Tuesday 25 October 2011

Seed of Chucky

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Year:2004
Country of origin:Romania / USA / UK
Director:Don Mancini
Genre:Black comedy with killer dolls.
Starring:Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, Billy Boyd, Redman
Rating:4/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387575/
Tagline:Deliver us some evil.
Favourite line:"I'm an Oscar-nominee, for God's sake. Now look at me, I'm fucking a puppet."

Let's start with a given: I hate comedy movies.
Not all, I admit, but most.
The ones I tend to like are either smartly scripted (A Fish Called Wanda, The Big Lebowski) or utterly crass (Deuce Bigalow, Kingpin) with all the other comedy fodder that Hollywood swallows whole, partially digests then shits into multiplexes causing one of two reactions: outright anger or savage indifference.
Let's roll with another given: I love horror.
Not all, I admit, but most.
The ones I tend not to like are the ones aimed at young hipsters, with flashy editing and nu-metal soundtracks (Shrooms, 13 Ghosts) or are simply too anaemic to be considered true horror (Interview with the Vampire springs to mind).
Here, we have a blurring of the boundaries, a comedy horror that is genuinely funny and as savage as a Nun when the loofer's gone missing at bath time.
And it is a riot.

The plot:
A ventriloquist owns a doll that is possessed by the soul of a human boy who happens to see a 'Making of' section on TV of an upcoming Chucky movie and believes that the Chucky and Tiffany dolls are his parents. Meanwhile, Jennifer Tilly, the real life actress who provides the voice for Tiffany, is eager to expand her career choices, even if it means sleeping with a director to get a role.
When the boy doll escapes the ventriloquist and locates his 'parents' and the two killer dolls are reanimated by reciting an incantation, Tilly's life is thrown into turmoil. Add to the chaos Tiffany's battle to beat her addiction to killing, the boy-dolls gender crisis, some highly effective gore and violence and what you have is a proper comedy movie with some frights.

Seriously, the people behind a lot of genuine comedy output should take a look at this movie and see how it should be done.
Black as coal in terms of tone, this satirises movies in a smart, effective manner and there are plenty of knowing nods to the audience, as if to say 'Heh, we know this is off the wall, but just ride with it.'
I enjoyed this way more than I expected to, and recommend it to all, though expect wayardness.

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