Child's Play 3

Did You Know?

• A tie-in novel by Matthew J. Costello includes expanded character perspectives and a different death for Chucky, where Andy shoots him and his head shatters on the ground.
• In 2009, the climax of Child's Play 3 received its own maze at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights, entitled Chucky's Fun House.

Plot

Eight years after his second death, Chucky is brought back when a drop of his blood lands in the molten plastic at the Play Pals factory, which has reopened to make Good Guy dolls. He kills the company's CEO, Mr. Sullivan, using toys as weapons, then finds Andy Barclay through the company's computer records. Andy is now sixteen. His mother, Karen, has been placed in a psychiatric hospital for the second time, and Andy has been sent to Kent Military School after struggling in several foster homes.

The commandant, Colonel Cochrane, tells Andy to stop believing in his doll fantasies. Andy makes friends with eight-year-old Ronald Tyler, the timid Harold Aubrey Whitehurst, and Kristin De Silva, whom he starts to like romantically. He also deals with Brett C. Shelton, a cruel lieutenant colonel who bullies the cadets. Tyler is told to bring a package to Andy's room but opens it in the school's armory, finding a Good Guy doll.

Chucky jumps out, angry to see Tyler instead of Andy, but decides to possess Tyler by telling him his secret. Before Chucky can perform the soul-swapping ritual, Cochrane takes the doll and throws it into a garbage truck. Chucky escapes by tricking the driver into the compactor, killing him. That night, Chucky tells Andy his plan to take over Tyler's body.

Shelton takes the doll from Andy, but Chucky disappears. Shelton punishes all cadets with exercises, thinking the doll was stolen. Chucky tries to possess Tyler again but is stopped by De Silva and another cadet, Ivers. Later, Chucky surprises Cochrane with a knife, causing a fatal heart attack.

Andy tries to warn Tyler about Chucky, but Tyler does not believe him. Chucky kills the barber, Sergeant Botnick, by slashing his throat with a straight razor. Whitehurst sees the murder and runs away in fear.

Production

Don Mancini was brought in by Universal Studios to write the third Child's Play movie before the second one even hit theaters, which put him under the gun to come up with a plot fast. The project got the official go-ahead after the second film did well, with a release date set just nine months out. Mancini’s early idea involved multiple Chuckys running around, but the budget wouldn’t allow it; he would eventually revisit that concept for 2017’s Cult of Chucky.

The original opening would have featured John Ritter as a security guard at the Good Guys factory, telling scary stories about Chucky to scare off kids trespassing. Because the story jumps ahead eight years from Child’s Play 2, Alex Vincent didn’t return as Andy. Mancini decided Andy would be 16, first considered Jonathan Brandis for the role, and then hired Justin Whalin. Before Jack Bender signed on to direct, Mancini had wanted Peter Jackson.

Filming started on February 4, 1991, at the Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri, with additional shooting in Los Angeles and on the Universal Studios Lot. The carnival scenes were shot in Valencia, California. The puppeteers used computer tech to sync Chucky’s mouth movements with Brad Dourif’s prerecorded lines. N. Brock Winkless IV and Van Snowden both returned as Chucky’s puppeteers.

Release and reception

Child's Play 3 hit theaters over the 1991 Labor Day weekend, pulling in $5.7 million over four days. That put it in second place at the US box office, behind Dead Again. The Los Angeles Times described those earnings as slow numbers, but the film still set a record for the highest-grossing Labor Day opening at the time, beating the $4.6 million Bolero had held since 1984. By the end of its theatrical run, it had made $15 million in the US and Canada, with a worldwide total of $20.5 million.

Critics were not kind. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 19% approval rating from 16 critics, with an average score of 4.20 out of 10—the worst in the series on that site. Metacritic gives it a 27 out of 100 from 13 reviews, which falls under "generally unfavorable." Chris Hicks of the Deseret News called the movie perverse and took issue with its plot. Caryn James of The New York Times praised the Chucky doll as an impressive technological achievement but felt the film lacked the sharpness and dark humor of the original. Variety labeled it a noisy, mindless sequel, though it noted the acting was good. Richard Harrington of The Washington Post described Chucky as an animatronic delight but argued that the film's energy and budget were wasted on a one-trick pony. Stephen Wigle of The Baltimore Sun, however, found it fun for any slasher fan.

Even the people who made it weren't thrilled. Series creator Don Mancini called this his least favorite entry, admitting he ran out of ideas after the second film. In 2013, he said he was unhappy with the casting: Jeremy Sylvers seemed too old for the role of Tyler, and Dakin Matthews didn't fit the R. Lee Ermey type he wanted for Colonel Cochrane. Director Jack Bender dismissed the film in a 2017 interview as "kinda silly." In October 2021, actress Perrey Reeves, who played De Silva, expressed interest in bringing her character back for the TV series Chucky.

The murder of James Bulger

After the murder of James Bulger, some people suggested a connection to this film. The two ten-year-old killers were rumored to have copied a scene where a victim gets splashed with blue paint. Psychologist Guy Cumberbatch noted that Jon Venables’ father had rented Child's Play 3 a few months earlier. But the lead police investigator, Albert Kirby, discovered that Jon was not living with his father then and probably never saw the movie.

The boy also hated horror films, which psychiatric reports later backed up. The police specifically looked for a video link and found none. Still, the judge, Justice Morland, remarked that the murder had “some striking similarities” to the film and that serious crimes by young children might be triggered by things like watching violent videos, “including possibly Child's Play 3.” After the trial, the UK’s Association of Video Retailers asked its members to voluntarily pull the trilogy from stores.

The film stayed controversial across Europe. Sky Television in the UK and Canal+ in Spain both refused to air it as regular programming. The case also led to new laws governing video films.