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May 02, 2006

Seed of Chucky

Hollywood Dolls

By Ben

Don Mancini's directorial debut, Seed of Chucky, is the fifth installment in the "Child's Play" cycle. The film opens up with a white goop oozing down the screen and knowing that you're going into a film called "Seed of Chucky" should be enough to figure what that white goop is. But, incase you don't figure it out, you are immediately propelled into a frenzied journey though an unidentified woman's fallopian tubes from the point of view of what we can only assume to be Chucky's semen. The shot echoes a very similar one that opens one of the films in the Look Who's Talking cycle.¹ After the host is fertilized we watch as the cells rapidly multiply and turn into a grotesque distant cousin of the star-child at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the first couple minutes of the film we have witnessed the miracle of life but before the viewer can grasp that fact, we are violently launched out of the host's vagina and into the rest of the film.

The original Child's Play film was released in 1988 hot on the heels of another equally horrifying film released the year before, The Garbage Pail Kids: The Movie.² Both films were released amidst the hysteria surrounding Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and thus one interpretation of them can be be as reactions to consumerism gone awry. In addition, the "My Buddy" doll has also been pointed out as an influence on Chucky. Whereas The Garbage Pail Kids film was pulled from theaters soon after its release, Chucky and the Child's Play series have managed to display a great deal of resilience.

Having Mancini direct a film about the offspring of the infamous killer doll was a natural choice. Mancini had helped write all four of the previous films in the series and as a result obviously had a thorough grasp of the lore surrounding Chucky and his universe. It's only fitting then that the man who helped give birth to Chucky would also lend Chucky a helping hand in continuing his legacy. That legacy within the diegesis being in the form of Glen, his sexually confused offspring, and his legacy also as a reaction to consumerism and popular culture in the real world.

In the essay "It was a dark and stormy night…," Jonathan L. Crane explores the issue of irony in the horror genre. Amongst the categories that he devises for horror films employing irony and humor are the "horror-comedy" consisting of film such as Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein and the "postmodern chiller" such as Scream. Seed of Chucky falls somewhere in-between as a failed postmodern horror-comedy. Because the killers are a pair of dolls, the film offers little in terms of the drifting back and forth between scares and laughs that Crane insists is the mark of a postmodern horror film.³ The murders aren't violent enough to be over the top but are sick enough that it's clear they are aiming to disturb. One of the more disturbing scene in the film is one in which Chucky is artificially inseminating a bound and gagged Jennifer Tilly using what appears to be a turkey baster. But, even that scene is more likely to elicit laughs instead of gasps. The image of Chucky standing between a woman's legs with a turkey baster in his hand is just too ridiculous to take seriously in any way. The film aims to disturb but instead just amuses. In that respect, the film could even be considered a bad horror-comedy that's even worse than it thinks it is.

As mainly a horror-comedy, the film makes the requisite homages to "bad horror," most notably a film by the master of the sub-genre, Ed Wood, who directed Glen or Glenda? a film about a transvestite from whom the child in this film borrows its two names. The film also has its roots in the horror film genre, in films that Crane might label "good horror," films such as those by Alfred Hitchcock or John Carpenter. Those roots are on full display in the first scene involving a long Halloween-esque point of view shot from the perspective of Glen. The scene involves two murders, both of which very obviously reference Psycho. The first is a murder in which he stabs a man and the camera follows the man as he falls to his death is the most technically impressive shot in the film because it's one continuous shot from walking up the stairs, falling down, then back up again. That single take continues as Glen then enters the bedroom of the house he's in to murder a woman while she's taking a shower. The scene ends when the doll wakes up and we learn that everything that had happened was just dream. Had Chucky been having that dream he would've considered it a great one, but his child wakes up terrified. It was a bad dream for him and we learn that in the narration that Glen has always been plagued by bad dreams but insists that he "wouldn't even hurt a fly," another reference to Psycho.

When Glen wakes from his dream and we first see him, he's locked up in a cage. He's being held captive by a man who's using him in a ventriloquist's act called "Psych's and Shitface." The horrific manner in which Glen is being used and abused immediately garners sympathy for him and forces the to audience identify with him. There's also something charming about the doll. Aside from the green flesh, he looks like a little boy. He has a large head and messy hair. He's about as cute as Chucky's offspring could be without being unbelievable.

After we meet Glen, the next scene opens with a man dressed up as Santa Clause walking through a graveyard when Chucky and his bride,⁴ Tiffany, burst out of his bag and murder him. This all occurs before someone yells "cut" and we discover that yet again what we thought was reality actually wasn't. Instead, we're on the set of a Hollywood film called Chucky Goes Psycho. The irony of the multiple diagetic disruptions finally leaving us in Hollywood as the ultimate reality is not lost on the filmmakers. With four films under its belt and any pretensions of actually being scary put aside, the Child's Play cycle is now ready to skewer the superficial world of Hollywood.

Jennifer Tilly plays herself in this film and she is our introduction into the world of Hollywood. We first see her on the set of her film discreetly eating candy bars while talking about the diet she's on. Of course, she's only overweight by the unrealistic standards of show business. As her publicist comes over to talk to her she's nearly caught in the act of eating her candy bar and hides it in the nearby Chucky doll before complaining about the fact that Julia Roberts is constantly taking all the roles that she wants. Her publicist then informs her about a role that Redman⁵ is casting in his film adaptation of the Bible. He's looking for a Virgin Mary and Jennifer thinks she's just the woman to fill that role. A few scenes later, Jennifer for some unexplained reason, other than her affinity for sweets, feels the need to finish the candy bar she hid earlier instead of getting a new one and as a result goes through the trouble of sneaking into the props storage room at night to retrieve it.

Just prior to Jennifer's sneaking into the prop storage room, Glen enters the same room and discovers his parents. Long having thought he was an orphan, Glen is relieved to find his parents alive. Tiffany, his mother, is excited to see Glen but Chucky is incredulous, especially when they discover that Glen has no penis. Any chances of a tearful reunion are shattered when someone from the production crew enters the room and they're forced to murder him. The murder occurs after the man does some work on Tiffany that involves unscrewing a panel on her back. The scene plays out like a rape scene and aside from the many scenes in which Glen wets his pants, it is the only scene in the film that captures any sort of pathos. As a result, Tiffany ends up being the only other character in the film that we identify with. Soon after that murder is when Jennifer enters the room in search of her candy bar. After she retrieves it and discovers the dead body in the room she rushes home in her limo to escape the media frenzy that's surrounding the shocking news. Following her home is a reporter, played by John Waters, and the three dolls.

John Waters' cameo in the film is yet another nod to bad filmmaking. Just like Ed Wood, Waters is notorious for making bad films that are adored by those that love the campy fun his films offer. The references to these filmmakers indicates that even though as I pointed out before, the film contains scenes that aim to disturb, the filmmakers are also conscious of the campy nature of their own film and are reveling in it. Just as the Wood and Waters references are much more pronounced and obvious than the nods to Hitchcock and Carpenter, the humor in the film wins out over the horror. Another thing to note about Waters is that his role is as a member of the paparazzi. In reality, the paparazzi could be thought of as a soul mate to Waters in the way they terrorize Hollywood by stalking celebrities while Waters also terrorizes Hollywood by subverting Hollywood ideals in his films. His inclusion is yet another hint as to what the filmmaker's actual agenda in the film is.

On the way to Waters' home, there's another cameo from a celebrity. As Chucky and Glen are driving they see Britney Spears, played by a look-alike, in front of them and decide to run her off the road. As her cars goes flying off a cliff and bursting into a huge ball of flames, Chucky smirks and remarks, "oops, I did it again."⁶ This seemingly goofy aside in the film could just be a throw away scene in which the filmmakers thought it would be funny to kill Britney Spears but the scene also reveals Chucky's attitude toward celebrity which will prove to be significant later in the film.

In addition to being one of the two characters that we best identify with, Tiffany is also the best developed. Having discovered that she has a son she decides it's time to put her old life behind her and enrolls in a twelve step program to stop killing people. And, just like any normal human being (at least that's what the film is suggesting) she's star-struck by Jennifer and wants to be her. In fact, the plan that Chucky and Tiffany come up with is to use a voodoo spell to take over the bodies of Jennifer and her limo driver after they artificially inseminate her with Chucky's child. With the power of voodoo, Tiffany is going to live out every person's dream, she's going to be a celebrity.

Glen has no identity of his own and we never learn of any dreams that he might have for his future. We do learn of a serious identity crises that he's suffering as a result of the imprint on his wrist that says "made in Japan." He thinks he's Japanese and because he has no penis his parents can't figure out whether to call him Glen or Glenda. The filmmakers seem to be saying that as a child of pop culture, Glen never was able to carve out a personality of his own. Instead, he's just an amalgamation of everything surrounding him. A doll, manufactured to a certain set of specifications and just like the millions of others that came off the same assembly line. The very sort of life Tiffany is trying so hard to obtain. She wants to be a Hollywood doll, just like the people that arrive in L.A. everyday in the hopes of becoming a star. Looking at it that way, the fact that Tiffany is a doll trying to become Jennifer Tilly is a strong metaphor for everybody who has ever emulated or wanted to become the superficial Hollywood stars that populate the world of this film and unfortunately our world as well.

Chucky on the other hand is not impressed by celebrity as we saw earlier and also not too keen on just letting his child be like all the others. He's going to make his child a man and they do this by following Waters home after spotting him outside snapping pictures of the dolls and of Jennifer and Redman downstairs "discussing" the film he's making. In a scene reminiscent of Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup, Waters is developing the pictures while realizing what piecing together what's happening. Just as all the pieces of the puzzle start to fall together in his head he accidentally gets killed by Glen. While Glen is horrified by what he has done, Chucky could not be prouder and the two take a picture together next to Waters' acid burnt, smoldering face.

Meanwhile, back at Jennifer's home, Tiffany has a slip and ends up killing Redman, but not before telling Jennifer that she had not been given the role of the Virgin Mary and that Julia Roberts was getting it instead. Although she didn't get the role, she does become the Virgin Mary in the sense that she soon mysteriously discovers that she's pregnant and it couldn't be Redman's baby because he's smarter than that and had a vasectomy as soon as he moved to Hollywood. By becoming virgin in one sense, Jennifer survives the film in one sense as well, in the form of a being possessed by Tiffany. In a strange and not so obvious manner, the film follows the conventions of the "final girl" as laid out by previous filmmakers and put into words by Carol Clover.⁷

In addition to being familiar with Clover, or at the very least the concept of the "final girl," the writers also demonstrate a knowledge of Linda Williams' and Susan Lurie's writings. If interpreted in the manner that they would interpret Chucky's reaction earlier in the film to Glen not having a penis, Chucky isn't worried that his son isn't really a son what Chucky is actually afraid of is Glen and his perceived "power to mutilate and transform the vulnerable male."⁸ The castration anxiety felt by Chucky when he first sees Glen's bare genital area is what drives Chucky to make Glen a man. He wants to bring Glen down to his level, someone just as vulnerable as he is. Another way of looking at the character of Glen and his abject sexuality is that he can be interpreted as a stand in for Jamie Lee Curtis, the epitome of the "final girl" and a rumored hermaphrodite.

As a symbol of patriarchy, Chucky doesn't fare so well in the end. He was constantly trying to get Glen to be more of a man, was controlling of Tiffany and although not initially thrilled with discovering that he had a son, eventually all he could think about was further spreading his seed. Needless to say, he wasn't very likable. But, there's also some ambivalence towards Chucky that the writers instill in the viewers. For all his faults, in the end just before they possess the two humans Chucky changes his mind. He looks at Jennifer and her limo driver and exclaims, "if this is what it takes to be human then I would rather take my chances as a supernaturally possessed doll, it's less complicated!" In spite of all the ways in which he was out of touch with gender politics, he was clued into the politics of culture and he knew that the two people lying before him were just Hollywood scum.

Chucky's denial of Tiffany's dream results in a confrontation between him and Glen, who has now become Glenda. The confrontation between the abject, cross-dressing child and his/her father should have had Robin Wood drooling with delight if he saw the film, but in the context of Chucky having just rebuked popular culture while the woman and sexually confused child so desperately yearn for it, it's hard to say which side Wood would've taken. In the end, the mother and child win the battle and survive while Chucky dies.

Glen and Tiffany go on to live as normal human beings after possessing Jennifer and one of the two babies she has. Although Tiffany is still evil (she kills her maid at the end), she's now living a life in public as a normal human being. The monster is literally right under her skin. In the final sequence, all looks to have been restored to normal in Hollywood and Glen is having a birthday party. The final shot is of Glen opening a mysterious package that turns out to be containing Chucky's arm. As Glen gasps the arm pops out of the box and grabs him by the collar. A return of the repressed.⁹

In a film that is oftentimes difficult to read in terms of intention, the ending is the most confused of all. Wood might say that because Glen and Tiffany are still alive, the monsters can be said to still be alive but are they still monsters? Or have they been assimilated into the real world and thus the film is a conservative tail in which the two heroes repress everything that is monstrous about them in order to become movie stars. The murder of the maid seems to indicate that they are still monsters inside but that they are doing their best to repress their monstrousness. The best evidence of this is that Tiffany had been trying to repress her urges all along by enrolling in the twelve step program, the murder of the maid was just another slip on her road to becoming normal. The ending is further muddled by Chucky's return because although it's comforting that the film is not ending on a conservative return to normality, the interruption of normality is apparently from the force of patriarchy. Unfortunately, this ending is so unclear that the only force we can safely assume to be at work is that of capitalism and the desire to leave the series open to yet another sequel, that too being one last jab at Hollywood.

Notes:

¹ These three films spanned the period from 1989 to 1993 and were pioneers in the talking baby genre that was continued with films such as Baby Geniuses.
² It should be noted that The Garbage Pails Kids were originally a set of trading cards issued by the Topps Chewing Gum Company.
³ "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night...," p. 147.
⁴ The romantic relationship between the two is explored in the 1998 film, Bride of Chucky.
⁵ A New Jersey rapper who made his debut with Whut? Thee Album in 1992.
⁶ A coy reference to Spears' smash hit of the same name.
⁷ "Introduction: Carrie and the Boys," p. 3-20.
⁸ "When a Woman Looks," p. 23.
⁹ A term used by Robin Wood in his essay "An Introduction to the American Horror Film," p. 7-22.

Works Cited:

Clover, Carol. "Introduction: Carrie and the Boys." Men Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton University Press, 1993.

Crane, Jonathan L. "‘It was a dark and stormy night…' :Horror Films and the Problem of Irony." Horror Film and Psychoanalysis: Freud's Worst Nightmare. Steven Jay Schneider ed. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Williams, Linda. "When the Woman Looks." The Dread of Difference. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1996.

Wood, Robin. "An Introduction to the American Horror Film." American Nightmare: Essays on the Horror Film, Robin Wood and Richard Lippe eds. Toronto: Festival of Festivals, 1979.

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