Thursday, October 13, 2011

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

I always remember this artwork freaking me out
when I saw it on the VHS at our local video store.
Child's Play 2 was quite successful when it was released in November of 1990, opening at number one that weekend, and so, Universal immediately commissioned Don Mancini to write a third installment. However, Mancini has said that he was out of ideas after the second film and was very hard-pressed to come up with another story so quickly but, since he was obligated to do so, he did the best that he could. The end result, despite making $20.5 million on an estimated $13 million budget, would end up becoming one of the least popular entries in the series and its release less than a year after Child's Play 2 would be met with such less enthusiasm that it would kill the series for a good deal of the 90's. Up until Seed of Chucky, this was considered by many fans to be the worst Chucky movie and it's certainly not the first instance of a horror franchise jumping the gun and releasing the next installment only a year or so after a very successful entry. Halloween 5 and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, both released in 1989, are prime examples of this and they suffered greatly from their rushed productions. Child's Play 3 did as well to an extent. It's definitely not a perfect film and is, admitedly, quite run-of-the-mill but, all that said, this is my favorite of the sequels, mainly for nostalgia since this was the one that was shown on TV the most and, as I said in my review of the first film, is the one I have the earliest memories of because my cousins used it to terrify me when I was a little kid. I think another factor is how it took forever for it to get a new home video release after the original VHS went out of print and, until then, I was stuck with a crappy recording of the censored, TV version on Sci-Fi Channel (with the ending credits fast-forwarded, which I've always hated about TV nowadays). Also, while it may have a lot of flaws and is definitely not a classic, I think there are a fair amount of good aspects to it that make it a movie I can watch quite a bit.

Eight years after the events of Child's Play 2, Play Pals has managed to recover from the scandal that Andy Barclay's story about Chucky caused and the company's greedy president, Mr. Sullivan, orders a new line of Good Guy dolls to be produced. The factory where the second film's climax took place is now up and running again after having been abandoned for years but, while the place is being cleaned up and the raw materials are salvaged, a crane picks up and punctures Chucky's remains, causing his blood to leak into a vat of melted plastic. The blood is then unknowingly integrated into the plastic used to create the first of the new Good Guy dolls and the soul of Charles Lee Ray is revived once again. After killing Sullivan, whom he was given, Chucky 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 a military school and Chucky soon arrives at the school as well. But, before he can be find Andy, a little cadet named Tyler finds him first and, realizing that he now has a new body and hasn't revealed his true identity to anyone yet, Chucky decides to possess his body instead. Once Andy discovers that Chucky's back, he now has to save Tyler's soul from the evil doll.

Chucky at boot camp is pretty much the film's plot and it is a dumb idea at first glance, I kind of like the change of location and how it's not a rehash of Child's Play 2, with Andy living with another foster family. I think the place is used fairly well, too. However, there are some other glaring inconsistencies in the story that I can't defend, though. For starters, there's no mention whatsoever of Kyle from the previous film, with Andy, once again, being on his own. First his mother was taken away from him and now his only living friend? This poor kid has the worst luck ever! Speaking of which, I've thought of something that I forgot to mention in my review of the second film: we know what happened to Andy's mom (she's still in an institution according to Andy; you'd think they'd have figured out by now whether she's crazy or not) but what about Mike Norris? According to Mattson in the second film, the police denied any involvement in the events of the first film, which makes Mike and his partner Jack look really, really bad, especially after they seemed like such decent guys in the original movie. Needless to say, I've never liked that. Getting back to the film at hand, how does Chucky's blood getting mixed in with plastic reactivate his soul? I know, I'm looking for logic in a series about a doll possessed by a serial killer's soul through voodoo means, but that's always puzzled me (then again, I've never understood how Chucky was revived in the second movie either). Furthermore, how does rebuilding the doll bring the soul back? And how did Chucky manage to wrap himself up in a package and then get himself mailed to the military school? Did he force someone at knife-point to do that? I'm thinking about this way too hard, so I should just drop it at this point.

According to IMDB, Peter Jackson was originally slated to do this film but, ultimately, Jack Bender ended up being our director this time. In addition to being an actor who appeared on a number of TV shows throughout the 1970's, before this film he was mainly a veteran television director, doing episodes of shows like Eight is Enough, Falcon Crest, Fame, The Paper Chase, and many others, as well as a slew of TV movies, the most significant of which was 1990's The Dreamer of Oz where he worked with David Kirschner, the producer of the Child's Play movies, which is undoubtedly how he got the job of directing this film. The only theatrical thing he'd done before Child's Play 3 was a short in 1980 called A Real Naked Lady and after this, he would do only more theatrical movie, Lone Justice 2. Otherwise, he's stuck to TV work, directing more TV movies and episodes of shows like Beverly Hills, 90210, The Sopranos, Judging Amy, Felicity, Alias, and most notably, a lot of episodes of Lost, including the finale, and Game of Thrones. I'm guessing that his 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 fairly well. I don't know what his thoughts are on this movie nowadays but, if I were a betting man, I'd say he probably doesn't have the best memories of working on it, though.

Replacing Alex Vincent as the now teenage Andy Barclay is Justin Whalin. Feelings about his performance have been mixed but I thought he did a fair job. He plays Andy's fear of Chucky very well and he also comes across as convincingly haunted by the events of the first two movies. You find out that he's had a pretty rough life, bouncing from one foster home to another, unable to adjust, and can sometimes be a troublemaker. Like he was in the second movie, Andy's paranoid of dolls, even more so now, and when he's getting his hair cut when he first arrives at the school, he sees an advertisement for the new line of Good Guy dolls on a TV. You can really see the fear in his face and his eyes, not only because it's bringing back bad memories but also because he's probably wondering if Chucky has been revived yet again. Right after that, he hears banging in the closet in his room and, of course, he's now very terrified that it could be Chucky, although it turns out to not be the case. When he does discover that Chucky is back and is now after Tyler, he becomes determined to save the kid just as his mom, Mike Norris, and Kyle did the same for him, and it's interesting to see him now as a protector rather than the one who needs protecting. He also meets a love interest in Kristen De Silva (Perry Reeves), one of the female cadets at the school. She comes off as a strong, independent woman who stands up to the bullying Lt. Col. Shelton, calling him an asshole when he's treating the other cadets like garbage, and she proves how tough she is by easily doing the pushups that Shelton orders her to do and recovers with little effort. She becomes so interested in Andy that she sneaks into the head of the school's office in order to read his file, and it doesn't take long for the two of them to become romantically involved. And when she learns the truth about Chucky, she joins Andy in helping him save Tyler. Unfortunately, this film doesn't end that well for either of them. De Silva is taken to the hospital after being shot in the leg by Chucky and Andy, once again believed to be the one responsible for Chucky's crimes, is taken away by the police. It wouldn't be until Curse of Chucky when you would find out that Andy, thanfully, wasn't sent to prison for the rest of his life but, on the other hand, it seems like his possible relationship with De Silva didn't work out, which sucks.

The most unlikable character in the film by far is Travis Fine as Lt. Col. Shelton. His position has obviously gone to his head and he uses it to routinely bully the other cadets, particularly the nerdy Whitehurst and Andy since he's the new kid. In fact, Andy first meets Whitehurst when he finds him tied and gagged in his closet, courtesy of Shelton and his lackeys, and later on, after Shelton bullied him in front of everyone, calling him the most pathetic thing he's ever seen and a, "Sorry-ass sack of shit," you find out that he forces him to be his personal slave, making him polish his shoes. He humiliates Andy when he's unable to handle a rifle correctly during their training and he goes as far as to punch him right in the gut when he catches him sneaking away from another exercise. Shelton also has the distinction of being one of the few victims in the first three movies to not be killed directly by Chucky but by being shot by someone whose paintball bullets were replaced with real bullets by Chucky (similar to the death of Eddie Caputo in the first movie, whom Chucky tricked into shooting a lit stove). Shelton's subordinate, Major Ellis (Matthew Walker) is just as cruel as Shelton, going along with Shelton's bullying and picking on Whitehurst and Andy quite a bit himself. One thing that mystifies me about him is how, as soon as Shelton is killed, he blames Andy, which comes straight out of left-field, and tries to beat him to death. Why does he assume Andy did it? Because he knew he hated Shelton? Shelton was such a dick that nearly every cadet hated him, so he shouldn't just assume that it's Andy. And how does he not see Chucky, who's like ten feet away?

One character who really frustrates me is Harold Aubrey Whitehurst (Dean Jacobson). It's pretty stereotypical that the nerdy guy with glasses is the one who's picked on but that's not why he frustrates me. He sees Chucky at one point and refuses to admit that he did so to Andy, who had become something of the only friend he had at the school. Now, granted, he's freaked out and I can understand him not wanting to get involved in something as crazy as this but, when Andy needs his help in rescuing Tyler, he refuses to do so, despite the fact that it's a little kid who needs help. Even worse, when Andy needs him to back him up on the fact that Tyler's in danger, Whitehurst wimps out and doesn't say anything. At that moment, I just can't help but think, "You little loser! No wonder everyone picks on you!" He does redeem himself by committing a heroic sacrifice and jumping on top of a grenade that Chucky throws near the others but, at the same time, I doubt his body would have been enough to completely cover that explosion.

As for little Jeremy Sylvers as Tyler, there's not much to say. Andy's no longer a little kid in this but they must have felt they needed that same type of element somehow, so they came up with another little kid for Chucky to stalk but, on the whole, he's pretty bland. Upon learning of the Good Guy dolls, he instantly wants one, to the point where he takes one that is mailed to the school and intended for Andy, and is even dumb enough to think that this living doll with a deep, menacing voice would be his friend. First of all, at age eight-and-a-half (according to the added scenes in the TV version, anyway), isn't Tyler a little old to be taken by Good Guy dolls, to the point where he goes, "Wow!" upon seeing the commercial the same Andy did when was six? Second, by extension, isn't he far beyond that naive childhood stage that Andy was in the first movie where he wouldn't question a doll that acts like a real, living person? And third, even if we were going to accept that, shouldn't Chucky's voice and constant use of profanity be a red flag that maybe he's not someone Tyler should be hanging around with? In any case, Tyler's character and his and Andy's friendship was handled much better in the TV version. In the theatrical version, the first time you see them together is when they're getting their haircuts and you don't see them together again until the scene where Andy tries to warn him about Chucky during breakfast, whereas the TV version had extra scenes of them meeting and bonding on the bus (you learn about Tyler's backstory, with him and his dad both being in the military, his dad being stationed in Japan at the time, and the two of them being without Tyler's mother, as well as that the knife that Andy has was given to him by Tyler), and talking after they get their haircuts, with Tyler being disappointed that he's not going to be able to hang out with Andy anymore since he'll be with the older guys. These scenes helped establish a concrete friendship and gave Andy's determination to help Tyler more dramatic weight. It also makes it clear why Tyler is so eager to bring Andy the package that's delivered to him: it gives him an opportunity to see his friend again. It's a shame the scenes from the TV versions of these movies weren't put on the DVDs as extras because they're interesting to watch and, as is the case here, can sometimes add more to the films.

Two of the adult commanders at the school 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, reluctant to let Andy into the school because of his less than acceptable track-record and tells him to forget his "fantasies" about killer dolls. He also throws Chucky into the garbage twice, which eventually leads to his death. Like Shelton, he's not killed directly by Chucky but rather by a heart attack caused by the shock of Chucky popping from behind a desk, screaming while yielding a knife. Even Chucky himself is bewildered by this, saying, "Oh, you gotta be fucking kiddin' me!" According to Don Mancini, this was originally supposed to be more darkly humorous because he wrote Cochran as a very tough, fit, R. Lee Ermey-type of guy who has a heart attack at the sight of a knife-wielding doll but since they chose an older, slightly pudgy actor for the role instead, it didn't work quite as well. But the most memorable adult at the school is Andrew Robinson (who is such a great actor that it always pains me to see him in lower tier movies like this and Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings) as Sergeant Botnick, the academy's overly intense barber who takes a little too much pleasure in shaving people's heads, telling them, "Presto. You're bald!) The setup to his death is what everyone talks about in regards to this movie's contrivances. He's cleaning up his barber room when Chucky tumbles out of a cabinet, which is a bad scare too, because you can see him through the blurry glass before Botnick opens it,(why he was hiding in there I have no clue), and, for some bizarre reason, decides to give Chucky a haircut. Right when he's about to do so, Chucky cuts his throat with a straight razor. While the death itself has a nice blood effect and is actually quite disturbing with how drawn out it is and how you can see that Botnick is suffering, that setup is often accused of being downright stupid. I used to think that as well but, after thinking about it, Botnick obviously has issues and seems to get off on cutting hair, so it's not surprising that he would try to satisfy that fetish with a doll as well (just look at the way he looks out the door to make sure nobody's nearby before trying to shave Chucky's hair). And yet, right before his death scene, he's walking around the cafeteria and grabbing people's hair, telling them when they need to have another haircut, and he tells Andy that he'll see him on Wednesday, when he cut Andy's hair just the day before. Was Andy's hair not good enough to satisfy him, so he didn't cut it that much to begin with?

Brad Dourif is a little more mean-spirited in his portrayal of Chucky this time around, without as many one-liners as you would expect. He says two, one right after the other, when he cuts Botnick's throat: "Presto, you're dead" and "It's definitely you," and he also has the most well known line from the movie, "Don't fuck with the Chuck!" but, other than those and some other lines like, "Nothing like a strangulation to get the circulation going," and, "This means war," most of his dialogue in the film has a mean-spirited edge to it rather than being out and out funny, as if they were trying to make him more threatening and not as jokey as he was in the previous film. The design of his face here, which has been slightly tweaked from the second movie, has a particularly unsettling feel to me, especially with those cold-looking eyes (which I've heard are the eyes of the Cryptkeeper, another Kevin Yagher creation), and the animatronic effects are still top-notch, with computers now being used to perfectly synch the lips up with Dourif's dialogue. The kills and the build-ups to them are also pretty mean-spirited and cruel, particularly the first one with Mr. Sullivan (Peter Haskell), whom Chucky toys with, making him slip on marbles, smacking him in the face with a golf club, and hitting him with a couple of throwing darts before strangling him, which itself is very long and drawn out. One of the most gruesome deaths in the film is when he's thrown into a garbage truck and he tricks the driver into getting in the back by calling for help. He then climbs into the driver's seat and activates the trash compactor, crushing the guy, and while you don't see it happen, you hear a nasty crunch as well as see his arm sticking out of the back afterward. (In the TV version, they had a scene where they play Taps and bring down the American flag for the guy. I know it's sad that he was killed but, would they really do that for a garbageman?) Sgt. Botnick's death has to be the most gruesome, with not only the fact that his throat gets sliced open but also that he stumbles around the room, choking on his own blood, and sees himself in the mirror as he dies before falling backwards in the chair, all while Chucky cackles at him and makes some sick jokes. Chucky's replacing of the paintball bullets with real ones (which I don't think is possible in real life), evilly saying, "This oughta slow the pricks down," is pretty twisted given how many other people could have been killed besides Shelton and if you think about, there was no reason for him to do it since no one else would have been a threat to his plan if he had succeeded in the soul transference when he got Tyler by himself. It seems like he did it simply to satisfy his sick sense of humor. Speaking of which, this movie is interesting in that it probably has the most deaths that Chucky causes indirectly since, aside from Shelton, you also have Cochrane's heart attack and Whitehurst's death when he jumped on top of the grenade that Chucky threw.

Like the other films, Chucky takes a lot of abuse during the climax in the amusement park haunted house ride. He gets the left side of his face sliced off by a mechanical grim reaper's scythe (the animatronics of the inside of his face look pretty good), one arm shot off, and another hand sliced off before finally being thrown into a big fan that rips him to shreds. I feel that at this point, I have to mention the voodoo chant Chucky uses since I haven't yet. What I find interesting about it is how the order of the words fluctuates between films. In the first film, when he tried to possess Andy, he said several lines which you never heard before or since, while the second film had the most straightforward reading of the chant, and this one has the most drawn out version of it ever. He says the entire French section of it twice before finally saying, "Give me the power, I beg of you!" and he then proceeds to say it again, repeating the end phrase again and again, whereas saying it once or three times at the most was enough to complete the job before. Needless to say, the rules changed because they needed time for the others to stop Chucky before he could say the chant entirely.

A big 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. The color palette is much more muted than it was in the previous film and the daytime scenes often have gray, overcast skies and it's obvious that it's cold out because you can see bits of snow as well as the actors' breath. The production design adds significantly to this feeling. The movie opens 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 been longer than that) and is now filled with cob-webs, dirt and dust, and unused doll parts like heads and limbs, making for a very creepy environment. The main location, Kent Military Academy, is a very drab, cold, and uninviting place with all the grays, whites, and browns, as well as the dreary weather. Even the more welcoming environments, like Sullivan's nice, posh apartment/office, have an eerie and uncomfortable feeling to them, due to both the music and the fact that you know that Chucky is lurking somewhere nearby. Most people say they hate the carnival that provides the film its climactic setting, saying that it feels very contrived and lame, often wondering why a carnival would be so close to a military school. Well, for one, the kids from the academy seemed to hike pretty far into the countryside near the school for their war games, so it's not like the carnival is right next door (although it is kind of strange for a carnival to be in the middle of nowhere). And for another, I've always liked the setting and how it visually contrasts with the movie's main setting with its bright colors and cheerful atmosphere. I also like the haunted house ride that the final confrontation with Chucky takes place in. It may not be the greatest haunted house ever seen on film and the danger-level on that ride with that big grim reaper and his scythe is so ridiculous that you could easily die if you get on it, but I thought it made for a nice enough climax, with Andy having to scramble up to the top of plastic mountain of skulls to stop Chucky from posessing Tyler.

The best part of the entire movie in my opinion is the opening ten or so minutes, which is very atmospheric and creepy, to the point where it's disappointing that the rest of the movie doesn't live up to it. Like I said, I always remembered that opening in the factory, with that gradual reveal of Chucky's remains, that crane coming down and grabbing it, causing blood to pour out of the punctures on the sides (as a very little kid, all I remembered was a gooey mass with blood dripping out of it, which really freaked me out), and the crane taking it up and swinging it 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, has to be the best in the series, as you watch Chucky's blood mixing in with the plastic as it's shaped into a new Good Guy doll, ending on a rapid push in to his screaming mouth as he comes to life. And after the board meeting that follows the credits, you have the scene where Chucky stalks and eventually kills Mr. Sullivan in his apartment/office, which I do remember seeing when I was young. It's a very eerie and suspenseful scene, with a gradual camera push-in across the room to show that Chucky's no longer in the box that's sitting on Sullivan's leather couch, the way he messes with him by turning off the TV, forcing him to look for the remote before finally letting him have it under the couch, and does things like make him slip on marbles that he pours across the floor, start up all the toys he has in the room, and puts two other Good Guy dolls in the chairs at his desk, bewildering him even more, before finally attacking him with his golf club. And as I said earlier, Chucky messes with him some more, throwing darts as he limps to his desk and tries to call for help, before slowly choking him to death with a yo-yo string.

Speaking of the boardroom meeting following the opening credits, this is another instance where Mancini does some corporate marketing satirizing, this making it all the more blatant than it was in the previous film. In the scene, one guy is making the case that it's a bad idea to put the Good Guy doll back on the market, particularly after Play Pals has finally managed to recover from the scandal that Andy caused years before, while a woman reminds Mr. Sullivan that the Good Guy was their biggest seller before the scandal and insists, "We cannot let the fantasies of one disturbed boy influence company policy." The other guy then suggests, "What if the doll somehow affects another child in a negative way? You could have a public relations nightmare on your hands." What's ironic about that statement is that's exactly what happens in a way and, after this latest string of murders surrounding the doll, you can probably guess that it finished Play Pals off for good. But, in any case, Sullivan makes his opinion on the matter very clear in a little speech: "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?" I feel that last line sums up this cynical view that Mancini has on children's marketing and corporate business perfectly, and it's made all the more apparent when some of the executives actually chuckle at it and one of them can be heard 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 their marketing strategy, which is almost exactly the same way it was back in the late 80's, will affect if Andy if he just happens to see it, which he does (while I still don't exactly buy Tyler being as infatuated with the toy as six-year old Andy was, I do like the parallels with that scene and how he's heading down the same road that Andy was). Plus, I like the idea of getting to see the cold, hard corporate side of the toy business, right down to Sullivan assuring that one guy, "Your position is crystal clear, Miles, and you can be sure I won't forget," in a very patronizing way, which possibly suggests that he's not going to have his job much longer as long as he's against Sullivan's decision to go ahead with reintroducing the Good Guy dolls. It makes it clear that there's a very cynical to something as benign as toys for children.

Okay, here I get to the main reason why I enjoy this film so much: it has the best music score in the entire series to me. This score by Cory Lerios and John D'Andrea kicks major ass. Joe Renzetti's creepy score to the original is awesome as well but this outdoes it in every way, it's so menacing, dark, and awesome. The main theme that plays over the opening and ending credits is just incredible, managing to be both fast and exciting as well as nightmarish and horrific, 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 cue that sounds like breathing that you hear throughout the film (it sounds especially unnerving in the scene where Col. Cochrane walks into his officer late at night), as well as an eerie, childish sort of piece that you've come to expect from these movies at this point. The music during the climax makes it feel much more awesome and exciting than it really is, with the build up to the appearance of the storm clouds when Chucky shouts, "Give me the power! I beg of you!", the sort of tragic sound that follows when it seems like Andy might not save Tyler, and the loud, haunting piece that plays as Chucky falls towards the fan, climaxing in a triumphant bit when he's finally been destroyed. Bottom line, this music score helps give the film a darker, scarier tone than the previous film and that's why I enjoy it so much. I've said before that a good music score can sometimes make me like a movie even if the movie itself isn't that great and this is a prime example of that.

I hope I've done an adequate job of explaining why Child's Play 3 is my favorite of the sequels even though I can find a lot of flaws with it (at least, I hope I was more successful than in my first version of this review): I like the darker tone, the more vicious kills, the awesome music, some of the characters aren't that badly portrayed, and Brad Dourif is still awesome as the voice of Chucky (unfortunately, this is his least favorite of the series as well). However, this one was definitely black sheep of the series for a while because, as I said at the beginning, the VHS went out of print quickly and it didn't come out on DVD until 2003. I'm sure but I think a reason for that may have been the controversy in England where the movie was claimed to have been linked to the James Bulger murder, where two ten year-old kids murdered a two year-old. However, no real link between the movie and the murder was ever proven, with any leads to the contrary proving to have been false, and the boys apparently didn't even like horror movies. It was no doubt another example of overzealous adults trying to blame a horror movie for real life events, even when the evidence was non-existent. In any case, the controversy faded and you can now get the movie on DVD and Blu-Ray easily but, as much as I enjoy it, I'm well aware that its disappointing box-office and disastrous critical reception crippled the series for a while, with another installment not coming around for another seven years.

2 comments:

  1. This movie though it came out a year after part 2 wasn't bad considering that it's still dark and scary like the first two movies. Add to the fact that there are some good and gory death scenes in this movie makes it rather underrated in my opinion.

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  2. While this movie was rather rushed and somewhat forgettable in contrast to the first two movies despite that it wasn't bad considering that it was dark and scary like the first two movies! Add to the fact that this was the last movie to use normal Chucky's face makes this one a rather underrated movie despite being rather rushed and forgettable.

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