Review of Child's Play 3 (1991) by Hobie P — 25 Dec 2011

Unlike Child?s Play 2 which was quite enjoyable, though not as good as the original, Child?s Play 3 is not enjoyable, and almost unwatchable. The reasoning behind this, is because part 3 was rushed into production immediately after the second film because of the success the last one was. Even the films? writer, Don Mancini, said he had wished he had another year and that part 3 is his least favorite. And rightfully so, Child?s Play 3 suffers from a lot and ultimately would end the series for quite a while.

Child?s Play 3 once again deals with Andy Barclay (now played by Justin Whalin, gone is the awful actor Alex Vincent), now Andy is at a military school. Why? Who knows? It?s just another cop out to move Andy to yet another location and move the story along. This time Chucky (Dourif) is regenerated with a new body. A very ingenious way of bringing him back this time. When cleaning up the mess from part 2, the pick up the remains of his body and his blood drips into a new batch of plastic and thus creating a new Chucky doll. But, question here, if his blood is mixed in the plastic, wouldn?t they have created a whole line of killer dolls? I can?t believe the plastic in the machine was all used to create one doll. So, Chucky finds his way to Andy, but realizes he can get a new body with whoever he tells his secret to first, since he has a new body. So, Chucky reveals a plot hole himself, why do we need Andy again? In fact in part 4, they ditch the whole idea all together and come up with a different way for Chucky to switch bodies. If only they could have come up with that in part 3, to save us this travesty. So, Andy is not liked at school (go figure) and he makes friends with Tyler (Sylvers), a much younger child than himself (Andy is now in his teens). So Chucky reveals his secret to Tyler and now Andy has a purpose, to stop Chucky from switching souls with Tyler.

This movie is just so bad in so many ways. Why is it wherever Andy goes, not only does no one believe him, but everyone hate him? In the last film his foster family hated him, in this movie almost all of the military school hates him. Andy might as well kill himself because no one seems to like him. And when people do start to show him affection, Chucky kills them. This movie suffers from a weak storyline, and not so great direction. Why Don Mancini didn?t direct this is beyond me. There were originally three writers on the first Child?s Play film, Don Mancini, Tom Holland and John Lafia, Holland directed the first, Lafia directed the second, so shouldn?t have Mancini been next in line? I don?t know, but this movie was directed by Jack Bender. Another question I have is why children seem to trust a talking doll. In part one it happens and then again in part three. Tyler seems to trust Chucky regardless of the fact that he is a talking doll! I know kids don?t really know any better, but when I was a child I knew the difference between a doll that talks a few choice sayings and a doll that can hold a conversation with you. I just feel that the children in these movies are flat out stupid.

Overall, Child?s Play 3, is the worst in the series. The series ended for about 7 years after this one. No one really believed the series would be revived because the movies were far from being categorized with films like Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street. The story was always flat and just a copy of other stories that had been done before. But, Child?s Play would be resurrected not one, but two more times in the next 14 years.