Seed of Chucky

One wonders what the members of the London Symphony Orchestra make of recording soundtracks. I'm sure there are plenty on which they are perfectly glad to appear - Star Wars, Harry Potter, Braveheart - but, Seed of Chucky. It pays the bills, I guess. Despite their reputation in the 1980's as video nasties, the Chucky films have slowly become self parody, most notable from the previous installment, Bride of Chucky (with a pleasingly fun and offbeat score by Graeme Revell) and this, where Chucky and his lovely life partner spawn a child, looking curiously like an extra from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Taking over from Revell (who also scored the first sequel) is Pino Donaggio who has a fine horror scoring pedigree, although there is a lot more parody than terror here.
In truth, Seed of Chucky seems more like horror in the way that Gremlins was horror, that's to say tongue in cheek. It is perhaps appropriate for Donaggio to be scoring Seed of Chucky given his contributions to similarly styled horror films directed by Joe Dante, notably The Howling and Pirana, before the director struck up his very fruitful working relationship with Jerry Goldsmith. If there's nothing so funky as the Gremlin rag then there are plenty of fun touches in amongst the stabs (sorry) at horror. The movie is of the film within a film format, much like the first Scream sequel, but not going so out and out for chills so much as comedy horror satire. There are some deliberately cheesy passages of lurid saxophone and strings, mixed with the suspense, although these are rather low key and become a bit samey after a while. The album does pick up considerably toward the end and the final half dozen tracks are much more lively after the rather slow mid section.

The perfectly obnoxious rap effort, Cut It Up, performed by Fredwreck and Defari, concludes, but adds nothing and is best omitted. Donaggio's score does have its moments, but the tone is often rather eclectic and, unlike the aforementioned Gremlins, doesn't have a strong main theme or character. There are some enjoyable moments and the horror licks aren't of the grating sub-Marco Beltrami type, more spooky and suspenseful, but often don't appear to be going anywhere. Another curious trait are some decidedly cheesy synths that, on a couple of occasions, actually sound like digital versions of acoustic instruments - not exactly necessary with the LSO at your disposal. Despite plenty of personality, rather difficult to warm to, not helped by a rather over long album.