2 out of 5

Directed by: Don Mancini

Picking up on the previous film’s ending and thus adding another doll to the roster, ‘Seed of Chucky’ fully embraces the B-vibe of puppet horror, into which we’ll lump Puppet Master and Basket Case.  Alas, while there are some flashes of the giddy overkill that enlivened ‘Bride of Chucky,’ ‘Seed’ often seems like it’s trying too hard, and comes in way too late on the Scream meta-horror trend to feel clever.  A pretty fun POV intro announces ‘Seed’s willingness to jump head-on into its genre, then segues into an origin of sorts for a to-be-named puppet, whom we can guess is the offspring of Tiff and Chucky.  This to-be-named puppet seeks his parents, and spotting them on television, runs away from home and makes it to his destination quite easily, a la CP 2, and 3…  The family reunited (Tiff and Chucky don’t quite get the ‘sensible’ explanation of how they ended up where they are that their kid did), Mancini runs through the rest of his best ideas and then spends the rest of the film pursuing a joke where Tiff, voiced by Jennifer Tilly, plans to voodoo herself into the body of actress Jennifer Tilly.  It’s a concept worth a few yuks until you realize that will be the remainder of the film, with several further no-longer-timely media jokes that push the humor from dark humor to dumb humor.  Which is unfortunate, as elsewhere an incredibly odd family dynamic begins to develop with Chucky and Tiffany and their child, disagreeing over how to raise it, and a last minute triumphant speech from Chucky suggests a more inventive movie could’ve been had had that been more of the focus.  The production quality is generally high here, with some actual bloody deaths, impressive characterization in our puppets’ faces, and overall nice direction from Mancini, but the ‘reinvigoration’ of the series as something more campy feels like it ran its course with ‘Bride,’ ‘Seed’ only serving as a repository for some leftover jokes and hints of promising ideas.