Franchises: Child's Play. Child's Play 3 (1991)

Read my reviews of any of the popular horror franchises and you'll see that I have a tendency to like or, at the very least, get enjoyment out of those films that are usually considered the black sheep, be it Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween: Resurrection, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, or A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge. That also goes for other, non-horror franchises (check my list of the most underrated sequels in my opinion and movies that I love but everyone else hates for more), and it often just comes down to my own personal tastes and how some films unexpectedly touch me. It can also be because of nostalgia, and that's definitely the case with Child's Play 3, easily one of the most unpopular Chucky movies. I can freely admit that it's far from perfect, with its rushed nature being very apparent, and it is also quite run-of-the-mill in some ways, but, regardless, this is my favorite outside of original. As I said in my review of the first film, this is the one I have the earliest memories of, with that brief glimpse of its first fifteen or so minutes when I was around four or five, and I can also remember how much that poster artwork freaked me out when I saw it on the VHS box cover at Harold's. Also, when I finally manned up and watched the original Child's Play that Halloween weekend in 1999, this was on immediately afterward and I saw most of it that night, too. After that, like Halloween II, this was the Chucky movie that was shown on TV the most and so, I saw it a good number of times. Another factor in my love for it is just how long it took for it to get a new home video release after the original VHS went out of print; until it finally came to DVD in late 2003, I was stuck with a crappy recording of the censored TV version on Sci-Fi Channel (with the ending credits fast-forwarded, which is one of the reasons why I eventually stopped watching movies on channels like that, TBS, and TNT). When I finally got to see it uncut, while I may have recognized a lot of flaws and felt that the missing scenes from the TV version caused it to lose some of its depth, it mostly just deepened my affection for it. In fact, I genuinely think it's a better film than people give it credit for, and it's also the end of the initial era of the franchise as, starting with the next one, it would have a completely different feel, with mixed results.

Eight years after suffering from the scandal caused by Andy Barclay's story about Chucky, the higher-ups at Play Pals, particularly greedy company president Mr. Sullivan, decide to put the Good Guy doll back on the market. Thus, their long abandoned factory in Chicago is promptly cleaned up and readied for reopening. But during the clean up operation, a crane punctures Chucky's remains and, while the mass of melted plastic is being lifted out, the blood leaks into a bubbling vat, is integrated into the very first doll off the assembly line, and the soul of Charles Lee Ray is revived once again. After being given to Sullivan as a way of celebrating their success, Chucky tortures and murders him at his apartment, then uses his computer to find Andy's current whereabouts. Now sixteen, Andy, who's been in one foster home after another over the years, has been enrolled in Kent Military School and, upon arriving, is advised by the commandant, Colonel Cochrane, to grow up and forget his "fantasies." He also befriends Ronald Tyler, an eight-year old private, and Harold Aubrey Whitehurst, a meek, nerdy cadet who's often the target of bullying. Said bullying comes courtesy of Lt. Col. Brett C. Shelton, who promptly begins targeting Andy, as does his subordinate, Maj. Ellis. However, Andy also catches the eye of Kristen De Silva, a beautiful and very tough young woman who's not afraid to stand up to Shelton. Chucky soon arrives at the school in a package addressed to Andy, but while taking the package to him, Tyler, who wanted a Good Guy, learns what's inside and opens it himself. Chucky bursts out of the box, initially frustrated that he hasn't made it to Andy. But, realizing he now has a new doll body and hasn't yet revealed his true identity to anyone, he decides to possess Tyler instead. Though his initial attempt at this fails, Chucky is undeterred. That night, he reveals his presence to Andy, and tells him of his plans for Tyler. Now, Andy has to save Tyler's soul from the evil doll, a feat complicated by the environment and the usual problem of no one believing him, as well as Tyler thinking that Chucky is his new best friend.

I always assumed that the reason why Child's Play 3 was released less than a year after the previous one (nine months, to be exact) was because Child's Play 2 proved quite successful when it was released in November of 1990. While the latter is true, as Child's Play 2 opened at number one and went on to make $35 million worldwide on a budget of $13 million, Universal actually commissioned a third installment before it was even released, based on how well it scored with test audiences and also because they wanted their own slasher franchise. However, while Don Mancini had talked about another one at some point during Child's Play 2's promotion, it came on so quickly and had such a locked-in release date in August of 1991 that he found himself very hard-pressed to come up with another story. The fact that he was the sole writer this time (while he's the only credited writer on the previous film, he and John Lafia actually co-wrote it) and had several other projects he was trying to get cooking at the time didn't help his feeling of being burned out on Chucky. But, since he was obligated to write it, he did the best that he could under the circumstances. Unfortunately, the end result, which made only $20.5 million on another $13 million budget, became the least successful of the theatrical entries and more or less killed the franchise for seven years. Like my two go-to examples for rushed horror sequels, Halloween 5 and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Child's Play 3, as much as I personally love it, did definitely suffer from its rushed development and production. And even though I would much rather watch it than some of the stuff he made after he took creative control of the franchise, I can understand why Mancini has said this is his least favorite.

Just as he's said to have been offered both Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and what eventually became Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Peter Jackson was supposedly approached to direct Child's Play 3 but turned them down. Child's Play 2-director John Lafia had expressed interest in directing another one but, while it's unknown if he was ever approached, the third film's sudden, rushed production and Lafia's well-reported and self-admitted perfectionist nature while shooting Child's Play 2 likely didn't make him a viable option. In the end, they went with Jack Bender, who was chosen by David Kirschner himself, as he'd worked with Bender on the 1990 TV movie, The Dreamer of Oz. In addition to being an actor who appeared on a number of TV shows throughout the 1970's, Bender was already a veteran television director, having done episodes of Eight is Enough, Falcon Crest, Fame, The Paper Chase, and many others, as well as a slew of TV movies. The only theatrical thing he'd done at that point was a short in 1980 called A Real Naked Lady, but given how quickly television has to be shot, that likely made him a good fit for a movie as fast-tracked as Child's Play 3. Afterward, he would do only one more theatrical movie, 1995's Lone Justice 2; otherwise, he's stuck to TV (along with some direct-to-video flicks), directing more TV movies and episodes of shows like Beverly Hills, 90210, The Sopranos, Judging Amy, Felicity, Alias, and most notably, many episodes of Lost, including the finale, and Game of Thrones. I'm guessing Bender's theatrical directing career didn't pan out because Child's Play 3 didn't do as well as everyone hoped but, given how weak the script sometimes is, I thought he handled himself quite well. Although, as we'll get into, his being more familiar with television did creep into the movie, as it's not nearly as cinematic as the previous one was.

One element that Don Mancini felt needed to be changed up to keep the series from becoming stale was the character of Andy Barclay. According to Reign of Chucky, Universal themselves also felt that Andy needed to be tweaked somehow, and so Mancini decided to set Child's Play 3 eight years into the future, with Andy now a teenager. This naturally meant that Alex Vincent wouldn't be returning, with teenage Andy instead being played by Justin Whalin (with Vincent returning to the series years later, this became the only movie where Andy is played by someone else). Feelings about Whalin's performance are fairly mixed, but I've always thought he did a pretty good job, managing to capture Andy's lingering fear of Chucky very well and convincingly portray the PTSD he's suffered ever since the events of the first two movies, notably in the scene where Andy sees a Good Guys commercial while getting his hair cut. When he first arrives at Kent Military School and meets with Colonel Cochrane, you learn that Andy's life has continued to be quite rough since we last saw him and Kyle at the end of Child's Play 2 (we're never told what became of her, but it's reasonable to think that they were simply separated by the foster system). He's bounced from one foster home to another, unable to adjust to living with strangers, and has gotten a reputation as a troublemaker. Things don't get much better at Kent, as he not only has to deal with the very bizarre and uncomfortable character of Sergeant Botnick when he cuts his hair, but is immediately targeted by Lt. Col. Shelton during his first formation, who hounds and bullyies him at every turn. The only bright spots are Andy's newfound friendships with Tyler and Whitehurst, and his getting the attention of the lovely and capable De Silva.

But then, no sooner is he getting settled in than Chucky shows up. This is something that, like in the first act of Child's Play 2, you can tell Andy has been dreading could happen again. When he sees that Good Guy commercial (which, in a nice touch, incorporates the very same animation as that episode of the TV show he saw in the first movie), you can really see the fear in his face and eyes, not only because it's bringing back bad memories but also probably because he's wondering if Chucky has been revived

again as a result of the company restarting the production line. Right after that, when he goes into his room for the first time, he hears banging in the closet and, naturally, is now very terrified as he slowly approaches and opens the door. It turns out to be a false alarm, as it's Whitehurst, who was tied up and gagged in there by Shelton and his cronies. However, that afternoon, while he and the others in his group are out on the field, being put through drills, Andy is horrified when he sees Cochrane walking 

nearby, carrying a Good Guy doll by the hair. Then, immediately afterward, the garbage truck driver is crushed to death, making Andy all the more suspicious. And sure enough, that night, Chucky appears in his room, not only to taunt him by letting him know he's back, but also to reveal that he now intends to possess Tyler. Though initially terrified, when he hears this, Andy becomes determined to save the kid (another twist that Mancini thought up to differentiate this film) and immediately attacks Chucky. Although this has unfortunate implications

for him when Shelton walks in on him and takes the doll for no other reason that to spite him, and he later makes the very bad decision to sneak into Shelton's room with a knife, leading Shelton to punish him and the entire company when he finds the doll gone, Andy never wavers. Even when he tries to warn Tyler and the kid refuses to believe him that "Charles" is evil, Andy, at the very least, gives him his knife for protection. And during the annual war games out in the woods, he leaves his group to protect Tyler, leading to the climax at the carnival.

Kristen De Silva (Perry Reeves), one of the female cadets at the school, proves to be just as strong and virtuous as she is lovely in her first scene. When Shelton is using his authority to bully and belittle Andy and Whitehurst during formation, De Silva calls him an asshole. Hearing this, Shelton demands, "What did you say?", and De Silva, not backing down, responds, "I said, 'You asshole,' sir!" I just love that attitude of, "Yeah, I said it," she throws at him. It gets better when Shelton, whose pride has clearly been damaged, says, "You think you're pretty funny, don't you, De Silva?", and she confidently answers, "Yes, I do, sir." He tells her to get down and do 25, only for her to rub it in a little more by asking, "25 what, sir?!" And she not only does them flawlessly but, when he tells her to do the last two one-handed, she pulls them off too, as a further metaphorical middle finger to him. When she stands back up, she's clearly proud of herself and smiles at Andy. The two of them are formally introduced at the shooting range, where De Silva tries to teach Andy how to shoot. She also flat out says that Shelton is a dick, and when he abuses Andy again during a drill, both he and Whitehurst look on in disgust. She's so interested in Andy that, that night, she and a friend of hers, Jackie, sneak into Colonel Cochrane's office in order to look up his file, though they're distracted before they can read his claims about Chucky. And speaking of which, though De Silva doesn't know it, she ends up on his shit list after she puts lipstick on him. 

While the company is camping out during the war games, Andy and De Silva go off by themselves, where they tell each other their first names and De Silva proceeds to kiss Andy quite passionately. Having seen this, Chucky later takes De Silva hostage when Tyler gets away from him, demanding that Andy bring Tyler to him or he'll kill her. Chucky's intended trade doesn't go as planned, though, and De Silva proceeds to join Andy in protecting Tyler, who runs off to the nearby carnival. Unfortunately, she's

unable to take part in the final showdown, as Chucky shoots her in the leg, but she gives Andy her gun and he uses what he taught her to shoot and temporarily stop Chucky. At the end, she's taken to the hospital, while Andy, once again a suspect in Chucky's crimes, is taken away by the police. It wouldn't be until Curse of Chucky over twenty years later that we'd find out that Andy, thankfully, wasn't sent to prison for the rest of his life but, at the same time, his relationship with De Silva clearly didn't work out, which sucks. 

On the whole, Tyler (Jeremy Sylvers) is an okay character but he's pretty bland and not as memorable as Andy was as a kid. Upon seeing the Good Guy doll commercial, he instantly wants one, to the point where, while delivering a package intended for Andy, he takes off with it and unwraps it upon learning what it is. This is where we into some issues with the character that Don Mancini himself has admitted to. At eight-and-a-half  years old (according to a scene in the TV version), Tyler is a little old to be so taken with Good Guy dolls, to the point where he goes, "Wow!", upon seeing the commercial, in the same manner as Andy when was six. By extension, he should be beyond that naive childhood stage Andy was where he wouldn't question a doll acting and talking like a real, living person. And even if we're going to accept that, Chucky's voice and constant use of profanity should be a red flag that maybe he's not someone Tyler should be hanging around. For God's sake, immediately after he unwraps the package, Chucky explodes out of the box with an angry yell and demands, "Who the fuck are you?!", before then asking, "Where the hell's Andy?" And even after he puts on a facade of friendliness towards Tyler and asks what his name is, he attempts the soul transfer and starts the chant, the sound of which, coupled with the crashing thunder overhead, should tip off anybody with common sense. But no, Tyler's just willing to go along with playing "Hide the Soul," and forces Chucky to play hide and seek that night, unaware of the danger he's in, and despite how angry Chucky clearly gets while looking for him (not mention that he's carrying around a Bowie knife!). He also refuses to believe Andy when he tries to warn him about how evil Chucky is, naively thinking that couldn't be the case because, "He's a Good Guy. It says so on his shirt." But while his company is camping out during the war games, and he goes AWOL with Chucky, Tyler realizes that Andy was right when he pulls a knife on him. Fortunately, he has enough sense to stab him with the knife Andy gave him, and from then on, is in the same position Andy was in the first two movies, with Chucky tracking him down to the carnival.

I'll go into this more later but, not only is Tyler's character handled much better in the TV version, which is the version I was familiar with before getting the movie on DVD (he still comes off as far more naive than he should, though), but so is his and Andy's friendship. In the theatrical version, the first time you see them together is when they're getting their haircuts, with Tyler telling Andy that the military cut always feels weird at first, but after that, you don't see them together again until Andy tries to

warn Tyler about Chucky during breakfast. But in the TV version, there are some other scenes between them before they arrive at the school and immediately after the haircut, which establish a true bond between them and give Andy's determination to help Tyler far more dramatic weight, as it does the moment where Tyler angrily tells Andy, "You're just jealous that he's my best friend now instead of yours!"

One character who's always frustrated me is Whitehurst (Dean Jacobson), who's kind of the stereotypical nerdy guy with glasses and gets picked on. He becomes something of a friend to Andy when he meets him, but in general, he's been so beaten down by Shelton's bullying, to the point where Shelton forces him to polish his shoes, and the overall vibe of the place, that he comes off as just generally broken. Moreover, he says something at one point that suggests he's there against his will and can't do anything about it, so it's small wonder that the only bit of defiance we see on his part is when he spits into one of Shelton's shoes. Where Whitehurst starts to become frustrating is when he sees Chucky right after he's murdered Sergeant Botnick but initially refuses to admit it to Andy, even angrily denying it. Understandably, he's freaked out beyond belief and doesn't want to get involved with something as crazy as this, and I can even let it slide when Andy asks for his help in rescuing Tyler but he turns over on his side and pitifully says, "I'm sorry, I can't." But the worst part is when Andy, believed to be a traitor to his team, is restrained and needs Whitehurst to back him up on Tyler being in danger; Whitehurst just wimps out and doesn't say anything, proving himself to be a total coward. They try to redeem him by having  him commit a heroic sacrifice and jump on top of a grenade that Chucky throws near the others but, as Dean Jacobson himself said when he was interviewed in Reign of Chucky, it doesn't feel earned, given Whitehurst's ongoing shell-shock and how so few of them could be considered friends to him. Also, I kind of doubt his body would've been enough to completely cover the force of that explosion. 

Something else that Jacobson mentioned in his interview is how random it is that De Silva's friend, Jackie (Donna Eskra), runs in and cries her eyes out right next to Whitehurst after he's sacrificed himself, even though the two of them never interacted or even so much as made eye contact. In fact, despite being the only other female presence among the cadets, Jackie doesn't do much of anything significant, with her most notable scene being when she accompanies De Silva in sneaking into Colonel Cochrane's office. Other than that, all she does is giggle when Andy gets tripped in the mess hall (until De Silva slaps her arm), start to tell a ghost story around the campfire when De Silva goes off with Andy, and, again, act overly distraught about Whitehurst. (Maybe it's just an empathetic reaction to his death but, like Jacobson and the authors mentioned, it doesn't feel earned.)

Lt. Col. Shelton (Travis Fine) is a type of person I'm sure we've all had to deal with at one point or another: an insecure bully who uses his position of authority to make the lives of those around him miserable. Though it's implied that Shelton likely bullies a good number of the cadets, the ones we always see him target are Whitehurst and Andy, the latter since he's the new kid. In fact, Andy first meets Whitehurst when he finds him tied up and gagged in his closet, courtesy of Shelton and his lackeys. Later on, after we've seen Shelton belittle Whitehurst in front of everyone at formation, calling him, "The most pathetic thing I have ever seen," and trying to force him to agree, before yelling in his face, "Are you contradicting me, you sorry-ass sack of shit?!", when he refuses, you learn he forces him to be his personal slave and polish his shoes. He also begins bullying Andy the minute he meets him at formation, having to prove that he's the one in charge, and later humiliates him when he catches him not paying attention during their rifle drills. Walking in on him when he's beating on Chucky, and thinking he's acting like a little kid, Shelton then becomes enraged when he sees one of his shoes lying on the floor and tells Andy right then and there that he's going to make him into another slave, as well as takes the doll with him. Upon catching Andy in his room later that night (which, like I said earlier, does make him look very suspicious) and finding the doll gone, Shelton forces the entire company to march in place in the quad, which begins to turn the other cadets against Andy. And when Andy sneaks away to try to help Tyler, Shelton catches him and punches him right in the gut. Andy responds with a punch right in the face, but Shelton comes off as absolutely gleeful about it, as well as impressed with what Andy is capable of when pushed. 

In his own interview for Reign of Chucky, Travis Fine said that he played Shelton as a repressed bisexual who has an attraction to both De Silva and Andy. He said that's the reason why Shelton is initially friendly to Andy at formation before he starts yelling in his face. It was also something he said he expected others to eventually catch onto but that nobody ever has, and I must admit, I didn't. I just saw Shelton as an asshole. But, now knowing this, it does kind of make sense when you take into account how much he must be

compensating for something to make him so angry and abusive. And it puts a deeper spin on Shelton's elation over Andy slugging him, seeing what he can bring out of him. Shelton's ridiculous investment into the war games can also be another part of that overcompensation, as when Andy steals his map from his tent in order to find the Red Team and save Tyler, Shelton deduces that Andy is doubling for them, even though he's only been at the school for like two days or so. Upon finding and restraining Andy, Shelton

continues thinking it's all part of the war games, even when Tyler shows up, talking about "Charles," someone Shelton has never heard of before, and he then hears Chucky's voice over the walkie-talkie. Despite Chucky's threat to kill De Silva and Andy's warning that this is a dangerous situation, Shelton still doesn't take it seriously, telling Andy, "Relax, Barclay. It's only paint." But after he and his group shoot a bunch of paintball bullets into the spot, Shelton walks in and sees Chucky, who salutes him and then gives him the finger while cackling; at the sight of this, Shelton can only say, "Fuck me." But he barely has time to process it before the Red Team shows up and he's fatally shot due to Chucky replacing the team's paintball bullets with real ones. 

Shelton's subordinate, Major Ellis (Matthew Walker), is just as cruel as Shelton himself, going along with his bullying and also picking on Whitehurst and Andy himself. In fact, Travis Fine said that the close relationship between Shelton and Ellis, and Ellis being so particularly distraught when Shelton gets killed, is another sign of Shelton's sexuality. One thing that's always mystified me is how, as soon as Shelton is killed, Ellis promptly blames Andy, throws him to the ground, and starts beating on him. Why does he automatically assume Andy did it? Because he knew he hated Shelton? Shelton was such a dick that probably every cadet hated him, so he shouldn't just assume it's Andy. And furthermore, did he not see or hear Chucky, who's right there? He and the others stayed back when Shelton walked up there, saw Chucky himself, and got shot, but after the Red Team stopped firing, he ran in to see to Shelton and should've had a clear view of Chucky, who even yells, "Sayonara, suckers!", before tossing the hand grenade. Maybe someone else can come up with a rationalization for it, that Ellis was too distraught to really notice Chucky, but that didn't come off well.

Among the adults at the school, two are worth mentioning. First, there's Dakin Matthews, whom I've come to know as Kevin James' dad on one of my favorite sitcoms, The King of Queens, as Colonel Cochrane, the head of the school. He comes across as very stern and tough, telling Andy that, while he sympathizes with the rough life he's had, he doesn't approve of his less than acceptable track-record and tells him, "Grow up. You're not a kid anymore. It's time to forget these fantasies of killer dolls." He then adds, "At Kent, we take bed-wetters and turn 'em into men." When Shelton is punishing the entire company for Andy "stealing" the doll from him, Cochrane questions whether or not this is necessary and, while he allows Shelton to make his point, he orders that everyone be let back inside within an hour. Notably, Cochrane throws Chucky into the garbage not once but twice, the latter of which eventually leads to his death. Like Shelton, Chucky doesn't directly kill him; he instead dies of a heart attack caused by the shock of seeing him pop out screaming while wielding a Bowie knife. Even Chucky himself is bewildered by this, saying, "Oh, you gotta be fucking kiddin' me!" And as he's being taken away following his death, Shelton mentions that Cochrane served two tours in Vietnam. So, he likely saw a lot of horrific things while he was over there, yet the sight of Chucky pushed him over the edge. According to Don Mancini, this was originally supposed to be more darkly humorous, as he wrote Cochrane as a very tough, fit, R. Lee Ermey type of guy, yet he has a heart attack at the sight of a knife-wielding doll. But since they chose an older, slightly pudgy actor for the role, he feels it didn't work as well. 

The most memorable adult at the school is Andrew Robinson (who's such a great actor that it always pains me to see him in lower tier movies like this and Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, even if they're films that I like) as Sergeant Botnick, the school's rather deranged barber who takes a little too much pleasure in shaving people's heads and snipping their hair. In his introduction, he's shaving Tyler's hair and very creepily going, "Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, yes. We're seein' some skin now, aren't we?", and when he finishes, declares, "Presto. You're bald!" He then clearly can't wait to get at Andy's plentiful locks, as he snaps the towel and says, "Next," while staring intently at him. He proceeds to tell him that the Romans created the military cut, "To keep their hair short, so their enemies couldn't grab a hold of it in battle and slit their throat," emphasizing the latter by yanking Andy's head back and slowly drawing the closed scissors over his neck. You see Botnick again in the cafeteria during breakfast, walking around and grabbing people's hair, telling them when he thinks they need to have their next haircut. He looks like a predator on the hunt during this scene, and is especially pleased when he comes across one guy who's gone full on jarhead, rubbing his head and exclaiming, "My man!" De Silva seems to take great pleasure in flipping her long hair when he walks behind her, as he's apparently not able to get at the girls (though, he doesn't seem that interested in them, to be honest). After demanding that Whitehurst see him right after breakfast, he tells Andy that he'll see him on Wednesday, even though he cut Andy's hair just a day or so before. And above all else, Botnick is just as much of a bully towards Whitehurst and the others as Shelton, telling the former as he trims him, "You are, without a doubt, the sorriest excuse for a soldier to ever disgrace these walls. Face it: you're not cut out for this life. Why don't you do yourself a favor and get the hell out of Kent?" When Whitehurst snarkily responds, "If I had any choice in the matter, I would, sir," Botnick buzzes him on the back of his ear, sneers, "Smartass," and sends him off while chuckling nastily like always.

The setup for Botnick's death is what everyone sees as a major contrivance with this movie. After Whitehurst leaves, he's sweeping up his salon, when Chucky tumbles out of a cabinet (a bad attempt at a scare, as you can see him through the cabinet's glass before Botnick opens it). At first baffled at how the doll got in there, he then says, "That haircut ain't regular, soldier. When's the last time you had a trim, huh?" and puts him in the chair, adding, "Kiss it goodbye." But just as he goes in for it, Chucky

slashes his throat open with a straight razor. While the death itself is one of the better ones in the movie, this setup is often accused of being downright stupid and, at first glance, it is. But when you think about how Botnick obviously has major issues and seems to get off on cutting hair, to the point where his salon's walls are decorated with locks of hair, along with pictures of who each one came from, it's not surprising that he would try to satisfy that fetish with a doll. He even knows how weird and disturbing this, as he looks around before putting Chucky in the chair and going to get the trimmer.

Since Chucky never got a chance to kill him in Child's Play 2, they brought back Peter Haskell as Mr. Sullivan, president of Play Pals, to tie up that loose end. At the beginning of the movie, despite being advised that the company may be asking for trouble by putting the Good Guy dolls back on the market, as the doll may affect another child negatively, Sullivan is unmoved, saying, "You know, one of the hardest things about this business is that it is a business, hmm? It doesn't matter what we're selling, whether it's cars, nuclear weapons, or, yes, even toys. The bottom line is the bottom line. And what are children, after all, but... consumer trainees?" Then, to drive the point home, he says, "Andy Barclay is ancient history. No one remembers him. Nobody cares." With that, he declares that they're going ahead with the line, and after the meeting is adjourned, he's presented with the first doll off the assembly line... and guess which one it happens to be? That night, after he's left alone in his apartment, Sullivan is tortured and eventually strangled to death by Chucky.

After they made him a little more of a wise-cracker and gleefully evil in the previous movie, it seems like they tried to portray Chucky with a much more mean-spirited and disturbing sadistic edge this time around, with less emphasis on one-liners. That's not to say he doesn't have any at all, as his very first line is, "Don't fuck with the Chuck!", and he has two in rapid succession after he cuts Botnick's throat: "Presto, you're dead!", and "It's definitely you," and you still hear that cackle he's well known plenty of times. But, for the most part, he comes off as a little more threatening and not as jokey as he was in the previous film, as well as much more chillingly sadistic, like in how he slowly torments Mr. Sullivan before going in for the kill (after strangling him with a yo-yo string, Chucky notes, "Just like the good old days. Nothing like a strangulation to get the circulation going,"), and when he kills the garbageman for no reason other than because he can, giggling evilly as he pushes the levers that crush the poor guy to death in the back of the truck. But his replacing the Red Team's paintball bullets with real ones, remarking, "This oughta slow the pricks down," is one of the most unabashedly evil things he's ever done up to this point. Even though only Shelton gets killed as a result of this (Mancini said in an interview that it was supposed to be a full-blown massacre but it became a budgetary issue, as well as possibly a moral one), if you think about it, there was no reason for him to do that, since no one else would've been a threat to his plan if he'd succeeded in the soul transference when he got Tyler by himself. It may have been meant as a contingency plan, but mostly comes off as something he did simply to satisfy his sick sense of humor and need to kill. And when Shelton does get killed, he cackles like a loon as he watches everyone else dive for cover.

Chucky's motivation is the same here as it was before but, while he makes his way to Kent to initially find and try to possess Andy again, when he meets Tyler, he realizes, because of his new Good Guy doll body, he can now possess anybody he chooses to reveal his true identity to. So, like he did with Andy in the first movie, he preys on Tyler's innocence and naivety, pretending to be his friend, telling him his true name, and insisting that he'll love Hide the Soul. (I've heard some ask why would Chucky, again, attempt to

possess a kid, given how he now has the chance to inhabit an adult body, but I personally think he likes the idea of more or less starting over again and getting to kill for many more years to come. Remember how, in the first Child's Play, he first laughed and then gleefully exclaimed, "I'm gonna be six years old again!", when he learned he needed to possess Andy?). But like with Andy in the previous movie, the universe appears to be on Tyler's side, as Chucky's attempts are constantly thwarted, and he

also has to endure the humiliation of being tossed into a garbage truck and having lipstick smeared on his face. The latter seems to particularly enrage him, as he declares, "This means war," afterward. However, Chucky does make some questionable decisions here and there, like appearing to Andy before he's managed to possess Tyler and even tell him his plan (obviously, he was planning to kill Andy right then and there but didn't get the chance, but I still think he should've continued tolaid low), or, during the climax at the carnival, initially attempting to perform the

ceremony in the middle of the haunted house ride rather than in some excluded spot. But, at the same time, when Tyler manages to temporarily escape him during the war games, Chucky smartly takes De Silva hostage, having seen her and Andy making out earlier, and threatens to kill her if he doesn't bring Tyler to him. On top of that, he brings in that seeming contingency plan of the real bullets in the Red Team's guns in order to create enough chaos to cover his tracks. And like in the first two movies, he takes quite a beating, but refuses to stop until he gets the chance to do the soul transference.

Design-wise, this may be my personal favorite look for Chucky, especially in terms of the face. As much as I liked the way his face looked in the previous films, it has a particularly unsettling and mean feel to me here, especially with those cold, truly evil-looking eyes (which I've heard were also used for another famous Kevin Yagher animatronic creation, the Cryptkeeper). And while he doesn't go through as many different phases of destruction as he did before, late in the film, he gets the entire left side of his face sliced off and it's a really nasty-looking visage, as you can see the bloody tendons all around his eyeball move as he speaks. And he also loses an arm and both hands before finally meeting his demise.

One reason why I prefer this film to Child's Play 2 is because it has a much darker look and feel to it that reminds me of the original. In fact, visually, I would say it's actually halfway between the styles of the first two movies. The color palette is much more muted than it was in the previous film, opening in the dusty, cobweb-filled interiors of the long abandoned Play Pals factory, with the main color that of old gray and light pink plastic, and after the opening credits, we're in a dimly lit, depressing-looking boardroom. While the scene in Mr. Sullivan's apartment has a bit more

color to it, there's very little during the large chunk of the movie set at Kent, giving it a very oppressive feel that I'll expound upon in a moment. The daytime exterior scenes there often have gray, overcast skies, and even when it's clear, like in the scene where Shelton is putting the cadets through drills, it's obvious that it's very cold out, as you can see sections of melting snow on the ground, along with the actors' breath. The interiors come off as even more dismal in how they look, and the place is especially uninviting

at night, with the interiors now being dark and shadowy, and the only sources of light this yellow sort that comes through the windows, likely from the lanterns and similar lights you see dotting the outside. Obviously, the same goes for the woods where the war games take place, but during the climax at the carnival, it's like a complete 180, with bright, vivid colors, especially in the Devil's Lair haunted house ride, where you see deep blues, greens, and reds. 

As I said earlier, while the movie is certainly well shot, being a specialist in television, Jack Bender's direction is not nearly as cinematic as John Lafia's in the previous one. But that's not to say there are no notable instances of camerawork and editing whatsoever. Bender's specialty appears to be slow zoom-ins, as he does two during the opening board meeting: slowly panning across from one executive to another and coming around to show both of them, and then going straight down the center of the table towards Mr. Sullivan himself. Some of his best

direction comes immediately afterward, with a POV shot from Chucky looking through his box's plastic window at Sullivan when he's presented to him, a shot slowly pushing in on him when he's placed on the couch in Sullivan's office/home, and, after Sullivan's assistant leaves, a very slow push-in across the apartment towards the couch, ultimately revealing that the box is empty and Chucky is already on the prowl. There are some more great POV shots throughout this sequence, both from Chucky as he lurks about the room and from Sullivan when he

starts to realize that something strange is going on. After Chucky kills Sullivan, he looks up information on Andy's whereabouts on his computer, and you see a reflection of his sneering face on the monitor as he says, "Where are ya, ya little shit?"; for whatever reason, he looks especially hideous in that shot. Later, when Shelton is first introduced at the school, there's a tight close-up on his shiny black shoes as he walks into frame, then turns and heads over to the formation in the quad. During the drills later, things go into

slow-motion when Andy is shocked to see Colonel Cochrane walking while carrying Chucky, and there's a very tight and quick zoom-in on Shelton's face when he sees Andy isn't paying attention and yells at him. Slow-mo is used in other scenes, like when Cochrane keels over from his heart attack, when Shelton is fatally shot, and when Andy manages to shoot Chucky at the end. After we first enter the carnival during the climax, the camera twists and turns around with the rides, making for some dizzying visuals. And Chucky's ultimate death is shot very well, especially the close-ups of his screaming, half-flayed face as he drops towards the camera.

The production design is also top notch and adds significantly to the film's dark atmosphere. Case in point, the opening in the now abandoned Play Pals factory from the last movie, which has been sitting there unused for almost a decade (although it looks like it's actually been longer than that) and is now filled with cobwebs, dirt and dust, unused doll parts like heads and limbs and Good Guy packaging littering the floor, numerous other doll parts still hanging from and sitting at their spots on the assembly line, and a big vat of molten plastic that's

quickly put back into use. Though it's only onscreen for less than two minutes, it makes for a very creepy environment to open up in, and a nice direct connection back to the previous movie. Naturally, this setting means we open up back in Chicago yet again, and the same goes for both the boardroom following the opening credits and Sullivan's apartment (though, they were actually all soundstages at Universal). The latter is as memorable as the dilapidated factory, as it's one of those really posh, fancy apartments where

the only way in and out is an elevator, and it functions as both a workspace and living area, with a desk and computer by a window overlooking the city, across from Sullivan's own personal bar, in front of which is a black leather couch and chair facing a television set. What's especially interesting about this place is how it's filled with lots of toys, like miniature trains that ride along tracks running up near the ceiling, little helicopters suspended from wires that fly around the room, and lots of action figures and even marbles, all of which Chucky uses in some way when he attacks Sullivan. Sullivan himself even has a little miniature golf piece he can play with while listening to the stock market report (the definition of stereotypical asshole businessman activity).

Chucky at boot camp does sound like a dumb idea at first, but I kind of like the change of venue, and how it's not just a rehash of Child's Play 2, with Andy living with another foster family, teenager or not. And I think the main setting of Kent Military School (actually Kemper Military School in Missouri) is used fairly well, and in more ways than one. It just comes off as oppressive, with its very drab color scheme of grays, whites, and browns (I don't expect a military school to look absolutely welcoming, but still, it has such an air of unpleasantness about it), and the cold,

dreary weather just adds to that feeling of misery. That's not to say there are no impressive-looking rooms and spaces because there certainly are, like Colonel Cochrane's office, which is full of trophies, books, and a nice desk, and the enormous mess hall, but much of it is pretty depressing, like the look of the cadets' rooms (while Shelton's room is fairly nice, the others have these rather small, claustrophobic ones with bunk-cots), and especially Sergeant Botnick's salon which, as I said before, is just as creepy as the man himself and, fittingly, appears to be in the

basement, as if you're descending into hell when you have to go get a haircut. You also see both the shooting range (which, along with Andy and Whitehurst's room, was a set at Universal) and the armory, which is both where Tyler first meets Chucky and where Chucky loads the paintball rifles with actual bullets. The exteriors include the quad, where Andy has his first formation and where Shelton later tries to make him confess to stealing the doll, and the front lawn, where Andy and the other cadets are put

through drills on how to hold a rifle. While the latter doesn't look too miserable, as the sun is actually out, it's still clearly cold, as I mentioned before. And while you see them actually heading off into the countryside at the start of the war games, the entire war game sequence that night was actually shot on the Universal backlot. That didn't surprise me when I learned it, as those woods do come off as a bit constrained and artificial, but it's good enough to where you can buy it as an actual location.

Besides the look and weather conditions, the place comes off as hellish due to how toxic the atmosphere is, with how the dictatorial Shelton is, as Whitehurst puts it, "God around here," and the adult superiors are either unaware of what he's doing or just look the other way. In fact, given his emphasis on the cadets putting their childhood behind them, Colonel Cochrane may think what Shelton is doing is beneficial. There is quite a bit of commentary on toxic masculinity here, with how Cochrane, despite supposedly being this big, commanding authority

figure who served in the Vietnam War, not only drops dead at the sight of Chucky (even if Don Mancini felt that Dakin Matthews was miscast, the commentary still works) but also, despite his quoting I Corinthians to Andy about putting away childish things, has a glass case of toy soldiers in his office (which he collapses onto when he dies). On top of that, when he comes across Tyler with Chucky in the armory, Cochrane admonishes him, "We don't play with dolls do we now, Tyler? Dolls are for girls." Tyler tries to

defend himself by saying, "But Charles is my new best friend," but the Colonel shuts him down with, "Tyler, you know better than to talk back to a superior officer." As the authors of Reign of Chucky note, it's ridiculous in that, one, the Good Guy doll is a boy's toy, and two, Tyler is not only not a soldier yet but is just a kid. And then, there's the ultimate instance of hypocrisy when Sergeant Botnick, whose masculinity was already kind of in question due to his obsession with cutting guys' hair, finds Chucky and decides to play with the doll in his own way. (It's also ironic that Botnick told Andy that the Romans kept their hair short to avoid their throats being slit, and he dies in that very way.)

In order to contrast with the main setting, both visually and tonally, Mancini came up with the climax taking place at a carnival, admitting that its location is quite contrived. While I do agree that it is random for this carnival to be out in the middle of nowhere, I don't think the question of why a carnival would be so close to a military school is a valid one, since the kids seemed to hike pretty far into the countryside for their war games. And I personally like this setting, not only for it being the antithesis of the rigid military school but also because I just think it's a great one for

Chucky to prowl around in (I especially liked the idea that he used the lost and found in order to get back to Tyler). The highlight of this setting, of course, is the Devil's Lair, the haunted house ride where the final confrontation takes place. While there's no way that this very elaborate set-up would be part of a traveling carnival (you should be able to see it behind the shot of the front facade), it's still so much fun, with the first part of it being a fake, mist-filled cemetery full of animatronic ghouls and skeletons, with a backdrop of

a Gothic castle, and a huge animatronic Grim Reaper and mountain of skulls beyond that. Also, this ride turns out to be extremely dangerous, as the Reaper's scythe proves sharp enough to slice off the entire left side of Chucky's face, so you would probably die if you got on it. Finally, you have to love the juxtaposition of a setting like this with Chucky, and the visual of Andy having to scramble up to the top of that mountain of skulls to stop Chucky from possessing Tyler, and ultimately tossing him down into an enormous fan, is an awesome way to end the movie.

Like with the previous film, Don Mancini makes use of the voodoo element purely as a plot-point, but this time, he twists it around by having Chucky's soul inhabit a new Good Guy doll body, thus resetting the process and allowing him to possess someone other than Andy. Speaking of which, while it's easier for me to grasp than his resurrection in the previous film, you still have to wonder how exactly Chucky's blood getting mixed in with the plastic that's made into another doll reactivates his soul (or, for that matter, how the doll getting rebuilt brings him back to life to

begin with). And while Chucky is, once again, slowly turning human and strongly reacts to seeing himself bleed for the first time, there's not that feeling of a ticking clock and he only has a limited amount of time before the merger becomes permanent, like there was before. In fact, given the time it likely took for him to be mailed to Kent, he should already be fully human when he arrives (likely something that didn't cross Mancini's mind, given how little time he had to write the screenplay; I myself didn't even think about it until someone else mentioned it). Finally, another

significant change here comes in regards to Chucky's Damballa chant. Now, to be fair, the consistency of the chant's structure and effectiveness fluctuates from film to film. In the first one, when he tries to possess Andy, he says some lines that he didn't say before when first possessing the doll and which he also hasn't said since. Plus, he repeats one line when he gets distracted, and the way it emphasizes how Karen stops him right before he can finish the final stanza of, "Endenlieu pour du boisette, Damballa," suggests

he would've succeeded if he had, even though he had to say it several times in order to possess the doll. It was pretty straightforward in Child's Play 2, with Chucky saying the whole thing the traditional way at the factory, but here, when he tries to possess Tyler at the amusement park, it's much more drawn out than it ever was before. Chucky starts out with the typical, "Ade due Damballa," but then, he goes through the entire body of the chant, says, ""Endenlieu pour du boisette, Damballa," twice, and repeats it all again,

before finally saying, "Give me the power, I beg of you!" And then, he proceeds to say the whole thing again, before repeating that final part close to ten times until Andy shoots him. The more practical explanation is that they needed time for Andy to climb up the fake mountain of skulls and get into position to shoot, but consider this a taste of how Mancini would really start twisting the mythology with the next film..

Like the previous film, Mancini gets to put in some more corporate marketing satire during the opening, this time making it all the more blatant. In the boardroom scene following the credits, one man, Miles Patterson, argues that it's a bad idea to put the Good Guy doll back on the market, particularly after Play Pals is finally starting to recover from the scandal that Andy caused, while a woman reminds Mr. Sullivan that the Good Guy was once their biggest seller and insists, "We cannot let the fantasies of one disturbed boy influence company policy."

Patterson counters, "Well, what if the doll somehow affects another child in a negative way? You could have a public relations nightmare on your hands," which is exactly what happens in a way (and after this latest string of murders surrounding the doll, you can probably guess it finished Play Pals off for good). But then, Sullivan makes his opinion on the matter very clear in his little speech, with his comment about children being "consumer trainees" perfectly summing up Mancini's cynical view on children's marketing and corporate business, all the more so

when some of the executives actually chuckle at it, with one saying, "He's exactly right." It doesn't matter if one of their products has a negative effect on kids; if it's popular, they're going to sell it. They also clearly don't care about the effect that their marketing strategy, which is virtually the same as it was back in the late 80's, will have on Andy if he just happens to see it, which he does. And to make it all come off as that much colder and harder, when Patterson tells Sullivan, "If there's nothing I can say to convince you,

then I must go on record with my position. I'm completely against this," Sullivan patronizingly tells him with an open embrace, "Your position is crystal clear, Miles, and you can be sure I won't forget." That likely suggests Patterson isn't going to have his position for much longer.

And as would become his trademark going forward, Mancini would draw from a number of different inspirations in his writing. In an interview, he said that the military setting in and of itself was inspired  by Damien: Omen II, and there are more than a few passing mentions to Full Metal Jacket, with the whole, "This is my rifle, this is my gun," spiel that Maj. Ellis gives Andy, and Shelton's intention to ensure that Andy is, "Gonna be living in a whole world full of shit." Sergeant Botnick's death was also inspired by Mancini's love for the Sweeney Todd musical, and it's also possible that Colonel Cochrane's name comes from Conal Cochran, the villain of Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Although Kevin Yagher's company was once again responsible for the animatronic and puppet effects, Yagher himself was so busy at the time that he wasn't on the set as much as he had been on the first two movies. Also, because Ed Gale refused to participate after the way he was treated on the previous one, this ended up being the first time that Chucky was brought to life purely through the effects themselves. Said effects are still top-notch, and there was a new innovation, as a computer system was now used to perfectly match up the lip movements with Brad

Dourif's dialogue. Also, when half of Chucky's face gets sliced off during the climax, that damage is not only nicely detailed but the way it moves whenever he talks is really unsettling. However, others have noted that, because of the total reliance on animatronics this time around, Chucky is not nearly as mobile as he was before or would be in future movies. I actually never thought about that but, having both read and heard that mentioned, I can see what they mean, as the shots of him actually walking,

crawling, climbing, and so on do come off as static and limited. In fact, his first full-body action, when he hits Sullivan with the golf-club, is quite stiff. I can also recall only one full-body shot of him walking, which is during the climax, and when he jumps on somebody, it does look as though someone just threw the doll onto the actor. And at the end, when Chucky grabs onto the underside of the large marionette that Tyler rides up to the top of the fake mountain of skulls, the sight of his little legs kicking in midair looks really silly.

Once again, Child's Play 3 is pretty light on gore, with the first kill, that of Mr. Sullivan, being virtually bloodless, as Chucky, after whacking him in the forehead with a golf club and throwing some darts into him, strangles him to with a yo-yo string. The second death is that of the garbageman, who gets crushed in his compactor, and while you don't see it happen, you hear a nasty crunch and see his arm sticking out of the back afterward. Colonel Cochrane's death by a heart attack is also bloodless, but the same can't be said for Sergeant Botnick, who

gets his throat sliced open with a straight razor and then stumbles about, choking on his own blood, before collapsing in his own barber chair. Shelton's death involves a blood squib that goes off when he gets shot, but there's not much to Whitehurst's death when he jumps on top of the grenade, and the security guard at the carnival gets shot in the head offscreen. When De Silva gets shot in the knee during the climax, we see some blood but not much. Like before, Chucky himself is the bloodiest part of the movie, as

you see his blood oozing out and dripping all over his melted remains at the beginning, he receives a stab in the chest from Tyler, gets half of his face sliced off, then gets his left arm shot off, followed by his right hand getting cut off, and he's finally torn into bloody, chunk bits when he's tossed down into the large industrial fan.

As for visual effects, we again mostly just have the shots of the storm clouds appearing in the sky when Chucky does his chant, both above the school itself and the carnival during the climax, as well as some animated bolts of lightning that strike around Andy as he's climbing up the mountain of skulls. While it looks okay the first time, the compositing is painfully obvious during the latter. Also, when De Silva shows Andy the carnival in the distance while they're camping out, it's so clear that they're on a set and looking at a rear-projection screen. Fortunately, it's only onscreen for a few seconds.

The best part of the entire movie in my opinion is the opening ten or so minutes, which is wonderfully atmospheric and creepy, to the point where it's disappointing that the rest of the movie doesn't really live up to it (though, the way it immediately starts with a loud sting on the soundtrack and a shot of a bunch of bare Good Guy doll faces does feel like another byproduct of the film's rushed production). Like I said, I always remembered this opening in the factory, with the clean-up crew removing the

remnants of the past assembly line, as Chucky's melted remains are slowly revealed, still stuck to the floor, with the really creepy music nicely emphasizing it. Then, that crane comes down and grabs onto him, puncturing his sides and causing blood to slowly ooze out (when I first saw this as a very little kid, all I remembered was a gooey mass with blood dripping out of it, which really freaked me out). It takes him up and swings him across a vat of melted plastic, with the blood dripping into it and then getting sucked down with it. The opening credits sequence (which I

must have walked out on when I was a kid) is my personal favorite of the series, as it's an absolutely surreal, nightmarish version of Chucky's reassembly at the beginning of the previous movie. You watch as, in a black void, his blood mixes in with the plastic, which is then slowly shaped into a new Good Guy doll (an effect that you can tell was mostly done through reverse photography), all while the awesome main theme blares on the soundtrack. It ends on a shot of the eyeless face of a Good Guy doll gradually materializing, which cuts to a close-up of and very rapid push in on Chucky's screaming mouth as he comes to life. 

After the boardroom meeting following the credits, you have the scene in Mr. Sullivan's apartment, which is also nicely eerie and suspenseful. His assistant, Petzold, leaves the box containing Chucky on his couch and heads out. That's when we get that gradual push-in across the room to reveal that Chucky is no longer in the box, followed by a POV shot from behind Sullivan's desk as he watches him head over to his couch after taking his cigar from nearby. While Sullivan watches the stock market report, Chucky

messes with him by putting his golf-club up against the back of the couch, but when he turns and sees it, this only encourages Sullivan to grab it and play around with his little golf setup. When he putts the ball, Chucky's legs run by in the background, and a cutaway shows him taking a jar of marbles from nearby. Then, the TV suddenly shuts off. Sullivan turns around and is perplexed when he sees that the remote is missing. Not seeing it on the table next to the couch or on the couch itself, Sullivan gets down

on his knees and reaches underneath it. Confused when he still can't find it, he then manages to feel and grab it, unaware that Chucky pushed it towards him. Sullivan switches the TV back on and walks back around the couch, when Chucky pours the marbles across the floor, causing him to slip and fall hard on his back. He then sees a toy police car heading right for his head, and quickly sits up and watches it hit the wall across from him. A toy train is activated on the tracks suspended above him, he turns to see a bunch of other suddenly activated toys moving towards him,

and a toy helicopter flies at him and crashes roughly against a pillar. Then, he sees two other Good Guy dolls sitting in chairs at his desk, talking to each other and bewildering him even more. He makes them stop talking, only for him to turn and get clobbered in the head with his golf-club, sending him flying across the floor and back on his back. 

Seeing Chucky standing there, laughing at him and declaring, "Don't fuck with the Chuck!", Sullivan, despite his shock, gets up and goes for the elevator. Chucky grabs a nearby throwing dart and tosses it, hitting Sullivan in the small of his back and sending him back to the floor. Panicked, he scrambles to his desk and grabs his phone, only for Chucky to nail him in the hand with another dart. He then jumps onto Sullivan's back, wraps a yo-yo string around his neck, and slowly chokes him to death, with Sullivan futilely

reaching around and.grabbing at him, before collapsing onto the desk. (Interesting to note that, even though he was known as the Lakeshore Strangler as a human, this is the first time we've seen Chucky strangle someone in any form.) Having satisfied his urge to kill for the time being, Chucky proceeds to look up Andy's information on Sullivan's computer and sees that he's at Kent Military School.

Upon arriving there and meeting Tyler, Chucky immediately attempts to possess him instead of Andy in the armory, but is thwarted when Colonel Cochrane and another man walk in. After Cochrane admonishes Tyler for playing with dolls, he picks Chucky up and walks out with him, knocking him on the side of the door on the way. As he walks across the campus, carrying the doll by the hair, Andy spots him during a drill and gets himself in trouble when he drops his rifle in shock. Elsewhere, Cochrane puts Chucky in a

garbage truck, where he's dumped in the back with the trash (hilariously yelling, "Shit!", as he falls). He starts yelling for the driver to stop, and the man gets out and climbs into the back, searching for whoever was yelling that they were stuck back there. While he does, Chucky climbs out of the back and into the driver's seat, where he engages the trash compactor. Seeing that he's being pushed towards the crusher (having never been in one myself, obviously, I have to ask if that really is what's in the back of garbage trucks), the man tries to climb out, as Chucky laughs

evilly when he hears him yelling for help. The man only manages to futilely stick his arm out before he's crushed to death with a loud crunch. Out on the field, the cadets hear him screaming and run towards the source. By that point, Chucky's gone, and they only find the garbageman's mangled corpse.

That night, Chucky reveals himself to Andy in a scene that is fairly suspenseful. After Whitehurst heads to the shower, leaving Andy by himself, Chucky is revealed to be hiding in a storage box up against the wall. He's about to come out and attack, when Whitehurst briefly comes back in, forcing him to duck out of sight. When Andy is alone, he starts putting his clothes away, opening the box to reveal nothing in it. A cutaway shows Chucky's hand grabbing the knife he left on his desk and Andy then

puts a framed picture of himself as a kid and his mother on the desk (a promotional photo of Alex Vincent and Catherine Hicks from the first movie, but it does the job). He sits down on his bunk and continues sorting his clothes, while underneath the bunk, Chucky crawls towards his legs. When he gets close enough, he slashes the back of his foot, causing him to fall to the floor. Chucky rises up, saying, "Hey, long time, no see, pal!", while Andy backs away into a corner and puts a chair on the floor between them,

exclaiming, "No! You're dead! We killed you!" Chucky, after remarking, "You know what they say: 'You just can't keep a good guy down,'" lets him in on his plan, prompting Andy to fight back. He throws one of Shelton's shoes, knocking Chucky to the floor and causing him to lose the knife. He grabs Chucky and slams him repeatedly against the floor, which is when Shelton walks in on him. Later, after Shelton has taken the doll away, Andy sneaks into his room, armed with his knife. After looking in the closet, Andy sees that one of the Bowie knives on Shelton's

wall is missing. Now knowing he has to be even more cautious, he carefully looks around the room, glancing underneath Shelton's cot. But after he looks under there, Chucky appears behind him and whispers in his ear, causing him to turn around and instinctively sit on the cot behind him. This awakens Shelton, who angrily gets Andy off him and shoves him against the wall, allowing Chucky to escape.

While Shelton tries to get Andy to confess that he took the doll, Chucky goes after Tyler, only to find a note waiting for him in his bunk. Reading that Tyler has decided to play an impromptu game of hide-and-seek, Chucky angrily tosses the note aside and starts searching the halls for him. He tracks him down to Cochrane's office and study, and finds him hiding in the closet. De Silva and her friend Jackie later find them both in there when they sneak in so De Silva can look at Andy's file. Thinking that Chucky is adorable

(again, I don't know how anybody could find that doll cute, even when he's being normal), she takes Jackie's lipstick and puts it on him, much to Tyler's aggravation (and knowing how he is, you can just sense Chucky's building fury). Hearing someone coming, the three of them flee, leaving Chucky behind, despite Tyler's protests. The person they heard is Cochrane, who walks into his office when he hears something. Turning on the light, he looks around the room (the atmospheric music makes this scene

especially spooky) and spots a cup of pencils on his desk that's turned over. Walking over, he picks the spilled ones off the floor and puts them back in the cup, when he sees Chucky lying on the floor behind the desk. Perplexed, as he knows he threw the doll away, he walks around and picks it up, noting the lipstick on its face. The doll then randomly says, "I like to be hugged," startling Cochrane and prompting him to drop it head-first into a waste-basket. Just as he's walking out, he hears something behind him and turns to see the waste-basket turned over and Chucky

gone. Chucky then pops up around the corner, yelling and wielding his Bowie knife, and that's when Cochrane is so shocked at the sight of him that he has a massive heart attack and clutches at his chest. Chucky watches as he collapses backwards onto a display of toy soldiers.

The next morning, after Sergeant Botnick shaves Whitehurst's hair and sends him on his way, he finds Chucky hiding in a cabinet while sweeping up. At first perplexed, he decides to take the opportunity to indulge in his fetish for hair and puts the doll in his barber chair. He then goes for his trimmer and closes in on the doll's hair, chuckling creepily, unaware that Chucky's hand is reaching for the straight razor on his side. Just as Botnick is about to put the trimmer to the hair, Chucky swings the razor, slashing his throat

open, and, as he gags on his own blood, comments, "Presto, you're dead!" Botnick drops the trimmer, which buzzes against the floor, with blood dripping all around it, as he stumbles towards the mirror, pressing his blood-covered hands against it. Chucky comments, "It's definitely you," and gets out of the chair, laughing evilly, as Botnick collapses backwards into it. That's when Whitehurst comes back to grab his coat, only to stop dead when he comes upon the scene. After he stares at him for a few seconds,

Chucky goes, "Boo!", sending Whitehurst running off in terror. Following that, while everyone is gathered in the quad in preparation for the war games, Chucky sneaks into the armory and replaces the Red Team's paintball bullets with real ones.

Things come to a head during the war games when, after Tyler escapes him, Chucky abducts De Silva and demands the trade between her and Tyler. Right after Andy and Tyler arrive, and De Silva and Tyler swap places, the Blue Team runs in and opens fire with their paintball rounds, until Shelton tells everyone to hold their fire. He has just enough time to walk in and see Chucky, who flips him off and says, "Hi, soldier," before the Red Team runs in and one of them fires, shooting him right through the chest. Chucky is delighted, yelling, "Alright!", and laughs evilly, as

everyone else has to take cover from the gunfire. It takes the Red Team longer than it should to realize their gunshots sound a lot louder than normal and the leader yells at them to stop; Chucky then sees that he was too busy laughing to notice that Tyler slipped away during the chaos. Once Major Ellis realizes that Shelton is dead, he immediately blames and attacks Andy, while De Silva tries to stop him. That's when Chucky lobs his grenade at a spot near them and Whitehurst runs and jumps on it, saving everyone else. After the dust settles and everyone sees that

Whitehurst is dead, Andy then sees Tyler running off nearby (I figured he was long gone by this point). He and De Silva run after him, while Ellis frantically demands to be given the radio so he contact the school about what's happened. Tyler makes it to the nearby carnival and runs to the Security/Lost and Found tent, telling the guard there that "Charles" is after him. He does mention that Charles is a "Good Guy" and, "He wants to play Hide the Soul," but he's so frantic that the guard doesn't quite understand

what's going on. He does reassure Tyler that he won't let anyone hurt him, then says, "Hey, I know what'll cheer ya up. Look what I found," before pulling out a certain Good Guy doll with blue paint splattered on his side. Outside, Andy and De Silva arrive at the carnival and, after frantically looking for Tyler, head to that very same tent, only to find the guard dead with a bullet-hole in his forehead. Before they leave, De Silva takes the guard's gun from his holster.

Elsewhere in the carnival, Chucky tells Tyler to head for the Devil's Lair attraction. Tyler pulls the knife that Andy gave him, but Chucky, in turn, pulls out a gun that the guard kept in his desk drawer and warns him, "Don't even think about it." They head inside, but fortunately for Tyler, Andy and De Silva see them.

Inside, on the track leading through the fake graveyard, Chucky orders Tyler to stop, figuring it's a good place to do the ceremony. Like I said before, I don't know why he thought that, as another car of people comes through, and he himself gets knocked to the ground when the coffin he's sitting on opens, revealing one of the animatronic skeletons. Startled at this, Tyler falls back onto the track, then has to dodge the oncoming car. As Chucky gets up and looks for him, Tyler takes cover inside of a fake crypt where an animatronic ghoul comes out and laughs diabolically

(said ghoul was played by an actual actor in reality). Though a good idea, Chucky gets in through the back, cornering him. Andy and De Silva enter the attraction, with Tyler yelling for them. As he comes out with the ghoul, he warns them that Chucky has a gun, just as he pops out and shoots at Andy. Andy ducks behind one of the fake headstones, while De Silva fires back. She misses and Chucky promptly shoots her in her right knee, sending her to the ground, while he runs off, laughing. Andy rushes to De Silva's aid, tying a makeshift tourniquet around

her leg, while she gives him the gun and encourages him to go on without her. In the part of the attraction beyond that, Tyler fumbles about the track, having to duck down to avoid getting run over, then climbs over to the other side. He gets his foot stuck in a hole, when Chucky appears, climbing up behind him and standing up. Just as he tells Tyler that he's doomed, that enormous Grim Reaper that's part of the ride swings its scythe, slicing off the entire left side of Chucky's face. As he screams in pain, Tyler quickly

pulls himself free and runs away. While Andy searches for Tyler elsewhere, he comes across a large, gargoyle marionette and climbs atop it. Unbeknownst to him, Chucky comes up from behind and grabs onto the underside when it's hoisted back up. Andy sees this, and when the marionette reaches the top of the fake mountain of skulls, both Tyler and Chucky jump off. Andy tries to warn Tyler but the marionette jerks forward and hits him in the back, knocking him down and causing him to hit the back of his head, rendering him unconscious. Andy quickly tries to climb along the track to get to the mountain, having to get across both the enormous fan below and avoid another car that comes through.

As Andy climbs the mountain, Chucky begins his chant to Damballa. At one point, Andy slips and falls, coming very close to falling into the industrial fan below, but continues on up. Soon, those storm clouds gather above the carnival and lightning begins flashing all around, with one bolt striking the side of the mountain, forcing Andy to duck. He continues climbing, having to duck back down to avoid another lightning strike, and, knowing he's not going to reach the top in time, finds a suitable position and takes out the gun. He aims at Chucky and fires, but misses. He

then remembers what De Silva taught him before and fires again, this time managing to blow off Chucky's left arm. Undeterred, he continues the chant, until Andy points and fires once more, hitting him in the chest and sending him falling back. Andy then quickly climbs up to the top and rouses Tyler. But before they can start to climb back down, Chucky attacks Andy from behind, causing him to fall forward and knock Tyler down the side of the mountain. He grabs Tyler's hand with his one free

one, with Chucky grabbing and clawing at the back of his neck, repeatedly yelling, "He's mine!" Tyler takes out his knife and reaches it towards Andy, who has to really stretch in order to get it. Once he does, he flicks it open and slices off Chucky's right hand. Yelling, "No!", Chucky is then tossed over the side and falls down the length of the mountain, right towards the huge fan below. He's ripped to pieces and his remains are sent flying every which way, while Andy pulls Tyler up onto the top of the mountain. After that and several random explosions, there's seemingly nothing left of Chucky, as Andy and Tyler look down from atop the mountain.

Like how it opened, the movie's ending is very abrupt: De Silva is taken to the hospital, Andy is taken away by the police for questioning, and it ends on a shot of the carnival closing down. The way it focuses on this garbage picker, you expect there to be some sort of stinger, like him finding a piece of Chucky or something (that's what I was thinking the first time I saw it) but no. The guy just walks away, the carnival's lights go out as everyone leaves, and the credits roll. You'd also expect there to be some sort of true wrap-up with the military school, but no; once the war games section ends, nobody from that place is ever seen or heard from again. Again, I think we can easily chalk that up to just how rushed this movie's production was.

Unlike Child's Play 2, the TV version of Child's Play 3 was the cut of the film I was familiar with for a long time, and it wasn't until it was finally released on DVD that I realized just how different the theatrical version is. As I mentioned before, this version had some extra scenes that really deepened Andy and Tyler's relationship, showing them meeting and bonding on the bus, with Tyler offering to play Andy on his video game. We also get more of Tyler's backstory, with him and his dad both being in the military, his dad being currently stationed in

Japan, and the two of them being without Tyler's mother (whether she's dead or just left is never specified). He talks about how he's been at the school for two years and that, when he first started going, he missed his dad a lot, then adds, "But, you know, soldiers don't cry. You get used to it." And here, Andy's knife is shown to be something that Tyler gave him first. Later, after the scene where the two of them get their haircuts, Tyler teases Andy about it, then asks if he wants to play some pool. Andy politely turns him down, saying he has to go unpack, and

Tyler, utterly disappointed, says that he's not going to be able to hang out with Andy anymore since he'll be with the older guys. It's a shame that they felt the need to cut all this stuff from the theatrical release, as it does help flesh things out. In addition, after the garbageman is killed, there's a moment where Andy is in class, too distracted by what happened to focus. In the class, his teacher is talking about Napoleon and his defeat at Waterloo, saying it was because Napoleon underestimated his enemy. She adds, "That,

ladies and gentlemen, is the cardinal sin in warfare. Never underestimate the enemy," something that you can tell affects Andy, as he'd already suspected that Chucky had returned. By extension, there's a scene where the flag is lowered and Taps is played in honor of the garbageman (this may come off as crass but, even though it's awful that he died, would they do that for someone like him?). And during the war game section, when Andy and De Silva are off by themselves, she asks Andy what he's afraid of, but before he can answer, Shelton catches them and tells them to get back to camp. 

Over time, the more Child's Play 3 was shown on TV, the more they cut from the television version itself. For instance, they started cutting from Chucky looking up Andy's information on Sullivan's computer to Andy sitting in the bus, bypassing the vehicle's establishing shot. And there's one scene I just learned about that I never saw, where right before formation, Whitehurst instructs Andy how to wear his hat, while we first see De Silva take an interest in him. And Chucky's death was apparently shot twice, with another version not being so gory and also showing him falling into the fan from a different angle. Like with Child's Play 2, these deleted scenes finally became available as extras when Scream Factory released the film on 4K and Blu-Ray in 2022..

As much as I enjoy the film itself, my favorite thing about it is the music score, which I think is the best in the whole series. As great as the previous two movies' scores were, and as good as those that follow are, this one, by Cory Lerios and John D'Andrea, kicks major ass and outdoes them in every way, as it's just so menacing, dark, and awesome. The main theme, which plays over the opening and ending credits, is especially incredible, managing to be fast-paced, thrilling, and exciting, as well as nightmarish and horrific, and even has a hint of the demented, childlike feel inherent with Chucky. Speaking of which, his main leitmotif is this really nasty, electric guitar riff that you first hear just as his corpse is about to be picked up by the crane at the beginning, and is played either by itself or accompanying another theme. My favorite example of the latter is when he kills Sergeant Botnick, which is scored to a horrific version of the main theme, with Chucky's motif coming in hard before Botnick collapses into his own barber chair. The music during the scene in Sullivan's apartment leading up to his murder is the definition of chilling atmosphere, and there's also a creepy, synthesizer bit that sounds like breathing, which you hear throughout the film (it sounds especially unnerving in the scene where Colonel Cochrane walks into his office right before his death), as well as an eerie, child-like bit that's more akin to what you've come to expect from these movies at this point. And the music during the climax gives that sequence a lot of its energy and thrills, with the build up to the appearance of the storm clouds when Chucky shouts, "Give me the power! I beg of you!", a sort of tragic sound that follows when it seems like Andy might not save Tyler, a brief reprise of the main theme when Andy is trying to keep Tyler from falling, and the loud, truly nightmarish  piece that plays as Chucky falls towards the fan, climaxing in a triumphant sound when he's finally been destroyed. But even then, the music that plays when Andy is taken away by the police at the end reinforces that this is yet another bittersweet ending for him, and its transition into the horrific main theme for the ending credits gets across the idea that Chucky has, once again, left an everlasting dark taint on him and everyone else who crossed his path. I just love this score, and the fact that, to this day, it still has never gotten a physical release really sucks.

I hope I've done an adequate job of explaining why Child's Play 3 is my favorite of the sequels: To recap, I like the darker tone and visual style; I think the characters aren't too shabby or badly acted, including Justin Whalin as the teenage Andy; the new environment and setting is utilized well; the script, as with the previous films, is a lot smarter than you may initially think; there are some nice setpieces, with climax at the carnival particularly being a lot of fun; the music score is awesome; and Chucky is a bit more mean-spirited and sadistic than before, with Brad Dourif still doing an awesome job in his voice acting. That said, the film's rushed production is often very apparent, especially in the screenwriting and the portrayal of some of the characters; the direction, while certainly well-done, isn't as cinematic as the previous film; and while the animatronic effects for Chucky are still great, the visual effects haven't aged that well. So, I would never say that this movie is perfect, and I can understand why some don't care for it, but I will always have a soft spot for it. And given the "quality" of some of the later movies, I find it baffling that so many still refer to this as the series' absolutely worst. No foul if you do but, man, our sensibilities are completely different then.