Seed Of Chucky

The Chucky films have had a curious consistency in the decline of horror and the incline of humour. Child's Play was played straight for chills. Yes, it was ridiculous but had a rather mean-spirited edge to it that made you forget how silly it was. Child's Play 2 was less savage but with a touch more humour. Child's Play 3 (a film that had an unbelievably bad reputation thanks to moronic tabloids in the UK) found the right balance between laughs and scares. Chucky was downright evil, but you began to root for him more and more because his one-liners and easily irritable personality became rather er...cute. Ronny Yu's Bride Of Chucky, while very gory, simply was not a horror film at all - an entertaining black comedy that was ridiculously over-the-top, yes, but not a horror.

Now, fifth time around, series creator Don Mancini steps behind the camera, cranks the bad taste all the way up to 11 and delivers the most intelligent dumb film you've ever seen. The horror is non-existent but the gore is plentiful and the humour sicker than a syphilitic junkie. He rips out all the stop signs with such carefree abandon and directs with such hedonistic pleasure that you can't help pity other directors who take their own material far too seriously.

The child born at the end of Bride Of Chucky (voiced by Billy Boyd) has been picked up by a gruff English new age traveller and made to act in a faux-ventriloquist circus show, thanks to his bizarre doll-like appearance. He knows he's not normal, suffers terrible nightmares of killing and slaughter and is eager to find his real parents.

In Hollywood, a new movie called Chucky Goes Psycho, starring Jennifer Tilly, based on the Chucky urban legend is in production and when the young orphan sees a behind-the-scenes clip of what can only be his real mum and dad on TV, he escapes to Tinseltown to find out why they abandoned him. The obligatory chant to the almighty voodoo god Damballa resurrects Chucky and Tiffany, who are more than delighted to be together with their own child. Trouble is, they can't decide whether he's a boy, or a girl - a Glen, or a Glenda.

However, the killer dolls are still keen to get out of their plastic bodies once and for all and be human again. Obviously Tiffany is partial to Jennifer Tilly's body and Chucky aims to switch places with rapper/actor/director Redman who is planning a new Jesus Christ movie. As you can imagine, many deaths occur along the way, much to the distress of Glen/Glenda.

It sounds same-old-same-old, but let me assure you that Mancini crams as many daft humour and sick jokes in as possible. John Waters - the King of Bad Taste himself - has a hilarious extended cameo as a sleazy tabloid photographer who happens to snap a silhouetted image of Chucky hammering one off to a porno mag. How crazy is that?

Chucky himself is a wonderful comic character. You just can't help but love him. Don't you think that he and Tiffany make a cute couple? He may be short but he's far scarier than Michael Myers ever was and his mere presence makes every scene a riot.

Seed Of Chucky is not a film for everyone. You have to be pretty open-minded to endure the morbid humour, but it's the guiltiest pleasure you're likely to have for a long time. The self-aware Hollywood references never become intrusive and the convoluted story never becomes confusing. Still, as I have said, it's not easy going entertainment if you're a stuffy conservative.

All fans of gore and brainless amusement must go see. Oh, and in case you recognise the actor playing Jennifer Tilly's lawyer, that's Nicholas Rowe, better known as Young Sherlock Holmes.