Review of Child's Play 3 (1991) by Cory T — 21 Oct 2014

Ala a Tim Burton ode to the classic monsters movie of yore, the third installment is inchoate inside a cobweb-infested factory. Suddenly the remains of Chucky's mutilated carcass trickles into the modeling plastic and we follow down the whirlpool.

This lends the film an old-fashioned, gothic classiness which it sorely required after the buffoonery of part 2. Obviously the novelty of an animatronic Chucky has been winnowed away but Brad Dourif's vinegary Jack Nicholson vocals still crackle with ire.

Moreso than the previous entry, the brambly 'Child's Play 3' is a mean-spirited enterprise and it fully capitalizes on the stringent military setting for its heinous possibilities (ex. Dud grenades are replaced by live ones during a wargame exercise).

Flayed as a "troublemaker", Andy Barclay (Justin Whalin) is the emotionally atrophied core of the story and adult figures simply aren't amenable to his plight about "killer dolls".

His odyssey from bright-eyed childhood to institutionalized suppression is sorrowful and it is vicariously infuriating when his sergeants and peers dismiss him. However, the film still rehashes the voodoo synopsis of the first two and the deus ex machine with Tyler (Jeremy Sylvers) as the new vessel for Chucky's soul is an otiose excuse for disavowing continuity.

The funniest death scene is when Chucky's pint-sized appearance causes a heart attack to which Dourif deprecates "you gotta be fucking kidding me". I can't defend it on an inventiveness level, but 'Child's Play 3' is an inimitably sinister, underrated trek back to the Good Guy mythos and the funhouse finale is like a florid Dario Argento throwback with red and purple gel lighting galore.