Seed of Chucky - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Seed of Chucky



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Ohhhh boy. The Seed of Chucky. Where do I begin? Well, there’s a running joke in the horror community that each sequel movie sort of jumped the shark for a different audience. Some thought that the 3rd movie completely destroyed the creepy horror film that Child’s Play (and to a certain extent, Child’s Play 2) portrayed, and sent it into humor. Other’s firmly believe that Bride of Chucky was the true shark jump with the tonal change. Myself personally, I’m one who believes that while Bride of Chucky was certainly campy and different, the true shark jumping moment is by far Seed of Chucky. It takes the zaniness of the previous film, the stupidity of early 2000s horror movies, and basically threw everything into a blender and created the single worst movie in the ENTIRE franchise, bar none.

If you remember, the Bride of Chucky ended with Tiffany turning against Chucky and taking control of her life once more, sending him to his grave, only to give birth to a demonic looking doll baby seconds before her own demise. Well, it’s as if Don Mancini decided to simply take the idea that there was a child, ignore EVERY bit of character development in the previous film, and run with it. Little “Glen/Glenda” as he would be called (played by none other than Billy Boyd. Yes, our boy Pippin was Chucky’s kid) is a freak show in a circus, playing the part of a ventriloquist dummy to a sleazy carnie. When he sees a trailer for a Hollywood movie around the infamous “Chucky Murders”, he sees the prop doll forms of his mother and father, and decides to escape the circus and head out to California.

Upon getting there, the sweet (if not odd) young doll immediately makes his way to the prop department and eagerly tries to say hello to his “mummy and daddy”, not realizing that they’re simply dolls. In possession of the voodoo amulet from the previous movie, he unwittingly raises the spirits of Tiffany and Chucky into their doll bodies by reciting the inscription (thinking that they’re just “sleeping”). Now Tiff and Chucky are back, and now they have a dimwitted son to take care of. Naturally the couple want to get back into human form, so they decide to use the Amulet to transfer their souls into the bodies of Redman (playing himself) and Jennifer Tilly (of course playing Tiffany AND herself in the film).

Much of the same mayhem that happened in the previous film happens here as well. Tiffany and Chucky try to get their souls into human form, and they slaughter lots of people along the way. But here is where everything gets really trippy, really fast. As I mentioned above, Don Mancini decides to throw away all of the character development of Tiffany in Bride of Chucky, instead having her as devoted and loving to Chucky as ever, and Chucky never having witnessed her try and end him. The two are lovey dovey and take on the mantle of parenting a bit TOO much, each putting their own desires for what little Glen/Glenda is supposed to be upon the child (ironically playing with gender roles, which combined with the modern day discussion of Non-Binary and Transgendenr rights being front and center in the media, makes it creepily even more relevant than it was back in 2004). Tiffany wants to give up their life of crime and murder for the sake of the child, and Chucky is desperate to have a spawn that will follow in his footsteps.

Did I mention that this movie was insane? Yeah, Seed of Chucky jumps straight over that shark and continues over about 2-3 more sharks as it dives straight off a cliff in slow motion. We have scenes where the duo try to impregnate Jennifer Tilly with a turkey baster, Glen/Glenda running around with a cockney accent. A fully on kung-fu samurai fight between Glen and Chucky at the end, and countless other bizarre sequences that can only be described as full on acid trip level. I mean, we have John Waters playing a paparazzi, Chucky killing Britney Spears (while making snarky one liners) and Glen/Glenda. Holy cow, I can not describe to you what a nightmaric mess this movie is. Nothing can save it. Not nostalgia, not copious amounts of mind altering substances, not even “so bad it’s good” status. Seed of Chucky is just plain terrible.




Rating:

Rated R for strong horror violence/gore, sexual content and language




4K Video: Video:

Rescanned from the original negative in native 4K, Seed of Chucky gets a nice new face lift in regards to the theatrical cut of the film (which also is remastered for the theatrical Blu-ray in this combo pack as well), but strangely leaves the Unrated cut unremastered on the Blu-ray (no 4K of the Unrated cut at all). Not the end of the world due to the fact that the unrated cut is kinda “meh”, but still a bit strange. That being said, the new remaster is night and day different than the older Universal disc that was cut from the same DVD era master cloth as Bride of Chucky was. As such, the film looks amazingly different, with richer colors, deeper black levels and a much more natural grain structure than previously seen. I honestly have NEVER seen the film look this good, as we don’t have the grain reduction and smeared look of the old Blu-ray anymore. There is still some early 2000s Sepia tones throughout the film (which are a bit hot in the newly remastered Blu-ray), but other than that, this is a stellar looking disc that is way better than the film itself deserves.








Audio:

Just like Bride of Chucky it appears that Scream Factory has either taken the Universal track and just recycled it, or took the same source track and simply re-encoded it, as the track sounds REALLY similar to my older Universal Blu-ray. While no Atmos remix (which weirdly the first 3 films got when put out on 4K UHD), the 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is very punchy and robust. It’s got a hefty amount of bass with the music as well as the explosions (such as when Britney gets killed), and the surrounds get plenty of screen time with the various screams and skittering of feet as Tiffany and Chucky move around the place. Dialog is quite clear for the most part, although there were a few moments where I felt the track dipped for only a few seconds, then popped up to normal volume. Not super great, but not bad either. Solid track.







Extras:

Disc 1: 4K UHD
• NEW 4K MASTER FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
• Audio Commentary with writer/director Don Mancini and special makeup effects artist Tony Gardner
• Audio Commentary with writer/director Don Mancini and Jennifer Tilly

Disc 2: Blu-ray
• NEW 4K MASTER OF THE THEATRICAL VERSION OF THE FILM
• NEW Off With the Head – Tony Gardner on SEED OF CHUCKY
• NEW Chucky Be Demented – John Waters on SEED OF CHUCKY
• Audio Commentary with writer/director Don Mancini and special makeup effects artist Tony Gardner
• Audio Commentary with writer/director Don Mancini and Jennifer Tilly
• Slashed Scene with optional commentary by writer/director Don Mancini and Debbie Carrington
• Heeeeer's Chucky
• Family Hell-day Slide Show
• Conceiving the Seed of Chucky
• Till on The Tonight Show
• FuZion Up Close with The Seed of Chucky stars
• Storyboard to Final Feature Comparison
• Teaser Trailer
• Theatrical Trailer
• TV Spots

Final Score: ​

Wowza, I had seriously forgotten how bad Seed of Chucky Was. It tries so hard to be New Nightmare on Elm Street, but fails in everything but the self awareness that New Nightmare was famous for. At the same time, I kind of am impressed by how well the disc looks compared to how “meh” the Universal disc looked years ago. Not to mention brand new extras on the discs. My only complaint is that the Theatrical version is the only version given a new remaster, and the Unrated cut is only seen on the Blu-ray disc (not in 4K UHD). I’m not sure whether it has to do with rights, or if Universal didn’t give them access to the source prints, but the only real disappointment with the technical specs is that the 1 minute longer unrated cut is just an old print on the disc. This happened with Nightbreed as well (and on Cult of Chucky, which I’ll mention in the next review). It’s not the end of the world as the Unrated cut is really not that much different outside of some more nudity and a few tweaks on kills, but still a minor disappointment. But then again, nothing can beat the disappointment that is the film itself. Firmly in the “only for the completionists” camp.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Brad Dourif, Jennifer Tilly, Redman, John Waters, Billy Boyd
Directed by: Don Mancini
Written by: Don Mancini
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: R
Runtime: 86 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: August 28th, 2023

Recommendation: Ugggggggghhh