Diabolical doll returns with his trademark style

The movie is a blend of horror and humor, guts and gags.
WASHINGTON POST
LOS ANGELES -- Michael Myers. Freddy Krueger. Jason Voorhees. Sure, they're frightening. Why wouldn't they be? They've escaped from asylums for the criminally insane. They have razors for fingers. They wear masks. People, they're humans -- or at least the human-size spawn of the evil undead.
But please, concede the challenge of creating a major horror movie icon out of a 24-inch plastic doll in red sneakers. Wearing a pair of Baby Gap-style overalls. Wielding a fruit paring knife.
Now that is genius.
In the modern pantheon of slasher stars, one stands alone as the weirdest and most revealing in the pop trash zeitgeist: The foul-mouthed brat with teeny tiny weapons, the diabolical scamp from Satan's own play date ...
Our Chucky.
Extremely popular
Scoff if you dare, but in his circle, Chucky is huuuge. Over his 16-year film career, his four previous movies -- "Child's Play" 1, 2 and 3, then "Bride of Chucky" -- have earned more than $180 million at home and abroad at the box office.
Chucky is the subject of Internet chat rooms and the rap song "Fire Ina Hole" by Redman and Method Man. Chucky was the guest commentator for CBS's NFL pregame show on Halloween. He shared billing with the late, great John Ritter. The coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jon Gruden, is now known far and wide as "Chucky." As a compliment.
Now Chucky's back on the big screen in "Seed of Chucky," which opens nationwide today, and in which the evil doll proves he can do more than mince, chop and dice. He can do comedy. Oh, he still kills. Most heartily. (A reckless Britney Spears look-alike is one of his victims.) But now he does it in a film starring Jennifer Tilly, John Waters and the rapper Redman. It's a real genre-blender -- guts and gags -- with plenty of inside jokes about Hollywood, giddy rip-offs from popular movies (scenes straight out of "Body Double" and "Rear Window") and more dolls, including Chucky Jr.
Chucky's creator
Don Mancini has been here for the whole long ride. He is Chucky's creator, and there are worse ways to become a millionaire. Mancini pulls up a chair at a luxe Los Angeles brunch room to share an egg-white omelet and berry plate and to talk about psychopathic toys. He is jet-lagged, lean, dark-eyed, and has a garish Head of Chucky ring on his finger, which he fiddles with, twisting the doll's neck.
Chucky is, we learn, the spawn of Cabbage Patch Kids and the overactive imagination of a lifelong horror fan. Chucky was born at UCLA, when Mancini was an undergraduate there. His father was in advertising, and young Don used to think: Isn't it creepy how toy makers sell their products to children?
"I wanted to write something dark," says Mancini. "It was the '80s, Cabbage Patch dolls were really popular, and it just hit me."
Dolls had been used in horror entertainment before. In the "Talking Tina" episode of "The Twilight Zone." In 1975's "Trilogy of Terror" with Karen Black. But Mancini took the doll concept and ran with it. He teamed up with producer David Kirschner (who designed Chucky) and lightning struck.
"What is it about dolls?" Mancini repeats. "It's a primal thing, I think, like the scary-clown phenomenon. A distortion of the human form. They look human, but they're not. Dolls are also supposed to be symbols of innocence, childhood and happiness, and when you twist that and make it scary, it's just wrong. And very effective."
Plot
In "Seed," Chucky and his wife, Tiffany, are in Hollywood. Unknown to them, their lost child (born in a splatter of gore at the end of "Bride of Chucky") has been used and abused as a ventriloquist's dummy by a talentless fraud in Europe. The child escapes. Comes to Hollywood to reunite with the parents. But there's one problem.
The androgynous waif is a gentle soul who wouldn't hurt a fly. In one teary scene, the child asks Chucky and Tiffany why they kill. Chucky answers that everyone's got to have a hobby.
"So metaphorically, it's about family discord and domestic abuse," explains Mancini, who is saying this with a straight face.
After the child (who has very big watery eyes and fangs) rejoins Mom and Dad, they pull down his pants and find that he or she has no, um, definitive parts. Tiffany wants to raise the doll as "Glenda." Chucky wants a "Glen."
"Because their child is not anatomically correct," Mancini says, "it's gender-confused. Fun to use that in a satirical way. So the movie is kind of about Chucky dealing with his gay son. It's funny, but a modern family dilemma."