Child’s Play 3 (1991)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: Everyone’s favorite foul-mouthed, red-head Good Guy killer is back and still looking for Andy to make him human again. THIS TIME, Andy happens to be at a military school. That’s the only difference.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Chucky’s melted carcass is still lying there on the floor of the Good Guys factory, which is abandoned now for some reason. Even if it was because of a few murders I doubt they would close the factory of the most popular toy that quickly anyway.
• Chucky’s blood drips into the hot plastic that is still somehow in a liquid state in this abandoned factory, and that will eventually be the new Chucky doll. Wouldn’t that blood be dried up by now? From the looks of the other doll parts covered in years worth of cobwebs and dust that there’s no way the blood in that Chucky doll is fresh.
• Again, who’s at the factory working the machines to make a new Chucky? Why would they want to make a new Good Guys doll at this abandoned factory? And it’s not like Chucky had a murder spree that people really knew about to have some psycho fan want to resurrect him.
• I’m really shocked that they still have or mention Andy. In most horror franchises the original victims are hardly carried over for more than 2 movies at most.
• So they made Chucky for the inaugural new Good Guy of the 90s present for the CEO? At that abandoned factory? From a disgusting melted down Good Guy carcass lying on the ground? When there were unused perfectly good Good Guy doll parts lying around with just dust on them? Okie dokie.
• The Good Guy notwithstanding, all the toys in this fat cat CEO’s office peaked in the 60s. There’s a motorized robot that looks like it’s 40 years old by the time the movie was made.
• “Don’t fuck with the Chuck!” Seriously? Brad Dourif had no problem saying that? And the CEO victim really wasn’t “fucking” with Chucky but just practicing his putts in his swanky over-indulgent penthouse office.
• Just wondering. Couldn’t Chucky change his outfit from that silly Good Guys doll overalls? And if it wasn’t able to come off, couldn’t he just wear something over it.
• Wasn’t it established that Chucky has been in the body of the doll too long and was permanently a Good Guy doll and trying to transfer his body to Andy was moot? So why did they forget that plot point and have Chucky terrorize Andy again? Maybe Chucky forgot the events of the last film.
• Justin Whalin kinda looks like Natalie Portman in this movie.
• How far in the future is this film set from the second one? Andy is like 16 years old or more in this film.
• Scorpio, Andrew Robinson is the military school’s barber. He’s the only actor I knew by name and reputation (besides Brad Dourif) in this movie and he has such a meager and odd role. 
• Why is the 12-year-old military cadet thrilled that Good Guys are back?! Isn’t he a bit old for such a dull toy?
• Did Lt. Col. Shelton just call Andy a “Dip Weed?” what’s a dip weed?

There’s only two things that come out of a Child’s Play sequel, son and that’s jeers and sneers!

• Quick question, who’s paying for Andy to be at this military academy? Is it free? His mom is still locked up (for what again? Fighting Chucky? She wasn’t alone. Does this mean Chris Sarandon’s cop character is also put away in an asylum?) so who exactly is paying the military school’s tuition?
• OK how in the hell did Chucky not only mail himself but wrap himself as well? Did I mention he mailed himself?
• Why is this 12-year-old so obsessed with Good Guy dolls so much in fact that he steals the doll intended for Andy and opens it. And he’s supposed to be highly disciplined!
• Did Chucky just think out loud in front of Tyler and then act like Tyler never heard him? Hysterical.
• You can’t just rewrite the rules Chucky! Just because they fixed your doll body doesn’t make it new enough to assume that a new kid will be your new Andy to save you from being a doll anymore.
• Does Chucky have to yell the incantations every time? Can’t he whisper them?
• Tyler is probably the dumbest 12-year-old in movie history.
• So if “this is your rifle and this is your gun,” what about the female cadets? What’s their gun? That silly military rhyme doesn’t really apply to them now does it?
• Just because you hear a man screaming for his life doesn’t mean you should all break rank and file and run towards the noise. A little discipline please?
• Andy didn’t even unpack yet? He did a lot in his first day to not even have the chance to unpack his stuff.
• I’m still astonished these movies think that the Good Guy doll is a great toy and that every kid wants one.
• I was really hoping Shelton explained to his commanding officer that someone stole his doll and that’s why he has the whole platoon doing drills at midnight.
• Andy is really fitting in well at Kent Military School.
• Ugh. Why is Tyler playing hide and seek with Chucky at midnight? How’d he even know Chucky was coming to see him for him to write that “come and find me” note? Tyler could’ve been waiting forever!
• IS EVERYONE AT THIS MILITARY SCHOOL UP AND OUT OF THEIR ROOMS AT THIS LATE HOUR?! Worst military school ever.
• Do they really court martial at a military school?
• “You’re making him look like a wuss.” So speaks the 12-year-old boy who’s playing with a doll in a closet.
• So why don’t the girls have to keep their hair short?
• Botnick, the barber asks to see Andy for a trim in a few days time even though he already cut him just a day or two ago when Andy arrived.
• How is it they allow Tyler to have a huge game boy video game device in this highly disciplined military school. Especially during chow time?
• Ya know, Andrew Robinson would’ve made a decent Freddy Krueger too if Englund didn’t work out.
• I’m pretty sure you can’t make a standard regulation bolt-action military rifle into a paint gun.
• Is Tyler the only 12-year-old at this school? Every other cadet is much older. Seems odd. I’m not seeing too many young kids.
• Wouldn’t the soldiers who are using the live rounds and not the paint rounds figure out they’re using live rounds after, I don’t know the 4th or 5th shot?
• One of the cadets (the wussy one of course!) throws himself on a live grenade and sacrifices himself to save the others. First of all, what a morbid idea to have a teenager throw himself on a live grenade and second, how is there a live grenade at this Military academy? I can understand the live ammunition but grenades too? I could be wrong but that seems excessive. Do they have mortars and RPG’s too?
• Somehow they shoe-horned a military academy and a carnival into the same movie. And why is this carnival in the middle of a forest?
• I’m really confused at what time of the night it is. The cadets in the war games were practically sleeping before they went after Andy. Someone mentioned that they were planning on attacking the red team at dawn but plans changed. That implies it’s early morning or very late evening but now within the hour or so they’re at a carnival with hundreds of civilians having fun. Is this a 24-hour carnival in the middle of the woods?
• I have to admit that having Chucky have half of his face sliced off by a fiberglass scythe is actually pretty cool. Implausible but cool.

• I don’t quite understand Chucky. He bleeds and feels pain implying he’s alive with blood and nerves yet he’s basically immortal and survives the worst wounds. Half his face was ripped off and he’s fine. If he truly had nerves and veins this would probably kill him.
• I wonder if Brad Dourif has a Good Guy doll in his home?
• So now Chucky gets his arm blown off by Andy shooting it and he barely flinches!
• Jeez, how long does Chucky have to say the spell? In the original he says like 5 lines and he’s inside the doll. When he attempts the spell in the second one it’s longer than the original but not that long. Now it’s taking him longer and he’s just repeating the same line over and over again. DAMBALLA!!
• If I ever meet Brad Dourif I’d ask him to recite the Chucky voodoo ritual.
• Did Chucky explode when he was ripped to shreds in the giant oscillating fan? Why is the doll exploding?
• Why is Andy being arrested exactly? Only the cadets were up in the live ammo incident and then at the carnival it was just Andy, Tyler and Chucky. So did the cadets blame Andy for the incident with the live ammo? 

Is It Actually Scary: The downtrend of scares, originality and overall good filmmaking continue with this sequel. 

How Much Gore: I would’ve been happy if the grenade death was more graphic but I suppose since it was a kid they had to tone it down. Regardless, this installment lacked the goods anyway.

Loved you in Hellraiser!

Best Scene: I actually rewound the film to watch Chucky’s face get sliced like a salami at the corner deli, so I guess that scene is worth checking out. The whole finale is OK by these Child Play’s standards anyway.

Worst Scene: Really any scene with Tyler in it. Or De Silva. Or Shelton. In all honesty though the opening scene where Chucky’s blood is spilled in the melted wax at the abandoned factory. His blood shouldn’t be in liquid state and the wax should be hard as a rock from what we’re told how far in the future this film takes place, which is about 8 years.

Any Nudity: This franchise is totally devoid of any and all sex appeal.

I don’t know but I’ve been told.
These sequels’ schtick is getting old.

Overall: Having a slasher film set in a military academy is a novel idea. However, it wasn’t a great movie. I’m struggling with the idea of a slasher movie set in a place with rifles everywhere. On the one hand the killer is at a great disadvantage when practically every victim is armed and trained well. And on the other hand isn’t having a tired franchise set in such a setting with a disadvantage for the killer a good thing? Like how they had Jason’s final girl be a telekinetic in The New Blood? Jason got his ass kicked and it made it way more interesting. But like Friday the 13th Part VII, Child’s Play 3 sucks. The idea was different but the execution of said idea is boring and botched and lacks anything really new to Chucky’s storyline. I stopped my Child’s Play reviews here this year and I’m really not sure if I want to watch and review the other THREE installments of the Chucky series. Just by their premises’ alone I can’t believe they were even made. The next one he gets a wife/female partner and the one after that they have a baby. I totally get not taking the franchise seriously but there’s a real fine line between stupid and clever as Nigel Tufnel famously said.

Score: 2 Forest Carnivals (out of 10)