Review #122: Child's Play 3 (1991)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Jack Bender (Director): Lost T.V. series (27 episodes)

Brad Dourif (Chucky)

Peter Haskill (Sullivan): Child's Play 2

Justin Whalin (Andy): Dungeons & Dragons (2001), Dorm Daze 2 (2006), Lois & Clark T.V. series

Perrey Reeves (Kristen De Silvia): Old School (2003), Entourage T.V. series

Travis Fine (Cadet Shelton): The Thin Red Line (1998), Girl, Interrupted (1999), Tomcats (2001)

Andrew Robinson (Sgt. Botnick): Dirty Harry (1971), Cobra (1986), Hellraiser (1987), Trancers 3 (1992), Pumpkinhead 2 (1993), The Puppet Masters (1994), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine T.V. series

Child's Play Link

Child's Play 2 Link

Trailer:



Plot:

Resurrected once again from the dead, the killer doll Chucky finds himself in another new body as his quest for Andy's soul continues. Only this time Andy's grown up into a teenager (8 years later) and has started attending a military school.

This time there's a catch! With Chucky being melted down and resurrected into a new body, now he can tell his secret to a new potential host, a young cadet named Tyler. Andy must fight off Chucky and protect Tyler while attending a tough military school.

Villain:

Chucky returns for yet another adventure in horror. Chucky's old body was melted down into a new plastic mold as the Play Pals company attempts to reestablish it's business. And then he conveniently ships himself in a package to Kent Military School in an effort to get to Andy.

We're now into the third installment of the Child's Play franchise, and Chucky's smart *ss comments are now more important than the kills themselves. What happened to the idea of a killer being scary? I guess those days are long gone.

Cast:

Andy has been recasted for this movie. The movie takes place eight years from the previous one, but the movie's release date is less than nine months from the second movie. Obviously they needed a new Andy. Taking Alex Vincent's role in this film was Justin Whalin (Pictured left). Sounds familiar?

Well it should if you're a fan of the Lois & Clark: The New Adventures in Superman television show. Whalin played the role of Jimmy the Daily Planet's photo journalist. Whalin also starred in the movie adaption of Dungeons & Dragons.

Whalin continued the strong tradition of pretty good acting out of the Andy character. Personally, I liked the little kid better, but I was just as satisfied with the newer version...Andy 2.0.

Chucky's new target (Tyler) was played by Jeremy Sylvers. I've never really liked that character. He's just an annoying, gullible kid that brought nothing to the franchise. I did find it pretty funny when Chucky was gloating that he was, "Going to be a bro!" to Andy. Just in case you haven't figured it out...Tyler is African American.

Rounding out the cast members are Cadet Shelton (the tough, prick leader of the squad), Cadet Whitehurst (the geeky, loser roommate of Andy) and Cadet De Silvia (Perrey Reeves ~ Andy's love interest). Reeves goes on to play the future ex-wife of "Frank the Tank" in one of my fav.'s Old School.

SFX/Gore:

The body count was surprisingly low at seven. Seven!? Honestly I was hoping for a higher body count being the third installment of the franchise. Body counts tend to go up with sequel numbers. There was at least two deaths of random people that had no bearing on the film itself. I think they needed to pad some numbers to sell this b*tch. Pretty boring for the first part of the film (kill-wise), and then an onslaught of bodies leading up to the climax.

Probably the most memorable death happens to come from * Highlight to Read * Andy's roommate, Whitehurst. Whitehurst takes it like a man when he sacrifices himself for the safety of everyone as he dove onto a grenade, covering it up as it exploded. You go boy! * End.

TNA:

Well just like the previous Child's Play movies, we don't get much here. We are treated to the youthful looking body of Perrey Reeves (Pictured Right) and...that's it. Child's Play is turning out to be another Nightmare on Elm St. Neither show any TNA. It took that series three and a half movies to give the horror audience what they want...female breasts. I would like to say the same for this movie, but I'm not going to disappoint you.

Concept:

For being the 3rd installment of the franchise is was quite refreshing. I always thought that the second movie brought nothing new to the table; it was just a continuation of the first movie dragged out. For me, it was kind of "blah", but this one brought a few new and good ideas to the screen.

First of all, I liked the setting of the film. I thought it was awesome that Andy went to Kent Military School and Chucky followed him there. I felt like the film was a cross between Stripes and Child's Play. Okay, maybe not as cool as it sounds, but the setting was something different and "outside the box".

Secondly, I liked the paint ball military battle idea...especially when Chucky replaced the paint balls with real bullets. I was thought that idea was really cool and demented.

Unfortunately only one person died during the exercise. There should have been more blood and guts during the battle, at least in my opinion. See...paint balling is good ole' fashion family fun! It's great for kids of all ages. Until the paintballs get swapped out with real bullets.

T.Gun Factor:

The third installment of the Child's Play franchise receives a lot of crap from the series fans. I thought it was better than the second movie. The ideas and directions of the movie were better, which is quite impressive considering it was spit out nine months later.

Despite of all of the the film's goodness, it did disappoint in some of the key areas. Like I said before, there weren't a whole lot of deaths involved, not too much TNA, and I thought they kind of blew the whole paint ball battle idea. If the film had addressed some of those areas, it probably would be more well received through out the horror community. But it's still better than the second movie!

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on August 30, 1991 and made $14.9 million at the Box Office
-This film was a big controversy in the UK as two boys said that this film inspired them to kill a two year old; They never saw the film