In RFMC’s “All Dolled Up” series, I’m taking my first journey through the seven original films, one reboot film and one TV series of the “Child’s Play/Chucky” franchise. Spoilers follow.
Overall impressions
Made only one year after part two, “Child’s Play 3” (1991) would seem to be cranked out, but the production values remain high, and the principle of a 90-minute horror romp remains in place. This one simply isn’t as fun, coming off as dour thanks to the bleak setting of a teenage military academy and lulls in the pacing.
And hampering the sense of menace, the filmmakers back off on gore as per the parents-against-movie-violence trend. (This was the same year as “TMNT II,” when the Turtles don’t use their weapons.)
“Child’s Play 3” (1991)
Director: Jack Bender
Writer: Don Mancini
Stars: Justin Whalin, Perrey Reeves, Jeremy Sylvers
Outsider status
Nonconformists at boot camp. Jumping ahead to the future of the late Nineties, “Child’s Play 3” switches the Andy actor from Alex Vincent to the teenage Justin Whalin. He continues the character’s seen-it-all worldview, as a rebellious teen who does not fit in at a youth military academy. His allies are three fellow outsiders: a geeky roommate, a girl cadet and a little boy cadet.
Comedy quotient
70 percent horror, 30 percent comedy. Sometimes when screenplays don’t totally come together, whimsy (only for the sake of whimsy) seeps in. This is particularly true in the case of the school’s barber (Andrew Robinson), whose entire life is about shaving heads. In an example of the film’s inconsistency, though, several boy cadets do not have shaved heads, and the girl cadets keep their long locks. Although the tone is less moody than the first two, it never actually becomes funny.
Magic and the dolls
The melted plastic from Chucky’s factory demise is re-used for new dolls, as Play Pals relaunches the Good Guys line in the late ’90s. Chucky possesses one of them, but because he’s not exactly the same doll, the magic rules reset and Andy is no longer the human linked to Chucky. Instead it is kiddie cadet Tyler (Jeremy Sylvers). As always, Chucky’s body-swapping ritual is interrupted every time.
We meet two generic Good Guys in the Play Pals president’s suite: Larry and Pauly. Maybe they are leftover 1980s models, since Chucky is the first off the restarted assembly line.
Special effects
The range of expressions for the animatronic Chucky increases. The gore effects team basically gets a vacation, much to the movie’s detriment.
Best kill
“Child’s Play 3” is terrified to do a memorably gory kill. The school’s headmaster even dies from a heart attack upon seeing the doll come alive. Theoretically, a major reason to stick with this grim film is for the comeuppance of Shelton (Travis Fine), the classic drill sergeant audiences love to hate. Although he is offed by Chucky’s trickery, it’s by a quick and unsatisfying bullet to the heart. (It comes amid a paintball war where no one is wearing goggles, another of those incorrect details that hurt the picture.)
The kills of humans are so weak in this movie that, by default, Chucky being chopped up by a turbine at the amusement park wins this category.
Best one-liner
“Presto, you’re dead.” Chucky plays on the barber’s favorite line, “Presto, you’re bald,” after slitting his throat with a razor.
References and meta commentary
The opening montage of Chucky being accidentally resurrected when the Play Pals plant reopens is backed by a score that sounds vaguely, but perhaps intentionally, like that of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” also from 1991.
Continuity and predictions
Chucky has now tried several times to transfer his essence into a human body, and been thwarted. Frustrating for him, and it’s starting to become frustrating for a viewer. At least temporarily, it might be neat to have a human be possessed with the soul of Charles Lee Ray. At any rate, the premise of Chucky’s havoc combined with no one believing Andy is wearing thin, and something fresh is needed for part four.