My Review of Child's Play 3 (1991)

 

Written by Don Mancini

Directed by Jack Bender

Andy: "No, you're dead. We killed you!"

Chucky: "You know what they say. You can't keep a Good Guy down."

Often horror franchises can vary with their sense. Sometimes you had to wait ages between movies (which did happen to this franchise as it progressed) and other times, it's just a year in between releases. Chucky really was proving to be quite the moneymaker. 

However while it might have been a year between movie releases, the actual chronology was eight years. Gone was Alex Vincent as Andy Barclay and now playing the character as a relatively troubled teenager was Justin Whalin. Thankfully, he did a great job in his only time playing the character.

Clearly running out of foster homes to get kicked out of, Andy ended up in Kent Military School and yet again, any time he dared to mention a certain Good Guy Doll, his fears were either ridiculed or straight up dismissed. At the same, there were a few believers.

Notably a young cadet named Tyler (Jeremy Sylvers) who made friends with Chucky (Brad Dourif) but it took him until the third act before realising what exactly his new friend really meant with "hide the soul". Yet again, Chucky survived with his blood mixing into a new doll and when he wasn't killing CEOs, he was going after people in Andy's new school.

Yes, there was Chucky's attempts of using Tyler as a vessel (guess how that'll turn out) but in between that, Chucky had fun terrorising and killing both Sergeant Botnick (Andrew Robinson) and a driver as well as causing Colonel Cochrane (Dakin Matthews) a fatal heart attack. Now that was a moment that even took Chucky aback.

The one thing I do like about these sequels is the fact that Andy gets thrown into new environments with new characters to play. Serving as a minor antagonist was the jerkish Shelton (Travis Fine) while Whitehurst (Dean Jacobson) and da Silva (Perrey Reeves) were the only two friends Andy this time around. Well, the latter did shape up to be something more than a friend for Andy.

As for the big battle between Andy and Chucky, it was nice to see him more proactive and considering that the character was aged up, it made sense. In some ways, his role was akin to Kyle's from the second movie. Once again, Chucky was defeated and once again, it's implied that he'll return to cause more chaos. 

- A link to this movie had been made to a real life murder case in England with the movie being removed from UK distribution at the time.

- Originally there was a plan to introduce multiple versions of Chucky but the idea for scrapped for budget reasons.

- This was the last film (until the 2019 remake) to have Child's Play as a title and to be strict about the specifics of who Chucky can possess at a time.

- Chronology: Eight years after the events of the second movie.

Child's Play 3 could have served as a good ending for the series overall. It certainly felt like a good way to end Andy's story with follow up movies pivoting the franchise in interesting directions overall. For a film that's supposed to be Mancini and Dourif's least favourite, it's pretty good actually.

Rating: 7 out of 10