Gentle Glen (Billy Boyd) is a ventriloquist's dummy, the offspring of evil doll Chucky (Brad Dourif) and his doll bride (Jennifer Tilly), both of whom are now deceased. When the orphaned Glen hears that a film is being made about his parents, he goes to Hollywood and resurrects them in an attempt to get to know them better. He is horrified when Chucky and his lover embark on a new killing spree, and Chucky is equally horrified that his son has no taste for evil.
Five films into the franchise and Seed of Chucky is the directorial debut of Don Mancini (the man that has been the writer of every film in the Child's Play franchises to date). Unfortunately, it really feels like Mancini spread himself too thin doing both of these roles, as this is the worst film in the series. Much like how Bride of Chucky went in a very different direction to the three previous Child's Play films, Mancini wanted Seed of Chucky to be unique in and of itself. Well, it's safe to say that this film is certainly unique and different. I just wish I could say it was for good reasons.
My main objection to the film is its complete disregard of the horror genre. Bride did place more emphasis on the comedy, but there was still a sense of horror, with some great creative and gory deaths. In Seed, with the exception of the opening scenes (which I really did enjoy), the film is simply a black comedy that happens to star three supernatural dolls instead of human characters. There are still killings in the film, but they are few and far between and are all done for comedic effect. Therefore, the film holds no tension or suspense at all. Seed of Chucky is a melodrama.
With the drastic change from Child's Play to Bride of Chucky, with respects to the amount of comedy, a further push doesn't necessarily mean the film will be bad. Many people don't like change, but change has worked for them before. In this case, it fails because the film simply isn't funny. The jokes that it attempts to put forward have either been done already in previous films, are inaccurate (due to events in the previous films), or a simply poorly timed toilet humour. I really don't need a recurring joke about one of the main characters peeing themselves. It wasn't funny the first time, and even if it was, the quality of the humour would have seriously diminished by the 4th time it happened in the film.
The characters themselves also lack likeability. Tiff has been reduced to an incredibly irritating and whiny character that goes against everything her character has stood for to this point. Chucky has been effectively thrown on the backbench. What little time we get of Chucky on screen is brilliant, and his one-liners are still quite good (Brad Dourif is back again, and killing it with the voice acting), but we see far too little of him as the storyline focuses more on Tiff and Glen/Glenda.
The worst, however, is the new character(s), Glen and Glenda. Considering the film was originally called Son of Chucky, you can tell that the gender of Chucky's child(ren) will be integral of the plot. The character(s) are inspired by what has been considered one of the worst films of all time, Ed Wood's 1953 drama film Glen or Glenda, which again raises so many questionable choices when Mancini was writing the script.
There are some general pacing issues, which is made worse by the humour falling flat despite taking its meta, self-referential nature to the extreme, and what little gore there is in the film doesn't fit in with the general whiny comedic vibe of the remainder of the film. Seed of Chucky still has a few good moments, and while it disregards so much of its own rules and lore, we finally get to see Chucky accept his situation (after 15 years).