Why Seed of Chucky holds a spe­cial place in my heart

An eter­nal edgelord bas­tard of ​’80s B‑grade hor­ror, Chucky was fixed in my imag­i­na­tion long before I ever saw one of the Child’s Play films, seared into my sub­con­scious from see­ing the haunt­ing posters and VHS cov­ers at my local Block­buster. Now, three decades after the release of the orig­i­nal, a reboot is upon us – the first Child’s Play to have no involve­ment from long­time series writer Don Manci­ni. What bet­ter time, then, to revis­it the first of Mancini’s three direc­to­r­i­al efforts, 2004’s Seed of Chucky.

The film opens with a vivid CGI recre­ation of con­cep­tion. Though the series began as, and would return to, a strict­ly hor­ror for­mu­la, Seed of Chucky plays almost exclu­sive­ly as a com­e­dy. The humour is pro­fane and cal­lous and broad, with a flur­ry of glee­ful­ly vio­lent gags. This gar­ish­ly uncool film is drenched in the cesspool aes­thet­ic of low-bud­get 2000s hor­ror – but it’s also an ode to the lov­ing embrace of camp.

The sto­ry fol­lows a child doll who escapes to Los Ange­les to find their par­ents, Chucky (voiced as always by Brad Dou­riff) and Tiffany (the mar­vel­lous Jen­nifer Tilly), after notic­ing that they share the same man­u­fac­tur­ing mark. Two inter­twined, dis­arm­ing­ly earnest threads emerge: the child is forced to reck­on with their gen­der, and the par­ents strug­gle to raise a child with good val­ues. The child iden­ti­fies as a girl to their moth­er and a boy to their father, a bit thought­ful­ly attrib­uted to their self-pro­jec­tions and indis­cernible genitalia.

Chucky and Tiffany name their child Glen and Glen­da, respec­tive­ly, a nod to Ed Wood’s epony­mous 1953 trans dra­ma. Like Wood’s film, Manci­ni pays no mind to psy­cho­log­i­cal accu­ra­cy, opt­ing instead for an absurd abstrac­tion of gen­der expres­sion. ​“Glen­da” is a shrill mani­ac with a heavy face of make­up, while ​“Glen” is more of a Tiny Tim. Manci­ni offers the deep­est empa­thy to the strug­gles of instruct­ing fam­i­ly how to per­ceive one’s queerness.

Though the series by this point has bliss­ful­ly fore­gone any moral qualms about mur­der, the char­ac­ters feel no lux­u­ry, espe­cial­ly when con­front­ed by the child’s stark hor­ror at their par­ents’ con­duct. Chucky believes this to be innate and a source of pride, though Tiffany is less sure.

Borne as a recla­ma­tion of the idea that queer peo­ple are des­ig­nat­ed to the role of the sin­ners, the Chucky films are com­fort­ing and restora­tive visions of per­vert­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Those of us who aren’t cis­gen­der are often made to feel less than human in our own bod­ies, as if our exis­tence is a betray­al of nature, like a res­ur­rec­tion spell cast on a child­hood toy. Find­ing plea­sure in body hor­ror becomes a source of ridicu­lous catharsis.

This cul­mi­nates in a gross-out cen­tre­piece where Tiffany insem­i­nates Jen­nifer Tilly (now play­ing her­self) with Chucky’s sperm using a turkey baster as John Waters looks on like a voyeuris­tic deity. The sin of pro­cre­ative sex – a com­mon comedic refrain of camp – becomes an incred­i­ble metaphor for camp seep­ing into unsus­pect­ing mainstream.

The film’s B‑plot offers a crass and corny Hol­ly­wood satire, with Tilly anchor­ing the scenes with the brash grace of a Divine or a Joan Blondell. Yet her arc becomes the sub­li­ma­tion from the phys­i­cal to the nylon of Tiffany’s chaot­ic mater­ni­ty. When Tiffany looks at Tilly in total ado­ra­tion, it strikes her that she would love to present that ful­ly, to be accept­ed as a com­plete and wor­thy per­son. At its core, Seed of Chucky is a film about inse­cu­ri­ty, from Tilly’s desire to be a star beyond Bound, to the inad­e­qua­cy Tiffany and Chucky feel as par­ents, to the uncer­tain­ty of Glen/Glenda’s self-expression.

The cli­max of the film is stun­ning­ly sen­si­tive, as two imper­fect par­ents diverge after spend­ing the entire time try­ing not to let their own issues impact a child deal­ing with their gen­der. Tiffany and Glen/​Glenda steal away from Chucky to pos­sess Jen­nifer Tilly and her mag­ic chil­dren. They co-opt an image of a per­fect ​“human” life, Glen/​Glenda now split to ful­ly live as both a boy and a girl. In this moment, Manci­ni offers the kind of touch­ing sum­ma­tion count­less osten­si­bly seri­ous films about gen­der have failed to artic­u­late. What vices and val­ues we devel­op are dis­tinct from but must also be viewed in con­text of our par­ents; their rela­tion­ship with our queer­ness may nev­er ful­ly match up.

The Child’s Play series holds a spe­cial place in my heart. As a hor­ror obses­sive and trans woman, the filthy accep­tance I found in the series spoke to me in a way the clum­si­ly regres­sive Elm Street and Fri­day the 13^th fran­chis­es nev­er did. Behind the ama­teur­ish veneer of Chucky’s increas­ing­ly scarred face lies a weird, lov­ing cacoph­o­ny of queer motifs. No mat­ter how much killing takes place, Seed of Chucky is ulti­mate­ly a work of supreme affection.