# Child's Play 3 (1991)

### reviewed by
The Phantom (The Phantom)

                                CHILD'S PLAY 3
                        A review in the public domain
                                by The Phantom
                          (baumgart@esquire.dpw.com)

We start this review first with an apology: to those phans who despaired of seeing the Phantom's review of CHILD'S PLAY 3 and went to see it over Labor Day weekend, the Phantom apologizes most sincerely. In this case, patience would have been its own reward, for there were no rewards to be found this weekend inside movie houses showing CHILD'S PLAY 3.

Though he usually attempts to see a film he is reviewing on opening day, in this case the Phantom waited until after the holiday so that he could see Chucky's latest with a friend and phan from the Phantom's day job (writing sporadic film reviews on the Internet pays less well than one might expect). The Phantom intends to see the latest ELM STREET film on opening day, but he expects that his friend will be making other plans; having once suffered through 90 minutes of boredom and mental anguish at the Phantom's behest, he is not likely to make the same mistake again. The Phantom feels that his film recommendations likely carry very little weight or credibility after CHILD'S PLAY 3; though he warned his friend that the film would no doubt be fairly poor (it being a sequel to a sequel), he neglected to note that it could -- conceivably -- be one of the worst horror films ever made.

And that it is. Phans who remember the Phantom's review of CHILD'S PLAY 2 (released about nine months ago) will remember that although the Phantom was somewhat disappointed with the first sequel to Tom Holland's 1988 horror classic, he found it a cut above the usual slash and trash fare. It was stylish and full of good humor, and although Chucky had become thoroughly Jasonized, phans who didn't go expecting great originality or an excess of logic found an entertaining and well-made thriller.

CHILD'S PLAY 3, however, is a different story entirely. Actually, it's exactly the same story, as far as the plot goes, but the result brought to mind one of the Phantom's tried and true capsule reviews, one that he uses whenever he wishes to sum up great disappointment tempered with relief that the proceedings were no worse than they were: At least there were no locusts.

Astute phans will recognize at once the reference: bad horror and locusts can only mean EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC, which remains the absolute nadir of American horror cinema -- perhaps of American cinema in general. If the horror film is a slug inching its way through the garden of legitimate cinema, EXORCIST II is its slimy trail. [Phans who wish to read the definitive review of this turkey should obtain a copy of "The Golden Turkey Awards", by Harry and Michael Medved -- ISBN 0-399-50463-X -- a delightful compendium of the worst films ever to be shown on the silver screen.] Ever since seeing that John Boorman bomb, the Phantom has been able to reflect on even the most egregiously awful horror film and think, "Well, at least there were no locusts." That thought always brightened the Phantom's mood; all right, so the plot was predictable, the special effects weren't so special, the acting was overwrought, and the dialogue was unspeakable. All right -- but at least there were no locusts. No locusts, no Linda Blair, and no James Earl Jones in a bug suit. But most especially, no locusts.

Phans, after about 20 minutes of CHILD'S PLAY 3, the Phantom found himself desperately trying to remember Linda Blair's classic "dance of the locusts"; a swarm, a plague, a blizzard -- even James Earl Jones in his bug suit -- *anything* would have been better than the next 70 minutes of this cinematic travesty. Alas, nothing flew through the auditorium but the Phantom's half-eaten popcorn, and the only buzzing came from the projection booth, whence the projectionist quickly fled after starting the sorry proceedings. Had the Phantom not just invested a small fortune at the box office, and had he not been with his (now likely former) friend, he too might well have fled, thus elevating CHILD'S PLAY 3 to the ranks of films so appalling that even the Phantom himself -- hardened though he is to the genre of the cheaply and cynically made exploitation film -- was reduced to taking flight from his aisle seat before he either lost his mind or died of boredom.

There are more than a few things wrong with CHILD'S PLAY 3, and lack of locusts is the least of them. Perhaps it would be better to catalog what is *right* with the film, since that list would certainly be shorter, and the Phantom always endeavors to keep his reviews under 2,000 words. To catalog what is wrong with CHILD'S PLAY 3, even 20,000 words might not do, so its best to start on the high side and work our way all too quickly to the low.

In the three years since the original CHILD'S PLAY was released, Chucky's puppeteers and special effects crew have certainly done themselves proud; there is no doubt that the Chucky who appears in this sequel is more life-like and convincing than ever. He has now been given a wide range of facial expressions, and this time out we even get to see his hands move and his fingers wiggle. Not bad for a doll that's been burnt up, blown up, torn apart and melted to a heap of molten latex not once but twice so far in his very brief life.

In keeping with his new, life-like look, Chucky has also been given some new, life-like dialogue, all of which sounds like it was cribbed from FREDDY'S OUTTAKES: HENNY YOUNGMAN IN HELL. The dialogue -- especially Chucky's dialogue -- is problem number one with the film (as you can see, the Phantom has already ended his brief catalog of "high points"; we're now headed down a steep and bottomless incline toward the "low points"). For some reason, Brad Dourif (the voice of Chucky) seems to have been given the go-ahead to do his (fairly poor) Jack Nicholson impersonation throughout the film. Although Chucky was made into a bit of a wise-ass in CHILD'S PLAY 2, in his latest outing he's so full of one-liners that the Phantom thought he might just have come from a screen test for TERMINATOR 3 -- his only liabilities being his size and the fact that he's more life-like than Arnold Schwarzenegger. When he's not making bad jokes, he's cursing, a sure sign that the writer spent more time pondering royalties and residuals than he did Roget's. At one point the impersonation is so obvious, and the dialogue is so Nicholson-esque, that Chucky even raises his left eyebrow while delivering the line. Had the Phantom not already been shocked into a stunned silence by the sheer weight of the film's mediocrity, he might even have laughed; as it was, he merely winced at the sight of a film that had even at such an early stage gone so far awry.

The story is worse by far than you are likely to be able to imagine. Perhaps your imagination is better than the Phantom's, but he simply was not ready for CHILD'S PLAY 3's horrific plot. It's almost as if Don Mancini, while pondering his probable share of the box office gross, watched videotapes of GRADUATION DAY, PROM NIGHT, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE. The result? Andy (the unfortunate child who gets Chucky as a present in the original film and then must deal with him all over again in the sequel) is now a teenager and is attending a military academy. Meanwhile, Chucky is resurrected in some way off-screen, presumably so that we're spared the pathetic and unlikely explanation -- a "high-point" the Phantom nearly overlooked. He quickly discovers Andy's location and wraps himself in a package, places an address label and correct postage on the outside of the package (from inside the package, one must assume), and mails himself to the academy. This is, in fact, what Mr. Mancini would have us believe, since in one scene Chucky is at the Good Guys toy factory, and in the next someone is unwrapping his package after the postman delivers him -- the package being the only thing about this film that's first-class. The absolute cynicism of this "plot twist" oozes from the screen and puddles on the auditorium floor along with the soda spilled during the previous show; in CHILD'S PLAY 3, not only does logic get tossed out the window, but it takes common sense and all respect for the audience down to the pavement with it. Mancini's script for the first CHILD'S PLAY was clever and original; his script for the sequel was clever enough and filled with good humor; but his script for CHILD'S PLAY 3 is marked by a terrible contempt for the audience: even when it makes sense -- which happens all too infrequently -- it assumes that those of us who were unfortunate enough to get suckered into seeing CHILD'S PLAY 3 also deserve to be laughed at by the filmmakers. Perhaps, however, the last laugh will be ours; though the film has only been in release for a few days, at the Phantom's showing the theater staff already well outnumbered the unfortunate patrons.

Need the Phantom go on? CHILD'S PLAY 3 is a film that we've all seen before: its plot is so creaky that the Phantom had hoped it had been retired forever after having all but killed the horror film in the early eighties. Pick any plot from your least favorite horror film, phans, and you've pretty much got it: Teenager knows terrible secret; teenager acts alone; teenager enlists friends; some friends die; final confrontation; lunatic killer goes to his reward; audience files out disgusted and discovers once again why God created VHS.

Since Andy is a teenager, it's difficult to see why he should be so frightened of what is, after all, a two-foot-tall doll. True, the doll is going after another little kid (the film's token black actor, and the only person who seems to be enjoying himself on screen), and true, along the way he does manage to kill a couple of peripheral characters, but when it comes right down to it, Andy looks tired and more than a little bored. He's been through all this before, and we've been there with him. Since Chucky's attention is for some mysterious reason split between Andy and the little kid who unwraps him, there is no opportunity for any sustained suspense, or even for a prolonged chase scene. The awful plot intrudes at every juncture, and just when things look like they might start to get interesting, we're treated to another ten minutes of the worst homage to FULL METAL JACKET that has ever been made. Remind you of GRADUATION DAY? PROM NIGHT, perhaps?

The film winds itself down at a leisurely pace -- the filmmakers apparently assumed that simply showing Chucky on the screen once every few minutes and having him say something either inane, vulgar, or both would be enough; or at the very least, that we as loyal phans of the series deserve no more. Having eluded his pursuers and escaped capturing our interest for nearly an hour and a half, Chucky follows his potential victim to a nearby carnival (isn't there a carnival near every military academy?), and for the third (fourth?) and last time begins the lengthy pseudo-Latin prayer to the gods of the underworld that he be released from his tiny latex prison, and that his soul be allowed to rush into the body of the unfortunate (but patient) little kid who's with him.

As Chucky's lengthy liturgy droned on, the Phantom prayed fervently to the twin gods of pay TV and enhanced downstream value that the film would be no more than a cable-friendly 90 minutes in length, so that he himself could rush out of the auditorium and scan the skies for signs of locusts. No locusts, alas, but in truth, one plague each day is enough. And after seeing CHILD'S PLAY 3, it is the Phantom's sincere belief that enough is most definitely enough. CHILD'S PLAY 3 is a repellent film, one that holds its audience in near constant contempt, and one that is so cynically and incompetently made that it makes even Freddy's death knell -- THE DREAM CHILD -- seem enjoyable by comparison. Even HARDWARE was so bad that it was nearly funny; CHILD'S PLAY 3 is just bad.

Here's wishing a plague of locusts on Don Mancini for concocting it, and on Universal for releasing it. The Phantom will leave it to them to find Linda Blair and have her do her locust dance so that they may be released from the curse of unanimous audience disdain -- a curse more terrible for a Hollywood studio than any swarm of insects could ever be.

    : The Phantom
    : baumgart@esquire.dpw.com
    : {cmcl2,uunet}!esquire!baumgart

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