.]
But, you know. Meta or whatever.
Redman says he can’t cast her if she’s pregnant, which she finds ridiculous because the character is pregnant. Yeah, but he has a certain vision of the character, and the vision is “hot.” You know, there’s a whole category on PornHub that would argue that pregnant is very hot, but let’s not get into that right now.
Tiffany, listening through a heating vent, is disgusted by Redman’s behavior, and wants very badly to pick up a knife sitting on the table next to her. She instead picks up the phone and calls the recovery hotline, and tells the man who answers that she’s in recovery and afraid she’s going to have a slip. He reassures her; tells her not to beat herself up; and informs her that Rome wasn’t built in a day. And again, I actually really like this bit. It’s just everything around it that’s a total disaster.
The phone rings and Jennifer goes to answer it, leaving Redman alone at the table, where Tiffany disembowels him. [Dove: Where his guts steam and hiss on contact with the floor. Because, he’s… hot? *shrugs*] Judging by the last movie, I thought she thought knives were played out, but okay. Jennifer pops back into the room to tell Redman she has to go out, and he can let himself out, oh and by the way, drop dead. Which he obligingly does.
Glen/da walks into the room in time to see Tiffany gloating over the body, and she immediately informs them that it was just a little slip; there’s no need to tell Chucky, and Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know. Instead of pissing their pants, Glen/da’s eye starts twitching.
Next morning (I feel like we’ve exceeded that 3 days thing, but I don’t care enough to go back and count), Chucky and Tiffany are watching a news report about Martha Stewart. Tiffany says they’re executing Martha today, and holy shit, what did she do this time?! Chucky can’t take nine months of this shit, but Tiffany tells him it’s a voodoo pregnancy; it’s accelerated. Sure enough, we see Jennifer get out of bed hugely pregnant, then scream when she notices it.
Jennifer calls Joan, screaming that she’s fat, and hysterically trying to tell her what happened. Tiffany is on the extension, causing all sorts of confusion until Chucky pops up and throws a pillowcase over Jennifer’s head. He’s screaming; she’s screaming; Tiffany tries to play it off by telling Joan that Bound is on cable and Gina Gershon is fingering her; she just loves this movie, don’t you? Then Tiff is like, okay, byeeeee and hangs up. I think I need to create a “meta as fuck” tag. [Dove: btw, Chucky’s method was to rugby tackle the woman who is nine months pregnant, causing her to fall forwards onto her belly. Smart.] [JC: Maybe the supernatural voodoo pregnancy gives her belly +10 resilience?]
Cut to Chucky tying Jennifer to the bed, and getting way too interested in her boobs. Tiffany wants to know what the fuck he’s doing, and he protests that she came on to him. Uh, yeah, clearly. What woman can resist a two-foot tall doll that’s basically been through a meatgrinder? *eyeroll* She starts screaming, and Chucky pulls a handkerchief out of his overalls to stuff in her mouth. The photo from the scene of Pete’s death also falls out, and Tiffany demands to know what the hell this is.
This leads to another argument over whether their child is a girl or a boy, and Glen/da screaming that they’re tearing them apart (Lisa)! The Room came out a year before this, so I’m assuming someone told Billy Boyd to do his best Tommy Wiseau impression. And while we’re on the subject of Billy Boyd, since both he and Brad Dourif were in the Lord of the Rings movies together, I’m going to spend the rest of this movie pretending this is really Pippin and Grima Wormtongue interacting with each other. Fool of a Took! [Dove: Whereas I was thinking pretty much everyone but Boyd got a career after LotR.] [JC: Not true! He (along with a bunch of late 90s/early 2000s Sci-Fi Channel superstars) starred in a movie called Space Milkshake. It is apparently about sanitation workers in space who have to deal with a mutating killer rubber ducky. And it’s higher rated than this. That boy is going places.]
Glen/da asks Tiff and Chucky what about them; what about what they want; did Tiff and Chucky ever think of that? No, they clearly did not. Glen says that he thinks he’d like to be a boy, and Chucky celebrates. But then Glenda goes on to say that being a girl would be nice, too. They ask if they can be both, and Tiff is open to it, but Chucky is not. Big surprise. Glen/da says that whatever else they are, the one thing they’re sure of is that they’re not a killer. Tiff is proud. Chucky is disgusted. Again, big surprise.
Chucky goes off about Tiffany poisoning his son with all her touchy-feely twelve step bullshit, and announces he’s proud to be a killer and he’s not going to hide it in the closet. Like he ever was. Then he punches the wardrobe, the door pops open, and Redman’s corpse falls out. Chucky gloats about Tiffany not being so perfect after all. She turns away and cries about how Rome wasn’t built in a day, then abruptly stops and says that besides, the fucker really had it coming. I mean . . . sure. No killing, unless the person is a real asshole. Got it.
Glen/da’s eye starts twitching again, while Chucky asks what he’s supposed to do about a body now. Tiff says she’ll take care of it, and calls Stan, who is in the limo, still practicing telling Jennifer he loves her. She says she needs his body, and we cut to him tied to the bed next to Jennifer. Chucky stuffs a pair of socks in his mouth before he can say he loves Jennifer. So, I guess all the original rules regarding only being able to do a soul transfer to the first person you revealed yourself to are just out the window? No longer does it matter how long you’ve been in the doll body, or how human you’ve turned while in that body? This is the movie that said “Rules? What rules?” and then had explosive diarrhea over any semblance of continuity. [Dove: WE HAVE A RULE-BREAKING MCGUFFIN (now with the chant written on the back), JC. CHILL! Thank god for that brand new tradition we’ve always had!]
Tiff says that they really do make a cute couple, and starts to tell us what her mother always used to say, but Chucky interrupts to say that he’s sick of hearing about her mother; he killed that bitch twenty years ago and she still won’t shut up! Okay, math. I can do math; I’m not that drunk yet. This is six years after Bride, which is ten years after the first movie. That means Chucky killed Tiff’s mother four years before the events in the first Child’s Play. So, presumably, they were together at least that long. At least four years together, and the fourth movie is the first we’ve heard of her? Come on.
The lights go out, and there’s a thunderstorm going on outside, although I’m led to believe it never storms in LA. [Dove: Or if it does, we need a scene in the drainage canals for the drama. I fucking love the drainage canals.] Glen/da is looking real twitchy, and then Joan shows up pounding on the front door. Chucky says he’ll take care of her, as he wouldn’t want Tiffany to violate her delicate sensibilities. Joan lets herself in with the key under the mat (seriously, people, this is how you get robbed), and unknowingly sets off the security alarm. She creeps up the stairs and opens the bedroom door to see Jennifer and Stan tied to the bed. Chucky creeps up behind her, but before he can do anything, Tiffany runs in and sets Joan on fire (FIRE!!!) with a lighter and hairspray.
Chucky is suitably elated, and says he’s not going to give her crap – nobody’s perfect, and he’s got a few skeletons in the closet, too. [Dove: Is it weird that I thought this was kind of sweet? Obviously in a disturbing way, but I wish we’d had more of this than the meta shit.] [JC: This movie is at its most frustrating when it randomly throws something good at us, leading me to hope for more. And then it takes that hope and beats it to death slowly and painfully.] He hits the door of yet another wardrobe, and three bodies fall out – one with a bag over their head, one with a machete stuck in their skull, and one with an icepick in his back. Did I have to pause this and advance it frame-by-frame to figure this shit out? Yes, yes I did. Also, who the fuck are these people? Icepick Boy looked like maybe a pizza delivery guy, but the others? No idea. One is maybe wearing a maid uniform?
Tiffany has her back turned to Chucky and appears to be crying, and Chucky tries to comfort her and asks how long it took to build Rome, anyway? Then Tiff turns around, and surprise! It’s Glenda! With a full face of makeup, and I’m wondering where the fuck she found the time to do that between the time Joan walked in and the time she got firebombed.
The real Tiffany walks in and drops her glass of water, incredulously asking what she missed. And now we’re either going with gender fluidity, or a split personality. I think it’s the latter, but I’m really not expecting this fucking movie of all things to get either concept right, so here we are. Anyway. Glenda goes into hysterics, and Tiffany slaps her, which appears to bring Glen back out, who asks what he is. A badly written character created by someone I don’t trust with these concepts, Glen!
Then Jennifer goes into labor and gives birth to twins – a boy and a girl. And somehow Tiffany has blue and pink blankets to wrap them in, because why not. I mean, it’s hardly the most unbelievable thing about this movie.
Chucky produces the amulet (*siiiiiigh*) and starts the chant before Tiffany tells him to wait; Glenda needs to choose. But then Tiff realizes there are two babies, a boy and a girl, and she’s like
Then several things happen all at once: Tiffany is screaming at Chucky to do the chant; Jennifer is just screaming; the cops pull up outside; Glenda is twitching and muttering; the babies are screaming, and all of a sudden it’s more than Chucky can take. He yells at everyone to shut up, then points out to Tiff that he’s reached his limit – this is nuts, and he has a very high tolerance for nuts. If this is what it takes to be human, he’ll take his chances as a supernaturally possessed doll; it’s less complicated. Bitch, what? You spent four fucking movies with the goal of being human again, and now you say fuck it? Also, spoilers, but later on you’ll be back to wanting a body again, so what the actual fuck, Chucky?
Chucky goes on to say that as a doll, he’s infamous; he’s one of the most notorious slashers around. No you’re fucking not you’re the goddamn fucking Lakeshore Strangler you fucking little asshole!
*breaks everything in sight*
. . .
. . .
Sorry, Dove.
[Dove: Why were you apologising? I not only support you, I applaud you. Here, have some of my old plates. They’re terrific to chuck at a wall. The maths at the bottom of the back backs you. That’s literally my IRL job. Someone makes a decision, then I do maths to back them up. Sometimes I even do the maths before they make the decision.] [JC: I don’t know that you should be enabling me here, Dove. Sometimes I worry that I come across as too angry . . . oh, fuck it. *slam! crash! bang!* Ahh, much better.]
Chucky goes on to say that he’s Chucky the killer doll, and he digs it! Again, this seems sudden and not at all in character, but I have nothing left in arm’s reach to break, so I guess I have to ride with it. He has a beautiful wife, a . . . multi-talented kid (at least he’s trying to be sensitive?), he’s got everything he wants! Tiffany has no idea what the fuck he’s on about, and says it’s not enough for her – she’s leaving him and she’s taking the kid.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Chucky is a domestic abuser who screams that no one leaves him. He throws the knife at either Tiff or Jennifer, but Stan has managed to get loose with Jennifer’s help and throws himself in front of the knife. He dies trying to tell Jennifer he loves her. This shtick was old by the second time we saw it. Tiff throws the knife at Chucky, then the cops break in and the dolls are gone by the time they blunder into the massacre upstairs. [Dove: Seriously. Did Stan just throw himself in front of a knife to save two serial killer dolls that he’d never met before they took him hostage? If he was doing it to save Jen, then they should have re-shot it, because it really looks like an idiot just died saving the family that was killing him.]
Cut to Jennifer talking to her lawyer in the hospital, and hey, this guy was in Lock, Stock as well. He’s not Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Statham, or Vinnie Jones, though, so I don’t care. Apparently the cops don’t think Jennifer is a murderer, but they also don’t think she’s mentally competent. He leaves her with photos of her babies, and then Tiff (with Glen in tow) sticks a syringe in Jennifer’s IV. She passes out trying to make it out of the hospital room.
Tiff locks the door, but heeeeere’s Chucky, breaking through it with an ax. He sticks his face through like someone who’s definitely seen The Shining, but then he just can’t think of a single thing to say! FUNNY JOKE! SO META, MUCH WOW!
Tiff hurries to do the chant, and at the end starts yelling “And switch! Switch!” I don’t want to take this piece of flaming garbage too seriously as canon, but is this actually a switch? Back in the second movie, Dove had the theory that the original person is actually still trapped inside when Chucky/whoever inhabits them, rather than being pushed out. Either Tiffany doesn’t know that, or we’re giving it more thought than Don fucking Mancini, the creator of these characters. [Dove: Tiffany only skimmed page 217 of Voodoo for Dummies, I’ll give her that. But the writer should know better. FFS.]
Then Chucky proves what a lovely romantic partner he is by yelling again that nobody leaves him, and burying the ax in Tiffany’s head. Considering the end of Cult of Chucky, these two have a real Joker/Harley Quinn vibe going on. I’m not even going to say “and not in a good way,” because if you think there’s anything about that dynamic that’s good, you need to reexamine your fucking life.
Tiffany tells Glen to be a good girl . . . or boy, whatever, and not to make the same mistakes she and Chucky did. Especially Chucky. Then she dies. Glen and Chucky begin to fight; Jennifer (Tiffany?) [Dove: Jeffany? Tiffifer?] [JC: Probably half the times I typed Jennifer I fucked it up to “Jeffiner,” so add that to the list.] wakes up and slides the ax over to Glen, who chops Chucky in the chest with it. Chucky asks, “Glenda?” but nope, it’s Glen, Chucky’s boy, chip off the old block. Glen loses his shit and dismembers Chucky, saving the decapitation for last, after Chucky expresses his pride for his boy.
Then Glen breaks down sobbing and Jennifer (Tiffany?) crawls over to comfort him. Close shot on the amulet, then fade to . . . five years later.
Fucking hell, this movie is still happening?
There’s a birthday party going on outside the Tilly house, and Jennifer is talking to the . . . housekeeper? Nanny? . . . Fulvia. Fulvia thinks Glen is an angel, but Glenda scares her. Apparently Glenda gave some kid a bloody nose, steals money, and called the cat the C-word. At least, I think that’s what she said. Seems weird, but okay. A red-haired girl who we’re supposed to believe is five-year-old Glenda but looks like Raggedy Ann’s twelve-year-old sister keeps glaring in the window at Fulvia, and then Jennifer beats Fulvia to death with the Tiffany doll. Jennifer has perfect streaks of blood down her face, and her eyes glow supernaturally green. Oh, hi, Tiff!
In case we were confused, Jennifer/Tiffany says it was just a little slip, and Rome wasn’t built in a day as she drags Fulvia’s body off to hide it in a wardrobe. [Dove: Fun story: I ripped my own copy from my DVD. I appear to have ripped the audio from this version, but the video from the theatrical version, so nothing matched up from this point onwards. Apparently they didn’t show the hiding the body and “it’s just a little slip” on the theatrical release.] [JC: This explains so much. My box set only has an unrated version of this movie, which is supposedly the only official version there’s ever been, although I was sure when I saw it at the theater it was rated R. I also thought the “hiding the body” bit seemed new to me.]
Outside, Jennifer/Tiffany is showing the Tiffany doll off to a group of kids, while a little red-haired boy smiles at them and we get more Glen narration. He says his mom got what she wanted – to be a bright, shining star. He pulls out the picture of him and Chucky at Pete Peters’s murder and tells us that he knows his dad loved him. He tells us they’re a perfect family now.
Then Jennifer/Tiffany calls him over and gives him a present with no gift-giver’s name attached. Hey, maybe it’s one of Uncle Arthur’s little jokes, huh?
Glen opens it, and it’s one of Chucky’s severed arms. He pisses himself; his eye starts twitching; then the arm flies up out of the box and starts choking him.
Cut to the credits, with scenes from the movie set to a cover of Blondie’s “One Way or Another.”
And we’re done. Whew. *finishes drink*
Final Thoughts
As much bitching as I did during this recap, I actually don’t hate this movie as much as it seems I do. Oh, it’s terrible, make no mistake. But I’m just sort of in awe of how terrible it is, and how it all went so very wrong. Like, I like some of the ideas here, but the execution was so off. So very, very off. I’m so glad the next movie went back to taking things seriously, and I’m perfectly happy to pretend this movie never happened.
And in case you weren’t sure how desperately this movie is trying to convince you it’s funny and witty and hip, this was part of the marketing campaign:
And now Dove will come in with the kill totals; and what I’m pretty sure is another zero for strangulation.
[Dove: So yeah. That was a thing that happened. I hate this movie. It’s stupid. It’s not even so stupid that it’s enjoyable like Necromentia. There’s no joy in it at all. You get this smarmy feeling coming right off the screen that screams, “Aren’t we clever! Aren’t we funny!” and the answer to both is a solid NOPE. So, let’s do the maths. I don’t know if we need all the deaths from the last movies, since this is starting to take up a lot of space, so let’s reformat the look of everything as below:] [JC: Ooh, the new spreadsheet is pretty!]
Deaths:
- British Dad – stabby stab stab stab
- British Mum – scared in the shower into falling over and smashing her skull
- FX dude – 3D implied decapitation
- Britney fucking Spears – run off the road
- Pete Peters – doused in acid so his face melted off
- Redman – disembowling
- Joan – flambe!
- Misc people – machete
- Misc people – ice pick
- Misc people – bag over head
- Stan (driver) – idiotically throws himself in front of a knife to save the lives of two serial killing dolls that were trying to kill him and the woman he loves.
- Fulvia – beaten to death with a Tiffany doll
Maths
Percentages of Strangulations (come on, you assholes)
| Movie | Body Count | Strangulations | % of Strangulations | Cumulative % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Child’s Play | 4 | 0 | 0% | 0% |
| Child’s Play 2 | 7 | 1 | 14% | 9% |
| Child’s Play 3 | 7 | 1 | 14% | 11% |
| Bride of Chucky | 9 | 0 | 0% | 7% |
| Seed of Chucky | 12 | 0 | 0% | 5% |
| Total | 39 | 2 | 5% | 5% |
So… basically, over the decade plus killing spree, the “Lakeshore Strangler” has strangled two people. A+. This would be like if the Springwood Slasher was known for bashing skulls in Negan style with a baseball bat.
