Key Movies Of My Life: Child’s Play 3 (1991)

There were key movies in my life that helped to make me who I am today. Movies that I have loved from the moment the opening credit rolled and still love now. This blog series is about those, My guilty pleasures, my favorites, my escapes. Some were very popular, others not so much. Some of these will have some real life take-aways, others are just for fun.

Today’s Key Movie:

Eight years after the events of Child’s Play 2, Chucky returns and hunts down Andy for one last fight. Only Andy is now 16 and in military school…

Starring Justin Whalin as Andy, Brad Dourif returning as Chucky with Perey Reeves and Jeremy Sylvers in what would be the final battle between Andy and Chucky.

Why this movie?

After absolutely loving Child’s Play parts 1 and 2, I was already sold when it was announced that part 3 was being released. Call it morbid curiosity but I seriously wondered how the diminutive devil would be brought back yet again after being both melted to oblivion and also dismembered. The Answer? Blood Magic.

I’m not kidding, the blood of the Original Chucky (or rather Chucky 2.0 as he was rebuilt in part 2) is dripped into the vat of molting plastic, which somehow managed to remain in a liquid state for eight years in an abandoned factory full of doll parts, and the soul of Charles Earl Ray was returned once again into the body of a Good Guy Doll. Once again, the Play Pals Corporation decides to bring back the Good Guy Doll using the same equipment and factory that Chucky ‘died’ in. They don’t care that the doll was the center point of not one but several murders and bank on nostalgia for the Good Guy Doll to bring it back from the dead, literally. So, guess which doll the President of Play Pals gets…you guessed it, Chucky himself. After violently murdering the President of Play Pals using nothing but some seriously dangerous toys, Chucky goes after Andy, because, of course he does.

What follows is an interesting adventure with Chucky finding a loophole in his ‘curse’ allowing him to choose another kid to jump into. Of course, being at a military acadamy with teens and kids who have access to guns is more than Chucky planned for and chaos ensues. The question is, is it worth it or is it even any good? Well…

You like it, but is it really a ‘good’ movie?

That really depends on what you consider ‘good’. This is, by far, the weakest of the original Child’s Play Trilogy, but it is still a fun film to watch. To me, this is film is a completely missed opportunity in that we had a great setup in the last film with Andy and Kyle heading off together in the end. In fact, there is a massive part of Andy’s story, eight years, in fact, that is missing with who knows what encounters that could have been. To me, the more obvious and fitting continuation would have been Kyle and Andy living together as Mother and Son only to run into Chucky one last time. Instead they opted for the whole military school thing which, for the 90’s does make sense seeing that military films were pretty popular back then. So, what a better way to infuse some military-esque hi-jinks than a military academy?

The cast in this one includes Justin Whalin who would later go on to be Jimmy Olsen in the Adventures of Louis and Clark. Whalin is actually a pretty solid actor but, despite this, the film never hits the horror or the fun the previous two entries hit, somewhere it just falls flat leaving everyone wishing for more. One fun callout, one of the side characters is played by Star Trek alum Andrew Robinson. While he is best known in SciFi for his role as Garak in Deep Space Nine, he gets the chance to both shave heads and have him self killed by the red head killer doll.

Overall, Child’s Play 3 is more of a letdown than a proper sequel which ultimately lead the creators to take the tale of Charles Lee Ray a whole new direction with the fourth installment in the Chucky Saga, Bride of Chucky. You can bet we will discuss this film next week.

OK, where do I get this movie?

This, as well as the rest of the Child’s Play Trilogy, is still available on home video as well as Video on Demand. If you love Chucky and his murderous antic, this one is fun but only if you are a fan. Otherwise, just watch parts one and two. But wait….there’s more. Next week we journey further with…The Bride of Chucky!

Late To The Game 10/22/2020

If you would like to read more reviews please check out the rest of the Key Movies Of My Life that comes out every Thursday.

For more retro TV goodness check out the rest of the Retro TV Reviews here. and, If you dig Music, I have a semi regular series called Stand Out Albums that covers some of my favorite records I have come across in life.

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