ilmgoers familiar with the name Pino Donaggio will know him as the man responsible for scoring films such as Carrie (1976) and Body Double (1984). He also received good notices for his work on Don't Look Now, Dressed to Kill, Piranha, The Howling and Blow-Out. Not a bad resume! Recently, he's been scoring more for romance films and dramas, utilizing his gift for strong lyric themes. Quite why he decided to return to horror with Seed of Chucky isn't clear; doubtless he needed a paycheck. It happens. He has apparently been tapped for an upcoming De Palma project to be released in 2006, so perhaps Seed represents something of a dry run. And dry it is; SOC is, in the opinion of this reviewer anyway, pretty much of a waste of celluloid. In truth, however, Donaggio's music goes a long way toward smoothing over the rough spots.
The film takes on a whimsical tone—or tries to—but Donaggio goes for something more menacing. He collaborates here with the London Symphony Orchestra, and one speculates with some amusement just how the members of that august organization reacted to seeing Seed of Chucky on the docket. Donaggio hasn't worked with the LSO before. Hopefully they'll have a higher-profile project together at a later date. SOC can't be the sort of thing a respected musician brags about over dinner, no matter how well the sessions went.
SOC isn't completely new in terms of ideas—some cues, like segments of "Glen's Escape," for example, are lifted pretty much straight from Carrie—but others, like "Made in Japan" and "Konichiwa," add some nice Asian sensibilities that point up the plight of Chucky's son Glen, who has a "Made in Japan" imprint on his arm.
No Chucky cheese in this music
Donaggio's score has some undeniably nice moments, as for example a pleasingly creepy little theme that exploits his expertise in electronics to produce a cross between a glass harmonica and a circus calliope. He tends to use more lyrical passages in very small punctuations against the longer dramatic sections—"Stark Raving Mad" is a good example of this approach. It's this sort of clever contrasting that makes the score fun to listen to.
Donaggio has always been a good composer for those who like a bit of the unexpected, as when a tasty jazz lick winds its way through the short cue "Our Jennifer." The Latin taste of "How to Get a Head in Hollywood" (ho ho!) is interrupted by a seemingly out-of-place electric guitar, but Donaggio somehow brings it all together. There's even an Ed Wood reference in the cue "Glen or Glenda."
Props also to La La Land for some really nice packaging—there's artwork from the film, some interesting technical details and production notes by Donaggio and director/writer Don Mancini. In fact, the only disappointment on the CD is the final track, a dumb-ass rap song titled "Cut It Up" performed by Fredwreck and Defari that admittedly does play in the film. Still, its appearance here tends to bring down what has gone before and could easily have been dispensed with. Given the disc's rather short running time, though, it's easy to see why it was added on.
SOC doesn't give the franchise any real uplift. It's good enough to watch if you have to duck in somewhere to get out of the rain, but otherwise—what's the point? If no one ever made another Chucky film it would be a blessing. But getting Pino Donaggio to do the music for this one was certainly a good idea, and you could do a lot worse that to give his score your attention.
— Al
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