TD: Far as I can tell, "Bride Of Chucky" got off with a PG rating in Singapore, yet "Seed" has been rated M18. Something of an achievement, right there. You succeeded where Ronny Yu failed.

DM: The violence in "Bride" was intentionally stylized and aestheticized in a De Palma-esque manner. (Example: Tiffany's electrocution in the bathtub, with the soap bubbles wafting through the air. I originally wrote that scene in my first draft of "Child's Play." It took me over a decade to get it on-screen, and Ronny did a great job with it.) With "Seed," in my quest to do something new with the series, I wanted to make a movie in the tradition of "Evil Dead II" and "Dead Alive" — something so gory and splatterific, it makes you laugh.

TD: How do you feel about those "Team America" folks going ahead and getting all this praise for having the puppet sexing, when come the hell on, man, Chucky and Tiff were getting it on back in 98!?

DM: I saw that scene in "Team America" (which I loved) as an homage to my own classic work.

TD: As Kit Du Bois, you penned the seminal "Cellar Dweller". What about a sequel to that right there? Maybe something about all these comic book movies getting made, and someone makes a Cellar Dweller flick and holy shit, man, all hell breaks loose?

DM: Keep it quiet, man! I used a pseudonym on that flick for a reason!

TD: You've yet to wander from the horror movie field of things. Do you think you'll maybe pen or direct, say, a romantic comedy in the future? (a non-doll based one, I mean). Or would you rather carry on like you've been doing, subverting the genre by introducing the traits of other genres?

DM: I'd like to do both, actually. But the script I'm writing now, which I hope to direct, is another horror movie, though one very different in tone from "Chucky." It's neither camp nor a slasher flick; it's more in the tradition of "Poltergeist."

TD: "Childs Play" and "Cellar Dweller" were released in 1988. It's taken until 2004 for you to step up behind the cameras and wear the big baseball-cap and stuff (ie, direct). Why the delay? Was it a case of folks not willing to take chances with a first-time director, or were you just waiting until you felt comfortable? Did you pick up any tricks from the likes of Ronny Yu or John Lafia?

DM: I learned a lot from all the directors I've worked with. I owe a lot to David Kirschner, the producer of all the "Chucky" films. He allowed me to participate in the making of these movies to a degree that not a lot of screenwriters experience. It was a great training ground. I've wanted to direct all my life, but as you suggest, studios don't trust their millions to just anyone; you have to prove yourself, as I did, I guess, with my work on "Bride."