Child’s Play 3 (1991, Justin Whalin, Perrey Reeves, Jeremy Sylvers) – Classic Movie Review 8621

In the notorious second sequel to the 1988 Child’s Play, set eight years later after the events of Child’s Play 2, the kid Alex Barclay, who was terrified by the killer Chucky doll in the first two Child’s Play movies, is now a teenager at American Army academy (and played by another actor, Justin Whalin).

Director Jack Bender’s gruesome, tatty, threadbare 1991 movie Child’s Play 3 is a poor horror yarn, as low on ideas as on scares. It is quite feebly handled, apart from the expert puppeteering and one or two effectively nasty action highlights. Brad Dourif again voices Chucky.

Child’s Play 3 gained terrible notoriety in 1993 in Britain for its alleged influence on the tragic killing by children of two-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool. However, though the judge in the case condemned the video, and its possible influence, it was later shown that the boys had not seen the film.

Child’s Play 3 went straight to video in the UK, but was withdrawn by its distributors, CIC, after the Bulger case. Nevertheless, its American company, Universal Pictures, went ahead with a sequel, Bride of Chucky, in 1998.

Also in the cast are Perrey Reeves, Jeremy Sylvers, Travis Fine, Dean Jacobson, Peter Haskell, Dakin Matthews, Burke Byrnes and Andrew Robinson.

Child’s Play 3 is directed by Jack Bender, runs 89 minutes, is made and released by Universal, is written by Don Mancini, is shot by John R Leonetti, is produced by Robert Latham Brown, is scored by Cory Lerios and John D’Andrea, and is designed  by Richard Sawyer.

It is rated R for horror violence and strong language. In the UK it has an 18 certificate.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8621

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