197: Child's Play 3 (1991)

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Cause corporate greed never dies.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hack or Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. Time to play. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack, a total joke, a waste of time, or a slash.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Totally killer. Unintended.

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We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with a perspective we've all gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slash enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Man, I really gotta get out of this body.

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The cowardly creeper Ryan. Hiya. And the Scream Queen Paris.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Hey sweets.

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This week we're revisiting a tiny Titan of Horror by checking out an early 90s film with the tagline Look who stalking. Before we get down to business though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Let's follow up on a movie. Okay, Ryan, you dodged a bullet this holiday season because we recently reviewed a Christmas themed horror movie, Silent Night, Deadly Night. And actually, in a shocking turn of events, we didn't hate it. You'd be proud of us.

SPEAKER_05 1:15

You did just say that I dodged a bullet, so Well, because it was seasonal horror, but this one actually wasn't that bad. Alright, I I would like to go on record and say that although I have made it very clear how I feel about seasonal specific horror, I didn't miss this on purpose, okay?

SPEAKER_02 1:31

It just worked out that way. Wink, wink, noj, noj, cough, cough.

SPEAKER_05 1:35

No, literally, life did actually just work out that way.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

And that's okay. We wanted to hear what our listeners thought of this movie, however, and the results are in. It's actually pretty split. 56% gave it a hack and 44% gave it a slash.

SPEAKER_05 1:48

Which does make me feel like I I may have missed a good one for once.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Yeah, that actually is pretty good for a holiday horror movie, to be quite honest.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Really surprising in the depths that it has while also being still a little campy and silly.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

There were tons of gratuitous boobs too, Ryan.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

I was just gonna say I heard there was lots of boobs. Yeah, one chick gets hung up on taxidermy with her boobs exposed. It's right up your alley. I think Chris told me too much boob.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

Yeah, I think all three of us ranked it as too much boob in the end of your episode.

SPEAKER_05 2:19

Might have been perfect boob for you, though. No, no, no. I don't like it to be gratuitous. Tasteful boob is the right way to go.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

We do have some comments from our listeners. Rob said, this is a tough one to rate. There are a lot of things about it that I don't like, but also a lot of things that surprised me. I think overall I have to give it a soft slash, which really echoes the sentiments that we had, I think.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 2:39

We have another comment from Amber who said, it's a definite slash for me. Pure 80s horror and unintentionally funny at times. The grandfather in the beginning was way too intense. The rest of the franchise, though, is a resounding hack.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Okay, I still want to watch the rest of the franchise, but we'll get there in time. Amber's looking out for us though, with the uh is she's like the harbinger of doom. Don't go, you'll get killed, or something like that. Don't watch that bullshit.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

We have one last comment from Britney who said, the equation said it all. 80s plus holiday horror equals not a good time. It felt so dirty and disgusting, and I was too distracted by all the assault-fueled moments to enjoy this for one second. I can't and won't see the merit of a movie that is so degrading. Like Max said, there's a more appropriate way to show the intensity and darkness of a murderer if that's what they were going for. It just seemed like they wanted to see naked women suffer. Ugh. Broken record, Britney over here, but misogyny is the real villain once again. The only points I will give this is for the antler kill. That one made me wince.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Okay, maybe I didn't miss anything special. I I okay. I Brian, you know how I am about that tone in movies, and even I was okay with it in a very specific light. You know what I mean? Like it was definitely the worst part of the movie, but I think we've seen far worse that other people have slashed. So I think it's one of those that you're gonna have to just see for yourself and see how it tastes in your mouth.

SPEAKER_05 3:56

Yeah, next Christmas for sure.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

It made some wretched choices, but it did a lot to counteract that. It was really a close call for that movie.

SPEAKER_05 4:06

As per the results.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Yes. And lastly, I'd like to give a shout out to two of our newest patrons, George and Jake. George and Jake, if you're listening to this episode, thank you so much for joining our family. We are so happy to have you in our midst. And we look forward to hearing from you in the future, perhaps on our Hackerslash Hotline. And that is our follow-up.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Well, this week's film looks at the final time we get a glimpse of serial Charles Lee Ray as a single man before he takes a bride in the next film. Spoiler alert. When we last visited this franchise, we saw a young Andy Barclay and his foster sister escaping the clutches of Charles in a factory. But this week he's once again resurrected and on the hunt for Andy. This week we're talking about Child's Play 3. Who's seen this one before?

SPEAKER_05 4:49

Surprise, surprise, I I haven't seen this movie. And I've never really cared much about a ch a child's play movie. So it's it's an interesting look tonight to be in Child's Play 3 sharing my feelings.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

So I have not seen this movie, even though a scene at the end made me think, have I seen this movie? Uh but I have seen the first two, of course, and it's famously one of the scarier movies to me. Something about Chucky really terrifies me and was like the fuel of all of my childhood nightmares.

SPEAKER_05 5:18

Really?

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Yeah, Ryan. Something about like the way his little body moves just isn't right and isn't natural. Um, and it's always been something that's like really spooked me out. And I've also had like so many recurring nightmares where he's just chasing me and stabbing my family with a knife.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

There is absolutely nothing natural about a possessed doll.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

So it's like specifically the animation and like the way they puppet him around that I hate.

SPEAKER_05 5:39

I feel like his hair should really be the scariest part for you. In the mouth.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

There's so much wrong.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

I feel like Piege would uh definitely agree with you there. I mean, you don't mind other dolls though, right? No, I famously hate dolls. Remember Brahms?

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Remember the Brahms episode?

SPEAKER_02 5:53

No, you like daddy Brahms.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

I did when he became a person. That's right. And maybe I would like Charles Lee Ray, but as Chucky, get the fuck out.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

I have seen this one before. I think the last time I saw it was on the Sci-Fi channel in the early 2000s. So it's been a little bit. Um, but I've seen this probably a couple times.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

I've seen just about every child's play and and Chuck E film. The one that I haven't seen is in its entirety is Cult of Chuck E. Uh, I did also watch the TV series, the whole Chucky TV series, and I really loved what they did with it. And it's inspired me to go back and revisit things. I was very close to re-watching Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky, but remembered, no, we have to get to Child's Play 3, which is the last in this series of the franchise, right? This is the last one of just Chucky on his own before we start getting into the really intense campiness of the rest of the films when Chucky really finds his groove. That being said, it's been years since I've seen this. I think I've mainly only seen it once or twice, maybe when I was a kid. So I was expecting it from my memory to be semi-mediocre. It's one of those where I remember this being not as good as the first, not as decent as the second. And then it's kind of like the middle child of the family, the one that gets forgotten about because then we have Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky next, which garners so much attention in other ways. So I was really curious to see if this movie ages any better or if it was still lackluster.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

I can definitely feel you there. It's not it's not the high point for Chuck E films, and like when you think back to the like the vibe of Chuck E of the first three movies, like the first one obviously is a is its own thing. The second one, though, I think sums up for me what I expect from Chucky. Like he's on the hunt for Andy, and this one just kind of does, it's kind of like the misfit of them. And it's the last one to bear the name Child's Play, like we've mentioned. So everything that comes after it is it's just so Chucky. Like he just hits his stride after this. But this one, he's just kind of in a weird spot. And I just expected, honestly, aside from seeing Chucky in a weird spot, I expected to see Jimmy Olson. I expected cheesy military academy cadets and just Chucky killing people, as always.

SPEAKER_05 8:03

Yeah, this is one of those ones that comes up because, like we always say, our goal here is to review everything, right? So that's how we end up deep into some of these franchises. Like I said, child's play's never been, I don't know, significant to me in the world of horror. It's never been one that's like stuck to me. There's maybe not enough words to describe how little I expected to enjoy in this movie. Like it's not even one that I hate because I don't care enough. I I am just very indifferent towards Chucky. I know that he exists. That's about all I got.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

You're not invested.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

I'm not invested, even in a sense of my investment of hate, which Paris normally would like, right? Any feeling is something. I have no feeling. I I expect nothing here.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

You're indifferent, which is borderline more dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Yeah, indifference is worse than hate, famously.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

That's where I am here.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

After finding out that the second child's play movie was a real continuation of the first one, and then they kind of make their own little complete story together. I really didn't know what direction they were gonna take this in. I wasn't sure if Andy was gonna be in it. I really wasn't anticipating what we got. So whatever I was expecting, it wasn't this. So while I was watching it, I was kind of like, huh. It's probably no surprise to our listeners, but anything set in like a military, like predominantly male environment is gonna be a real snooze for me personally. So when I realized that that was happening, I was like, okay. Uh it was interesting to see Andy grown up, and I did have to like Google to see if that was the same actor because truly I have no concept of time or human aging. So while I was watching it, I was kind of just like along for the ride, but I had hesitations and I had questions more than anything.

SPEAKER_05 9:37

Yeah, I I think the setting of this movie is very interesting. My biggest feeling during this movie was wow, this is very strong 90s vibes. And in the in a very good nostalgic way, I guess. I don't know. It's a weird combination of things happening here. I am very unsettled about my feelings. So there were vibes. There's like something, and I don't know, the layers of things here don't quite stack up to make a cake. There's just like cake layers on a table all together, and I can't quite figure out what was supposed to be made.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Oh. That's pretty accurate. It's in this weird middle place where it's like, you don't really know is it is it truly an 80s movie just a couple years later, or is it truly a 90s movie a couple years too early? It's like trying to f it's it's very 91. It's trying to figure out what the 90s are gonna be, and it's like you're not quite there yet. You haven't really set your your own tone yet. So it's it's a bit mixed. I I think when I was watching it though, I was surprised by how long it felt because it's not as strong as the first two. Uh, and it's only an hour and a half, but it kind of dragged like the first two-thirds of the movie. And I mean, there's always stuff going on, but just like the pacing of it. I I honestly was like, man, how much more is there left of this? And then I realized it's only an hour and a half left. There's there's literally like 35 minutes left. Why am I complaining?

SPEAKER_05 10:56

I will say, runtime-wise, we almost hit our tight 120. You know, everything was working well there. I was really excited looking at the runtime.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Okay, so it was like kind of almost like a semi-loose 120. I think if you cut off the credits and you scroll on Instagram, it may have felt like a tight 120. It's interesting, Mac, that you felt like the movie dragged a bit because I found this to be a formidable watch the whole way through. It's certainly not as good as the first two movies in the franchise. Absolutely. Paris, I would agree with you. The setting of this film is not one that really appeals to me at all. But there are things that I do enjoy that I found myself having a good time with. For example, I remember that the chronology of making this film, they made this so closely against Child's Play 2 that it was impossible to have the same actor return because he was still a small child and this one is set in the future. But looking at who they got to play Andy, I actually really enjoyed that. I really I thought they did a good job of casting an adolescent who looks similar to the child actor, which I think can sometimes be a big swing and a miss. And there's some other characters in this movie that I think are, I wouldn't say the most intriguing, but certainly charming, certainly endearing in some ways. And while this movie doesn't live up completely to the quality of its predecessors, I do appreciate it for continuing this thread of the first two films of just corporate greed and consumerism. And that's really what the Charles Play franchise started on. For example, looking at this open the opening of this movie, it continues that same note before the Chucky franchise just becomes about Chucky shenanigans.

SPEAKER_05 12:33

Chris, you actually mentioned the thing that was most surprising to me, and it was how much I actually cared about Andy in this movie. I wasn't expecting that at all. He feels like a character that I would normally just be like, meh, and the whole like grown-up version of a kid thing very often doesn't hit for me. But here I was like, I I care a lot about Andy. I'd say maybe more than anyone else. Like he really hit it out the park for me in a very unexpected way.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

That's interesting, Ryan, because Andy is, I think, probably like the most innocent sort of like final girl type final character that we've ever had, because truly you just like watch a child get traumatized for the first two movies, like relentlessly. And there's like sometimes it like teens or like other characters like along for the ride with him, but it's really very much like a solo, he's targeted by this horrible, dull, monster, serial killer demon thing. Very specifically targeted by that. Uh, and it's rough to see. So I can kind of understand why seeing Andy like this is still able to provide a level of empathy for the character. But the thing that surprised me the most, I think, is how in such like a, I don't know, like macho kind of environment with like the drill sergeant vibes, I was getting like a lot of queer energy. Like Andy, once he got his haircut, was giving very much like non-binary energy. I feel like this is ultimately like some sort of a lesbian love story at its core. And then, like, there were so many times where like some of the more aggressive male characters were getting like intimately close to other guys' faces, and I was like, What are they, are they gonna kiss? What is this? It was very bizarre, and I think maybe because I'm just not familiar with this culture at all, but I was like very surprised by all of that that was happening.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Well, I think one of the things to consider there is that a lot of the dynamics in environments like this are based off of uh the desire for power and the desire for dominance. And that really blurs a line with do you truly want to be a leader who's responsible for the lives or well-being of others? Obviously, these are children, so this doesn't actually matter. But do you want to do that or do you want to just feel in control of something? Do you want to feel like you have power of something? And as we know, the slippery slope that can lead to, right? And how people choose to assert their power or dominance over others and how abusive that can turn. That's all this movie fucking was.

SPEAKER_05 14:46

Honestly, there was kind of always odd sexual tension in like random 90s movies where you're like, well, this shouldn't be here. And between people who you're like it doesn't make sense, but you guys are very close face to face right now. Now kiss. I don't have any specific examples, but I'll work on it.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

And you know, the the movie calls back to a lot of the other like very popular military movies uh and within the decades before it, like Full Metal Jacket, like multiple times and Cadet Kelly, yeah. Oh that, yeah, I think Cadet Kelly was probably a couple years after this, but I just can't stop bringing it up. I know. But there's there's a lot of that like getting in your face and screaming at you kind of situation because like in in real life, that would be so annoying to do, let alone to receive. But I think the thing that surprised me the most about this movie was was actually Chucky and his puppetry. There were some parts that were really good, like with his hand movements, and there was other parts like his mouth that were really bad. And that was just kind of, I guess, both surprising and disappointing because I feel like in the first two movies, he kind of lives up to what you'd expect based on the release date, and in the later movies he gets so good, looks like an actual living being with movements good, and this one again just kind of falls in the middle.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

We really did have a mixed bag. He for sure looked like shit, but I was surprised with how much I enjoyed the opening where we see Chucky coming back to life, and I'll have more on that later, but I think the continuity of okay, how did we get here? How did this whole story happen? Uh is this going to be as lackluster as Jason being resurrected on one fateful night with a miraculous stroke of lightning to one metal tool that happens to be in his grave? You know what I mean? It gets a little bit loosey-goosey. Child's Play 2, we had a great opening sequence of Chucky being rebuilt. And I think this one, it's a it's a very thin thread, right? But it's a it's a thread, nevertheless, that continues with this kind of like this quest for greed that keeps bringing this fucking thing back to life. And I was surprised how effective that was for me. Another thing that I was surprised though was or was our man Tyler. I forgot that fucking Tyler was in this movie, and I forgot how damn cute he was.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Chris, Tyler was definitely super cute and a pleasant surprise. Also, like great child actor, which is rare. But I had speaking of that like opening sequence, I was actually a little bit disappointed because obviously you see this in the first two minutes of the movie, but like a little bit of like Chucky's blood enters like this big vat of plastic. So I thought somehow we were gonna have like an army of Chucky's. Like a little bit of that was in all of them. So I was kind of expecting that for some reason, and when we didn't get it, I was a little disappointed.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

That was actually an original concept for this movie. It ended up being scrapped at the last minute, but that was then later brought back in the series. But that blood in the vat, it makes sense that you would hope for that because that was originally the plan.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

Okay, because it really felt like that's what they were gonna do. Uh, but to Max's point earlier, I think the way that they animated Chucky this time around took the fear out of it for me, which was a little bit disappointing as well, because I'm known I'm like expecting to be at least somewhat unsettled by Chucky, and like in a way I was, but like I wasn't afraid he was hiding under my couch, gonna slip my Achilles tendons, or like gonna come into my room at night. And I think that's because they didn't utilize all of the methods of animation that they did in the previous film, specifically like the little man in a suit running around, and then they just changed the scale of things. Because that one like always gets me, and I don't think we saw that here.

SPEAKER_05 18:07

I also feel like a part of that is that we didn't get that much Chucky on screen. Like it it seemed like the story was so much more important. It almost had a feeling of you guys already know Chucky. We don't really need to focus on that anymore. We'll show you a couple of his kills, but we didn't have a ton of that. But I don't know. For me, Chucky doesn't scare me, he doesn't do it for me. I've never been like particularly afraid of dolls in any way, aside from that they just look creepy with their little glass eyes and everything. But like Chucky's got cute eyes. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Ew, what? Take that back.

SPEAKER_05 18:42

When he's a doll, his eyes are so cute.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

That's sick.

SPEAKER_05 18:45

He's got the baby blues.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Ew. I I don't think he's scary. He's he's too goofy to be scary, I think. And not like in in the normal sense of goofy, but like his antics are goofy. Like he's just like having fun with killing people, and he'll get thrown or stabbed or whatever, and he just kind of sucks it up.

SPEAKER_05 19:03

It's like Thanksgiving silly, where you're like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:06

I'm cussing because I can.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Yes, I don't I don't think he's particularly scary, but I think in this movie you're right that he's kind of sidelined as an antagonist, and the other antagonists are highlighted way more often.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Oh, for sure. But I will say this, despite how unscary he is, right? This is, I would not say peak Chucky by any means, not not by any stretch of the imagination. There is a level of intensity of this Chucky that I think is absent from previous Chucky's. And that is a bold move that he makes, kind of sabotage some things, and we'll get into that later in the second half where we can spoil things. But just the thought of that and knowing the age ranges that are at play in this movie and just the big difference there, there's a huge gap. It's kind of fucked up. And the original plans for this movie was to have a very particular bloodbath that I think would have been the most intense moment we get in a child's play film. So I appreciate that although a lot of this movie ended up being a semi-mediocre along the way, this tried to do a different thing from its previous movies.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

Honestly, Chris, it sounds like everything that I was expecting and wanted from this movie got cut for some reason or another. Maybe in an attempt to be more original, which I don't think it really succeeded at. This felt like Chucky, like you remember those like Ernest movies? I don't think I've ever seen one. But remember how it was like Ernest goes to space or like Ernest goes to camp, or like Ernest did these different things? But this very much just felt like Chucky goes to military school. It felt like a spin-off. You know what I mean? It felt derivative.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

I think it's that's interesting. It's an interesting observation because like it doesn't really fit in with his life across the movies. But I think like Chris has said, like, this is not peak Chucky. I think when they abandon the idea of child's play and just move to it being Chucky, it's so much just so different. So I I hope afterwards that you keep watching, like literally look up an image for Bride of Chucky, and your interest will already be peaked. Oh, it's been peaked, Matt.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Yeah. The fact that I haven't seen it at this point is very surprising to me personally.

SPEAKER_05 21:05

The most I've ever cared about Chucky was many years ago when my best friend at the time wanted to be Bride of Chucky for Halloween, and I spent many days figuring out how to do that makeup because I was like, we gonna make you the best bride of Chucky. And it was pretty great. I want to see pictures.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

It's a cute costume.

SPEAKER_05 21:22

I'll see what I can do. Noted.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

But I don't think it has to be original. You know, it's it's it's a Chucky movie, so it's all about cultural references, it's all about talking about the zeitgeist, and there are some bad ways that they do this. You know, there's a line in this movie that took took a lot of heat, absolutely at the time.

SPEAKER_05 21:42

There was a line in this movie that I thought was gonna go worse than it did. I was like, okay, thank you for not going there. Mm-hmm. Where's part of the movie?

SPEAKER_00 21:50

But I I think it's you know, it kind of reflects 1991. You know, it's got it's got the vibe. It's got the we're not sure what the nineties are gonna be yet, so we're just gonna try to figure Figure it out kind of vibe. And so yeah, it's gonna reference things like Full Metal Jacket. It's gonna reference it has a very like poly shore kind of feel to it sometimes, you know, in the army now, but um it's not unexpected, I don't think.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Yeah, what's also not unexpected is the way this chapter concludes. We certainly get a familiar experience for Chucky. I think at this point it's safe to say it's a trope, the way these movies end. But at least I'll say it's climactic. At least I say I enjoy the effects of it. It's one of those things where you know what you're getting yourself into, and for me it didn't disappoint.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

I think the ending of a child's play or a Chuck E movie for me is like kind of what you're looking forward to the whole time. Honestly, I I just want Chuck E to win sometimes. That's just how I feel about it. But you know, it's a successful ending, and I think as we know, another four Chuck E movies follow this, along with a reboot of Child's Play. And I feel like every one of these movies could end with Chuck E being vaporized by sharks with laser beams, and it wouldn't really matter.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Because corporate greed never dies. Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 23:01

Yeah, I I gotta be honest here. The ending doesn't really do it for me. It just feels like a random journey at the end of a nardy random movie. But I don't know. It's it's not horrific. It just didn't do anything for me, really.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

I swear there's an element of this ending that I feel like every single Chucky ending has, specifically in regards to a location. But maybe, because when I saw it, maybe I've actually seen the ending of this movie before, just the ending, because I didn't remember any of it. I actually did not hate the ending. One of my favorite parts of this movie is within the ending, and we'll talk about that after the spoiler break.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Oh, I look forward to that. Now let's go ahead and make our way towards that spoiler break. But before we actually rate this movie, Paris, how many people died in this film?

SPEAKER_03 23:45

We had a total of eight deaths in this movie, which feels pretty on par for a child's play film.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

And what about the Animal Report? Animal Report is all good to go. Well, let's go ahead and get into our ratings then. Child's Play 3 from 1991. Look who's stalking indeed. Was it a hacker slash?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

I think this is probably one of the weakest child's play slash Chucky movies that there are, but I still think it's a slash. I still think it's moderately entertaining. And the story, yeah, like the setting is kind of weird. I don't really understand that choice whatsoever. But the story in Chucky movies, it doesn't really matter. Like he could just show up in a random suburban neighborhood and he's just gonna do his thing, and you're just gonna kind of watch to hope to see him, you know, stab some people or or use vacuum cleaners to choke them out. Who knows what he's gonna do? It's gonna be ridiculous because he's a doll uh that's killing fully grown human beings. Um so I'm I'm fine with suspending my disbelief every single time I sit down to watch anything with Chucky inside of it. So yeah, I think it's a slash, I think it's entertaining. It's not the best Chuck E movie by a long shot, but it's it's fine. I will tell you this, Mac.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

I have slashed every child's play movie that we have reviewed thus far, but I feel like, and I'll be fair, I've only seen the first two and the reboot with Aubrey Plaza, but I definitely feel like this was the worst of the four that I've seen. I was like bored, the setting did nothing for me, and I think the reason I even slashed the first two in the to begin with is because technically they're very sound, and there's always at least some level of like stress, fear, and anxiety for me, just like watching the Chucky character navigate through space and time just because I hate the way it moves. Um, but because there was none of that that was effective for me in this movie, I think it just kind of made kind of made me look at it in a different way and just kind of look at it as like the goofy, kind of silly, kind of like saying swear words just to say them to be like, I'm a toy saying fuck, oh, given the little middle fingers, crusty little finger. Uh I hated that. Um so I'm gonna give this movie a hack. I probably will never watch this again. It feels like a deep valley in the franchise, I'm hoping, based on what I've heard about the subsequent films. Uh so even though I didn't really care for this one, I am still looking forward to continuing the franchise.

SPEAKER_05 25:50

Well, you two have put me in a predicament here because I have no idea how I feel about this movie. And I thought, I'll wait and see what they say and see if anything really resonates with my heart. And I don't know. I I guess my indifference is kind of continuing here with Chucky. For me, this really feels like a 90s army movie, and Chucky is just like thrown in. This feels like a movie that has nothing to do with Chucky. They just didn't have a good issue for the plot, so they were like, let's put Chucky in it. That that's what it feels like, without considering, you know, anything else in the franchise. But I did enjoy Andy and some of the characters, but not all of them. I don't know. It's really tough. I I don't think it's horrible. It's not the worst movie I've ever seen. And it's not like offensively bad, but I don't know that there's any reason I would ever think about watching it ever again. I usually come from a place of like hack until proven otherwise. I think I'm gonna go slash here because I'm feeling generous in 2022. But I'm I'm not like excited about this movie at all. It feels wrong. I don't know, everything feels wrong. I feel wrong hacking it and slashing it, but I'll run with a slash for now.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Alexis will be proud because she loves to be slash until proven hack.

SPEAKER_05 27:07

Right, and and that's our difference here. So I I feel a bit like I'm betraying people, but honestly, like I think there's literally enough positive 90s vibes that I enjoyed this, not even caring about the fact like the Chucky's even in it almost. But I don't know. This is a very tough one.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

Ryan, is this like an I slash Jaws too? Because I like water sports.

SPEAKER_05 27:28

No, because there isn't even a thing in here. Like, I don't care about army school at all. I don't even understand really the concept of where these people are because one person's like 10 and one person's like 20. Yeah. It's a it's a weird environment, and now I feel like I should hack it. I don't know, man. I have been thinking about this for two days now. I I'm just gonna go with a slash, and at the end of the year I'll say, what was I thinking?

SPEAKER_00 27:52

I think she slashed it because of a woman in a uniform. That's what did it.

SPEAKER_05 27:56

Oh yeah. Nobody in this movie did it for me. And they were I think they were like 15. I didn't understand anything in this movie, okay? I don't know. I did my best here.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Hey, you know what, Ryan? New Year, New You, it's okay. It's fine. You can be a little bit more generous. You will have a chance to undo this at the end of the year. But I I think one of the things that Paris said in terms of it being a bit of a valley before we get into the rest of the, you know, the upward trend of the rest of the franchise. I drew a little bit of a diagram here in terms of like what the reception has kind of been. So we have one, we have two, we're pretty on par, three. It was one of the ones that a few people involved actually thought that this might have been one of the worst ones they made. Then we have Bride, we have Seed, we have Curse Colts, did a little bit of something weird, and then we have the show that really just drove up Chucky's stocks. For me, this is one of those movies where I know what I'm getting into with Chucky. I think it it's pre-intense Chucky that we get in the next few films. So this is one where, you know, if you think that he's cursing just a curse, it gets a lot worse as we continue to go on. This is a style of Chucky that I look back on fondly. Not because I think he's great by any means, but because he's just so different now. And it's one of those ones where, you know, sometimes you're hungry and you want to go get some good food, and sometimes you're hungry just enough to get whatever's nearby and edible. And this one's edible. You know what I mean? It's not disgusting, it's not one of the things I'm gonna throw up or get sick from. It's just constant, old, reliable. It's the basic order of a sandwich that you would, you know, assemble out of your fridge. It's not surprising, it's not fancy, but it's consistent. And for me, that gets it a slash. And with that, in a stunning turn of events, Child's Play 3 from 1991 has earned three slashes and one hack. Now, you can find this movie available to rent or purchase online. Either way, check it out, then join us in the second half so we can dive into the spoilers together. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

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SPEAKER_02 30:28

Welcome back, folks. You're now entering the spoiler zone for Child's Play 3, which has surprisingly earned three slashes and one hack. Now we have a lot to get to here, but before we get into the specifics of our ratings, we do have the matter of gore to attend to. Paris, what's the gore score for this movie?

SPEAKER_03 30:44

So, disappointingly so, the score was low, as as far as I see it. We didn't get a lot of gore, like we literally had somebody dive on top of a grenade and we barely got any blood from that. And I'm like, where was it? The most blood we got was from Chucky. With that being said, an interesting thing to note is that this is the only child's play film where no females die and all of the victims are men. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

I know. Uh you know, a girl got shot, but she survived.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

I think we can agree that this is Chucky's film to fight the patriarchy.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

I don't know about that, Chris, because I was actually doing a tally of women that had speaking roles in this movie, and it was just three, and one of them was the woman in the boardroom at the very beginning. So I think it was just a lack of female presence. There weren't women to kill in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Very representative of the military environment in the 90s. I'm kidding, is it obviously a fucking children's school?

SPEAKER_03 31:31

Also, like co-ed, I I don't really understand how that works. With that being said, what was everyone's favorite kill?

SPEAKER_00 31:36

I'm gonna go with the heart attack. No. Because of Chucky's disappointment. Absolutely. And that's what sold it was how disappointed Chucky was. Because like it happens and he's sweaty and it's going down, and he's just like, you have to be effing kidding me. And and that moment was so good. That was Chucky before he like this was the Chucky you you expect later on in the in the in the movies. In that in that moment, it felt like, oh, it's a glimpse of what he's gonna be.

SPEAKER_05 32:04

That kill was great. Was it? Chucky's disappointment was palpable and it made it lovely. It was great because you didn't expect a heart attack to happen, and then afterwards they're like, This man's been to nom, and now he's just dying in his place of a heart attack. And it's like, yeah, well, you know, Chucky killed him. You just it's like a an indirect kill, you know? For me, my favorite kill was good old creepy Sergeant Botnik. Why is he so obsessed with haircuts? Oh my god. The weirdest vibes from him, uh, along with already a weird environment in general. And so I enjoyed that little stab to the neck. It was a great time. Chucky did need a haircut though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

He also had like locks of all the boys' hair like all over his wall. Did you see that? He was really creepy. He was a sick perv.

SPEAKER_05 32:52

I don't understand why. The movie didn't need a random creepy haircut guy. I don't know. I also think the whole haircutting thing in the military is weird in general, but nonetheless.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Yeah, there are reasons, and those reasons are just exerting control and dominance whenever possible. I will say though, that uh Sergeant Botnik was a predator and it's very creepy feelings. I was happy that he went. I think the moment that he goes, Chucky has a not his great, not his greatest material in terms of like Bazinga gotcha moments and one-liners, but definitely a strong performance there. My favorite death though is something that surprised me in terms of its intensity with which it was filmed, and it's actually Brett Shelton. And it's Shelton because holy shit, Chucky's putting live ammo and live rounds and guns that kids are using. The logic is bullshit. We all know that wouldn't actually happen, right? We know that this is not a possibility. A paint gun, you can't put just real bullets in there and all of a sudden we're good. But it was the way that the opposite team was just like kind of getting into the position, everything's in slow motion, and then all of a sudden you see this gigantic bullet just pierce straight through him. And that kid was a dick, 100%. But that was a really serious moment of like some heavy gravity. And then when you realize that they realize what's happening and they're freaking out and they're losing their shit, and it's just this like, let's pretend this isn't a movie about a killer doll, and you have a kid with a paintball gun, and all of a sudden he just shoots another kid, and you see that trauma unfold like right before him. It's like that kid's life is ruined in terms of like his mental health. That's terrifying.

SPEAKER_03 34:29

I totally agree, Chris. That was also my favorite kill for pretty much every reason you mentioned. You really summed that up beautifully, I'd say. And also, like, I really enjoyed it because he was such a dick, but I was expecting that to be the beginning of something much more widespread. I wanted to see at least five other students get shot. Uh, and actually, as it turns out, the war game scene where he replaced all of those paintball bullets with live ammo was actually written to be some sort of a bloodbath that we never got.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

I'm sure that would have affected the rating in some way if a bunch of kids were killed on screen.

SPEAKER_05 35:00

Yeah, I mean, it's already a doll killing kids and people, and he's been chasing this one dude for like a real long time. So I I don't I don't know why we couldn't have had the bloodbath, and I would have enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Yeah. But it's interesting though, because think about Scream coming out in 1996, and then we have the Columbia Massacre shortly thereafter, and that changed cinema as we know it. There are things that have been altered in films. Things were supposed to be written one way, and then we had to complete DVA cores because they don't want to encourage more teenager or child violence with guns, etc. So this movie and this scene, maybe you could have gotten away with it in 1991. Still probably not the greatest taste, but you for sure can't do it now. That's fucked up.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

There is a similar scene, and um it's all adults though, and it's a and it's in a TV show. But yeah, I think if it because there's specifically children and adolescents involved, like even in '91 though, I think it's risque. And I think if they would have had that bloodbath as planned, like they would have heard some because they already got like major feedback about this film. I think they really would have heard some people like wanting to boycott it or ban it or something.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Let's just remember that Silent Night, Deadly Night got boycotted for having a killer Santa Claus. Let's just remember that. That's true.

SPEAKER_05 36:13

But also, you know, any publicity is good publicity. Until it's not.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Until it's not. But the other element of that is even just looking at Shelton being a dick and then finally getting it. I think it also goes to show you that no matter how much of a jerk a kid is, they don't deserve to die, right? And I think that's just that added weight there. Sure, we get him going, but even thinking about like kind of the innocence lost in some of the Fierce Treat movies, that's something that you can kind of get away with when it's like a axe-wielding murderer, sure. But when it's kids doing that to other kids with a gun, it's a little bit too much for me.

SPEAKER_03 36:50

I think it was very dark sided as an idea, and I think it was a missed opportunity for this to be the most fucked up child's play movie in the entire franchise. Circling back to Max's favorite kill, technically, Sergeant Cochrane was the only victim not to be murdered by Chucky because he died of a heart attack and his just general weak disposition, I guess. I mean, it could be argued that Chucky murdered him because it was the shock of just seeing Chucky's existence that caused the man to die. But it that's actually in the running for my worst kill of 2022 right now.

SPEAKER_05 37:18

I mean, it's early. Give it some time. I don't I'm surprised that you don't see any merit in the fun of Chucky being pissed that he scared somebody so much that they died of a heart attack.

SPEAKER_03 37:29

I mean, I also was pissed. I was with Chucky. I was like, no, come on, give me something.

SPEAKER_05 37:34

I thought it was great.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

It was like at the end of Malignant when that security guard dies because there's like an electromagnetic field fucking up his pacemaker.

SPEAKER_05 37:41

Oh yeah, that's fucked.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

It was like unexpectedly flop.

SPEAKER_05 37:45

That's part of what sucked that in that movie for me, you know?

SPEAKER_03 37:48

Now, something that is interesting is that until Curse of Chucky in 2013, this movie actually had the most deaths in a single location because Sergeant Cochrane, the military barber, the Colonel Shelton, and Whitehurst were all killed on Andy's military school.

SPEAKER_05 38:04

Is that kind of cheating facts though? Because like basically the whole movie was there and it's like a very large place.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

Yeah, but Chucky's famously well traveled and kills all over.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Yeah, he's getting in cars, he's holding people at gunpoints, driving them around, he's making he's getting some mileage in.

SPEAKER_05 38:19

Yeah, but this like school grounds is like 18 different places, you know? It's like a freaking barber shop, it's a house, it's uh a I don't know, place where adults and kids are. It's like a weird thing.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

Whole forest.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

Sure, sure. What do you think Chucky's Fitbit would look like? Like a lot of steps, or do you think he's just kind of like uh hitchin' rides and so he doesn't really get any in?

SPEAKER_00 38:39

I think a lot of steps. He's got little legs, right? So he's got a lot of steps to cover the same distance. Because it's not like he's 5'1 or something, right? No, he's really little. But also he does get carried places.

SPEAKER_05 38:50

I was gonna say he gets carried places a lot. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

He does a lot of crawling as well. I want to be carried places. Ryan, going going back to the set, so my favorite thing to look at in this movie was like the set in the wardrobe. It gave me major flashbacks to when I was in JRTC and RTC. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it was very effective. But a lot of their uniforms were really on point, even down to like the super de duper shiny shoes. By the way, they were wearing shoes that are like pre-shined, most of them. And they totally weren't shining their own shoes that shiny. That was BS, calling it out. We weren't allowed to wear those. It was garbage. But no, I I I liked it. I think it makes it feel kind of expansive, like you mentioned, right? Like it's a big, it's a big place, it's a big academy. Like this is, you know, I don't know, the grounds, the campus, I don't know what you want to call it, but it's pretty big. It does feel like there's a lot of weird places that people can go into. Like, why do they have an armory? That part doesn't really make sense to me. I get that you have to because they have weapons. Typically, they wouldn't be, they would, they wouldn't be live, though. That seems very strange and not realistic. But I don't know. I like the fact that they had a variety of uniforms as well that they put people into. Like, that's a real thing for an academy. Um, their uniforms weren't just like copies of military uniforms either. Like a lot of academies have like gray and blue and random crap like that, and like it made sense. The camo berets, though, that was ridiculous. So some points off there. But I think if we have to be set in a in a you know child and teenage military academy, like they did a good job of making it look like one.

SPEAKER_05 40:21

See, I think I'm more on Paris's camp where like I don't one, I don't relate to any of it, but two, like, I don't really understand where we are. I don't understand why Tyler is here and his age difference from the rest of the kids. And it seems like it's because his dad is in the military in some way, does something, leads something. I'm sure there's plenty of logic to it, but it feels like a very weird setting to me to have like this much younger kid, this much older group of kids, they're all living there, and then weird things like the armory. Uh I yeah, I don't know. It feels weird for somebody who is not very military adjacent as in my in life.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

If you recall our episode from The Lodge, this is in fact the Lone Oak Institute for Children, wayward children to be exact. So, you know, you got them, they're wayward, send them to this fucking place.

SPEAKER_00 41:15

These are places that exist. I don't know how many there are, of course, but like the fact that there's like a 10-year-old and a 16-year-old makes sense because effectively these are like elementary through high school, all in one place. Now, you obviously like they live there, but they go to class. They have like science class and history class and all the other classes you would have. You have your different instructors for that, but you also have like drill and ceremonies and you'll have, you know, sports and crap too. But it doesn't throw me off that the different ages are there, it just throws me off that they're combined into into units because that part is not does not make sense. Like they would be in totally different groups.

SPEAKER_05 41:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:51

Yeah. Even just like seeing that there were some female students in the lineup, I was like, what is the what are the rules of this space? I really had no context for this. But one thing I did have context for is in the final scene, and this is my favorite visual, the mountain of skulls that our big climactic showdown takes place on very much reminded me of the time I was on LSD on the 4th of July, and I was walking through like a granite quarry, and then I looked down, and it too was a mountain of skulls. I think that scene was beautifully lit. I think it was really cool looking, and then seeing Chucky just like fall in slow-mo from three different angles was a very beautiful, satisfying visual.

SPEAKER_05 42:28

I am gonna have to go back to something that Chris mentioned earlier for my favorite visual element, which is the title sequence for this movie. I just thought it was interesting at the start of the movie to have a sequence like that, kind of like the the rebuilding of Chucky or the coming back to life of Chucky. And little things like that, like what they do for a title sequence matters to me. And it gets me either in or out at the very beginning, at step one. Things like that, I honestly the beginning of this movie is what gets me into it. Yeah, I just thought it was a great title sequence, and it was something that I appreciated and appreciated seeing the similarities that we saw like with Halloween in 2018.

SPEAKER_03 43:06

I thought the same thing, Ryan. I actually also really enjoyed that title sequence. And I was also reminded of that pumpkin aging in reverse.

SPEAKER_05 43:14

Yep, pretty cool. This was before that. So, you know, we can say Halloween got something from child's play, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 43:19

I don't know about that. So here's the thing though, Chris is very against this. I get it, because this is very obviously a thing that was filmed and then played in reverse to create the illusion of something, right? In Halloween, it's done very intentionally to resurrect the franchise. It's showing, hey, we have decayed, but now let's return to our former glory. In this one, it's just a trick to create the illusion of Chucky being built. Now, I will agree with you, Ryan, 100%. The opening title sequence is absolutely my favorite visual. And I think even some of the Chuck E that we get at the end of this film when half of his face sawed off is another element. Element that uh I really, really enjoyed visually. But that opening sequence, and I want to go back to this because this is actually, I know, really started off on a hind and didn't go much further from there. That was my favorite scene in the movie. There's something about the blood trickling into the vat. The materials start bubbling, the camera zooms in, the liquid spirals down, and that was such a great transition to a black and red spiral for the title graphic.

SPEAKER_05 44:22

Oh my god, James Bond vibes.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

That was my favorite part. Yeah. And I love that because first off, the liquid tainted with blood reminds me of some of the sides from like a fucked up Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory situation. It's fantastic, it's wonderful, it's it's a little bit campy, but also in a way, it looks like a really fucked up flesh-colored candy cane, which I'm not into, but I'm kind of into it at the same time. It's all weird. And even though this isn't the best film in the franchise, I think it actually has some of the best title sequence work because that spookiness of that fucking flesh being poured onto his face, and it you just starting to see the eyes emerge. That sight is what I think contributes to the idea of like Chucky being a scary doll. It's not the goofiness, it's not the antics, it's not the one-liners, not the fact that he's a homicidal doll. He looks his fucking creepiest when he's being built, and you just have to stare at him for a while.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

That's so true. Like that gross, like liquidy, melty, bleedy, plasticky flesh tone goop was miserable to behold.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

It reminded me of the pudding in Dead Alive. Oh, was it custod custard? It was custard. But speaking of red, my favorite scene was the lipstick scene. And I don't know why. I just found it humorous to watch Chucky have to sit there or choose to sit there and have lipstick applied to his face. Like, meanwhile, we know he hates it in the end, but he chose not to like come alive, you know, and and be like a Toy Story doll and show up and like scare them away or anything. He just like sat there and let them put lipstick on his face. And to me, that's that's funny. That's like not knowing that a shark is a shark and putting lipstick on it the entire time just being like, well, whatever, no big deal, and then the shark eventually wakes up and is like, I'm going to eat you now.

SPEAKER_05 46:12

Sorry, the visual of a shark with lipstick is hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Yeah, sharks don't have great lips. But I I mean it was great because Tyler's there and they're like having a good time with him, and it was kind of a light-hearted scene, of course, all the while a serial killer is sitting there getting makeup applied to his face.

SPEAKER_03 46:29

I was actually a little bit disappointed by that scene because I thought we were gonna get like a full Chucky makeover in a fun way. But then when he was like so mad about it and he was like, This is war, like that's the biggest offense you could ever commit to Chucky, is like putting him in a red lip. I mean, yeah, it doesn't suit his coloring whatsoever, and it was a criminal look, but I thought he could have really embraced it a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

He honestly needed that haircut too earlier. Like the two of them combined would have been kind of an improvement.

SPEAKER_05 46:54

I think he's pretty sh uh he's real cis white guy, you know. Like that's pretty much his vibe. So I I wasn't at all surprised by him being pissed about it. My favorite scene is just after our title sequence when we have Sullivan upstairs and all his toys start to come to life. One, I that was like the first moment where I was like, hmm, the 90s vibes here are doing it for me. It just his whole house. Like I was oddly excited by his remote control because it it just it's like that old, I don't know, it just had a lot of fun, old feelings. And then as his toys started to come to life, it just continued. And the friggin' golf Paris was earlier asking why everyone in a 90s movie was in their office playing putt-putt. And that's a very real thing. And and I don't know, it just did it for me. And all the little mechanical things doing stuff would have been such a creepy moment in your house by yourself. I I would have left, I would have run out of my house screaming if anything started making noise and lighting up on its own.

SPEAKER_03 47:56

It also had very much small soldiers energy, Ryan, which I'm pretty sure we've bonded over before in the past.

SPEAKER_05 48:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 48:02

But truly watching that man get taken down by like a couple darts and like some other random bullshit. After seeing what the girls survived in the most recent scream that we just watched in theaters, I was like, sir, you're a little bitch.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

The biggest bitch, actually. Okay, so the logistics of this, do we think that first dart hit a nerve or something? Or was he just a little bitch?

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Look, he's already got a bad back. So that's like a given, right? So imagine just being poked really hard in the spine if you already have a bad back, you're just probably gonna topple over. So I I think that's that's plausible. And believe it or not, he is actually five years younger than Michael Myers.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

This motherfucker.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

I mean, he did survive, you know, number two and made it into number three, so good on him for making it all the way here, but he just it was his time, and I think, you know, maybe it's like acupuncture, you know, Chucky's really good at aiming right for the right spot to disable somebody.

SPEAKER_03 48:55

Generally speaking, my favorite scene was definitely the ending. Although, correct me if I'm wrong, does every child's play movie not end with a carnival at for some reason? Or is that just this one? And I've seen it before.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

You've seen other horror movies end in a carnival a hundred percent, but not every child's play movie. For example, the last one ended in a factory, the previous one definitely didn't. But what does happen in every child's play movie is Chucky does s undergo severe damage and does lose specifically his right hand. Really?

SPEAKER_03 49:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

Hmm. Is there a reason for that? Consistency.

SPEAKER_03 49:29

That's a stab in hand.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

Just fuck him up a bit.

SPEAKER_03 49:31

Okay, I think I'm remembering now when we rewatched number two, and I was like, oh, this is the one that ends at the carnival. And every time I watch a child's play movie, I'm expecting it to go to the carnival, so I think I must have seen just the ending of this movie before in the past.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Potentially, but let me just say this the little bit of the roller coaster action, it is the Mountain of Skulls. Obviously, it doesn't end in the same place, but it does remind me of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. It does feel that way.

SPEAKER_05 49:57

Honestly, I think once they got to the carnival, there was so much this reminds me of other things. It made me feel like I was watching a different movie when we got to that point. Texas Chainsaw is like the the perfect explanation.

SPEAKER_03 50:10

I also love that in that carnival, like the little roller coaster spook a Torium ride, that we get like the Reaper slicing off that chunk of Chucky's face, like Chris mentioned.

SPEAKER_05 50:18

Yeah, that was a good gore moment, too. Little little doll guts.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

Anytime he takes damage and you get to see like his insides, it's always a good time. Because then he's that much scarier.

SPEAKER_05 50:28

Well, I gotta be honest, that was scary, but what was really scary for me in this movie is the characters that we had. I did enjoy them. I didn't get to know any of them. It was just like angry dude that's ahead of everyone else that's in the story. Andy, Andy's roommate, who is afraid of angry dude, and then Tyler. Andy and Tyler were the stars for me, and I cared about zero other people. All the adults in this movie suck.

SPEAKER_03 50:53

You didn't like Da Silva?

SPEAKER_05 50:54

No, didn't care.

SPEAKER_03 50:55

But she was fun. I mean, sure.

SPEAKER_05 50:58

I there was one scene that I enjoyed, which is where they're in the lot the lineup, yeah? I don't know if lineup is like the right. Formation. Yeah, sure. Well, there's that, and then the rest of it I was just like, okay, I don't I don't know. I feel like I didn't get to know anybody.

SPEAKER_03 51:11

Yeah, and I also think that some of our characters also didn't get to know each other, specifically Da Silva just falling in love with Andy for no particular reason whatsoever.

SPEAKER_05 51:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 51:20

I love that at one point they have like a and this I think is the most lesbian scene in the whole movie, but we have Andy sitting there and he's like, You're not afraid of anything, are you? And she's like, nope, and then just like thrusts her tongue into his mouth.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

Okay, so it's it's it's a limited gene pool thing. That's what it is. He's fresh meat, so uh he's obviously then the most interesting person at the school.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

What's not lesbian though is breaking into an office to unearth someone's personal information to get to know more about them. That's not lesbian.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

Also not kosher. You know what? I I had some questions there as well, related to Andy. So he has been through different foster families, but now he's at this school. Who sent him to the school?

SPEAKER_05 52:02

That's what I was saying. He just like got sent there because they everyone hated him.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

So who's his legal guardian? Is it still some foster parent who's like, I'm over it? You know? Maybe he like turned 18 and they just like sent him there?

SPEAKER_03 52:14

But he seems so young. He's a ward of the state, he's a burden of the state.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

That's interesting that they could come up with a tuition to send him there, you know?

SPEAKER_05 52:21

Right. Private military school. Don't worry, we got it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

Oh god, that costs money. I feel like that's a punishment. I feel like that's I feel like I feel like this is one step above jail, in my perception.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Yeah, so there there's different programs though. So like there are some schools where they like it's it's kind of like this, but it is to kind of straighten you out a little bit. Uh, and then there's like private military academies that cost a lot of money. No, I mean like that that whole backstory there just like didn't really add up in terms of how he would have gotten here. Like, did it make a lot of sense? So that was kind of bothering me, but I kind of like this Andy, gotta say. There were some parts that really bothered me. Also, where'd the pocket knife come from? How's that not contraband? That doesn't make sense to me. But like, he's okay. He's okay for an Andy. He's like the only non-andy Andy we get. Um, but it works.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

I liked Andy. I liked Andy a lot too. I loved I loved the performance of Andy depicting his trauma and how he has been affected since seeing Chucky again. I love that you can feel that for him. Because I'm sorry, young Andy, excellent child actor. We followed him for two movies. He's adorable, he's lovable, he's feeling it. You're just looking at this kid screaming when he's locked in a room, wondering, oh my god, what is this gonna do to him? And here we see what it's done to him. And it's not too over the top. He's still in control of things and he still wants to handle things, but I'm a really big fan of the casting choice for this Andy. And the other things I like, I mean, I wasn't a huge fan of DeSilva either. You know, Shelton was uh very annoying. I think the best part about that is the gravity that his death brought to the film and kind of escalating Chucky's moves. But I also do appreciate that Whitehurst was courageous when he hadn't been the entire movie, and that felt like a nice little arc for him.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

I think it came down to what he cared about, and that was his friends. Like the people, the people around him is really what he was willing to sacrifice himself for. Um, the weird pedo that liked to cut his hair, like he was like, I'm not gonna talk, I'm not gonna talk to anybody about that. But uh my friend's blowing up, not okay with it. Can we take a minute to kind of break down the barber though? Please. Because Sergeant Botnik, what what ex what what was the deal there? Because there was a lot going on. I mean, I know we've mentioned it earlier, but this dude obviously had to think for children, right? Like that's is that is that the thing? I think we can confirm that.

SPEAKER_05 54:39

Whatever it was, it was weird. And even if it's not like a even if he's not a predator, he's a creep.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:47

If there's a difference.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

So here's the thing that bothers me. He gives he gives Andy a haircut. Two days later is like, time for another haircut.

SPEAKER_05 54:55

Yeah, it's like he gets some weird excitement about giving kids haircuts, which to be fair, I think that in the military, the people that cut your hair probably do have some weird excitement about it. But it's I like we said, like more of a control thing, it seems.

SPEAKER_02 55:07

All I'm gonna say is I had a great barber in the Navy, one of the best I've worked with.

SPEAKER_05 55:10

See, but I'm thinking about like people who I've known who have gone to boot camp and they come back and they're like, bruh. Especially not white people, I feel like get treated worse because they don't care about cutting anyone's hair, maybe the way it needs to be cut or something. But like I've I've talked to a lot of people about like that first haircut where they're just like, Yeah, we're we're shaving it all off and you're gonna look terrible for a while. We don't care.

SPEAKER_02 55:33

Yeah, for women, they would just cut it into uh above the neck. And so if you have curly hair, you end up like almost every woman has like a triangle or like a pyramid of hair, and that's what it really ends up being. I got my first haircut in preparation to go to the Navy. I cut off all my hair here at home, and then unfortunately, with the way that they space out haircuts for women, I had to let that shit grow out to a very dumb amount, and I got called Wonder Years because apparently I look like one of the characters from that show.

SPEAKER_03 56:05

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 56:06

It's not amazing.

SPEAKER_03 56:08

Okay, but specifically in the haircut scene with Andy, did you all clock that wig that they put him in so that they could actually cut the hair? Oh my god, it was so bad.

SPEAKER_05 56:17

I was looking at it and I was like, you uh you could have you could have blow dried it or something. Like you it didn't have to be the straightest hair that's ever been.

SPEAKER_03 56:26

It looked like they took one of the extra Chucky wigs and then just like dyed it brown.

SPEAKER_05 56:30

It really did.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

Why did he have to cut his hair with scissors when he was just using the clippers before? Why didn't he buzz his head?

SPEAKER_05 56:37

Because this movie doesn't make sense. Specifically, this haircut and dude doesn't make sense. He probably felt a thing about it.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

He he did. He felt a certain way. He was like, no, this hair, this hair deserves scissors. Keep that uh keep that chunk of hair over here.

SPEAKER_05 56:51

Ugh. Oh, it's so creepy. It honestly like turns my stomach. How oddly it was like creepy with no purpose. And that I didn't like.

SPEAKER_00 56:59

And honestly, this brings me to the worst part of the movie, which is the setting for the movie. I mean, it's not like over the top, it's not major pain, although I did watch that plenty in high school. Um, there were just so many plot holes, like, you know, why on earth do they have live ammunition at a military academy for children? That doesn't make a lot of sense. Um, we already mentioned the fact that it doesn't make sense that Andy's there, like who's his guardian? How is he being paid for to be there? It doesn't make any sense to me. But yeah, why did the barber dude have a straight razor when he's working with children? That was a big one. And he just like left it there.

SPEAKER_02 57:32

He probably actually cuts the hair of all the other adults too.

SPEAKER_00 57:35

Well, that makes sense. Yeah. Boom, plot hole plugged.

SPEAKER_05 57:39

Mac, you're very right here. The setting is one of the worst parts of this movie. It is the thing that that m pushed me so hard towards a hack, even though I didn't quite get there. It just again really feels like some random kid military movie that just happens to have Chucky in it. And it's weird. It's not my worst part though. My worst part is the fact that a grenade went off, and literally all we got was a little what felt like the firecrackers that are like they're like poppets, and you throw them at the ground and they just make a noise. We almost got that with a grenade and a kid landing on it. And I just want the carnage. And I'm I'm quite disappointed. I feel like Chucky's not gentle, you know, we're not here. This I don't feel like the child's play movies really cater to sensitive horror people, if that's a thing. I I don't know. I think there's some horror that's like we're going hard here, and there's some where it's like it's not so bad. Like to me, although we get some crazy stuff, but like sometimes Halloween wasn't so bad at, you know, back in the day. Chucky's not that, like, Chucky goes hard. This man's uh all he wants to do is run around yelling like MF or and whatever. And so the fact that a grenade went off and we got almost nothing from it is my worst part of this whole movie.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

To be fair, somebody jumped on the grenade and like took the blast so that nobody else would get hit with it. Let's see their guts blast out the back, right?

SPEAKER_05 59:05

Like Do they though? That body was still intact. I don't know what they do, but but what's the point of the grenade scene in this movie if it's gonna be so minimal? I don't know. I just really when he was like holding a grenade, I was like, bruh, this is about to get a little popping up in here, literally. And it wasn't. That was just such a disappointment for me.

SPEAKER_00 59:24

That would have been a good time for Chucky to lose his right hand, though.

SPEAKER_05 59:28

It's true. Like accidentally just hold on to it.

SPEAKER_03 59:30

Yeah. I totally agree, Ryan. That was very underwhelming for how much drama was built up into that grenade. But having hacked this movie, I am tasked with saying the best part about it. And I actually have a best part. It's the war games element that comes into play in like the second half of the movie. And I think just because like I'm a big, I'm a big fan of just like large-scale coordinated games, whether it be like laser tag or like paintball or capture the flag. I love capture the flag in my high school and college years. And it reminded me specifically of one summer, me and maybe like 15 other college students in Pittsburgh, we like went to the public park and we had a full Hunger Games, which was kind of Capture the Flag like, but mostly very Hunger Games, and it lasted for like six hours and it was so fun. And I would just like remember those times fondly. So this reminded me of that. And I was like, okay, I'm not mad about this element being brought into play.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:22

How many people did you kill?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:23

I killed, I think, two, but mostly I played a Hyde strategy, so I was just like dodging and running and being long and slender.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:29

So you're a PETA.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:30

Yeah. Very defensive, very stealthy strategy.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

You would have loved one of the coolest things we did when I was in A school for my job in the Navy as a journalist. We had a field exercise where we went out to some tents and we pretended we're underway in some other country, and we had to pretend we're like obviously attached to combat camera. So we had to be war photographers during paintball fights, and it was the coolest fucking thing. So much fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

That's fun. I love that kind of thing. We used to play a game in high school, actually in JROTC, where you would go into the woods and it's kind of like hide and seek. Like you would have to find cover and concealment and like tuck away somewhere, uh, and then the other team would have to like come find all of you. I love that.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:13

Okay, so just so that we're all aware of like the type of person that I am, I am a kind of person who, when playing hide and go seek, hides really well and then gets scared and feels like no one's ever gonna come find me and comes out before before anyone's ever found me. So that's me. That's also your Dead by Daylight strategy. That is actually that as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:35

Um except the part where you come out.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:38

When I'm playing good, I'm a good distraction. Okay. So maybe that is the same same strategy. You hide and then you stop hiding, and then people find you. That's exactly the same strategy. You know, I'm always very afraid. Like, what if I'm just such a good hider that no one ever finds me and I get freaked out being by myself? I don't like it. If I hide with somebody, I'm good.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:59

Okay. Well, that's that's fair. I appreciate the generosity Paris on that best part. Quality move all around. My worst part is gonna be something that I'm gonna go in the direction of like a nuisance. This really bothered a a part of me that I'd like to keep buried. Two elements. One, those cadets weren't in a fucking height line in their formation. Drives me nuts. You don't have random fucking height heights next to each other. That's not fucking cohesive. Second, uh, DeSova didn't have her hair in a ponytail, and it was long enough to touch the collar. Now, current regulations in the actual fucking military, that shit's changed. You can have ponytails now, but in 1990 fucking one, what the fuck are y'all doing? God, y'all are dramatic.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:38

What is any of this?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

Wait a second. Wait a sec. I was literally watching the movie thinking the same thing. As soon as we get to like passing by and she's in view, I was like, well, that's wrong. Why is her hair down touching her back? This sounds like drama.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:52

Just a reminder for everybody Mac did not go into the military.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

No, this I'm talking about high school, okay? No, so in high school, they didn't have to cut their hair short. So what many of them would do is they would have like, I don't know, 75 different pins where their hair was all pinned up underneath their underneath their cover. So it worked.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:07

See the first page of our jam board when you see how tightly my hair is pressed down into a neat bun. However, a height line is when you have the shortest people in the front and the tallest people in the back so that people can fucking see. It just makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:21

Do you have to like work that out on your own or do you like know who goes where?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

You know who goes where.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:26

Well, that sounds easy.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:27

I was always in the front.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:28

But if you have to like scramble and figure out who goes where. I guess if I'm tall, I would just always go to the back.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:33

You do have to figure it out the first time. The first time you ever form up, you do have to figure it out. Every time after, you just know where you fucking go.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:39

And you just like recognize the people that should be with you.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:41

Military just feels like like things you had to do in PE as like busy work. Like, hey guys, let's get in a line based on height. And you had to like look at the oh wait, hold on. Hey guys, get in a line by height, but you're not allowed to speak to each other. You know, like those drills in school where it's like you can't talk, you have to just figure it out how to communicate together and and get in the line in the right in the right order.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:07

Sometimes you also had to get in a line by height, but also alphabetically. Yeah, ex this is exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:13

It feels like psychological torture meets brainwashing meets bullying.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:18

It is just bullying. It's the exact recipe for I'm going to break you down to break you of your independent thinking so you can comply. And that's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

Yeah. It did bother me though that douche magoo made her do push-ups in their dress uniforms. Yeah, and then I was like, oh god, she's gonna be messy. It's raining. I know, I had the same thought. So I mean, the setting is hilarious though, it but it's memorable. To the same-I mean, I haven't watched this movie in almost 20 years, but I still remembered it pretty vividly, and it's held some rewatch value because this time I rewatched it and I was entertained, but I don't know that I would do it again.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:55

Yeah, you didn't have a choice this time. Yeah. I'm definitely not watching this again.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:00

Same, Ryan. This is one that I will happily skip every time.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:03

I will also take a hard pass on revisiting this film unless I were to want to walk down memory lane. For example, I think if you want to watch the Chucky TV series and you want to get a full Chuck E experience, absolutely watch the whole franchise. I think the show does such a great job of adding in value and elements that you get from these other movies. But there's another place that you can get value in preparation for something like that, and that is in Max Fact or Fiction.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

Alright, let's jump in. Number one, after Alex Vincent, the original Andy, after his parents asked for a break from acting in child's play films to let him focus more on school for a while, the decision was made to cast an older actor and thus jump the movies forward by several years.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:46

I'll go fact?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:47

Oh god, I don't know. I can't decide.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:49

Based on that thing Chris said earlier, I want to say fiction.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:52

Let's say fiction. It is a fiction. He isn't in this one because there's the time jump. But he does return later in other movies, comes back as Oh my god, really? Really, really. And in the TV show. Number two. Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson asked to direct this film and was considered for the spot.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:10

Lord of the Rings. Hmm. I'll go fiction, even though it feels like a fact.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:14

I am gonna say fiction, even though at one point when they're in the woods, they step on what is supposed to be snow, but is clearly just like a mat of something painted to look like snow, and that reminded me of like a Lord of the Rings type set.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:26

So this one is a fact. What else has Peter Jackson directed that we are aware of? Spider-Man. Dead Alive. Dead Alive. So obviously he didn't direct this movie, but Dead Alive did come out the following year, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:39

I think if Peter Jackson directed this movie, we would have gotten the bloodbath in the gun scene.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:44

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:45

There would have been blood everywhere for no reason. There would have been blood in their food, apparently. And this would have gotten a slash from me. Number three, re-recording of several lines led to Chucky's lips not quite syncing perfectly with his dialogue.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:58

I'm gonna go fiction, but I'm batting real bad tonight, so don't trust me, Paris.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:05

Okay, I'm actually gonna go fact because I know of at least two instances where human characters had to re-record their lines, and it was very obvious, so I bet it happened with Chucky too.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

It may have, but I just made this up. So this one's this one's a fiction. But in fact, computers were used to help his puppet's lips sync better with his dialogue, and this was the first time this was done for Chucky.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:26

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:26

So not CGI, but computerized puppetry in a way.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:29

Also, can we say this is like the worst Chucky's dental situation has ever been?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:33

Absolutely. But I don't know, it's the worst it's been since the first one. I don't know what future movies, though.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:38

It's probably gonna get worse. Number four, this film's production was rushed. It released nine months after Child's Play 2, and it barely scraped by with $7 million in box office profit, leading to the next installment not being made for another seven years.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:52

Fact.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:53

Fact, I bet this flapped. Oh yeah, this is a fact. It had a $13 million budget, and it made a little over $20 million of the box office. Oopsies. And number five, the film was so rushed Don Mancini had to begin writing the script two weeks after the release of Child Spite 2. He stated it was only possible because he had some thrown-out ideas left over from the previous film.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:14

Hmm, it's complicated. I think it's uh fiction when he started writing it, but I think the probably the ideas were already there. Because this doesn't really have much to do with the second. Like it it's just uh an origin of Chucky that you need for this.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:27

It does kind of feel like an amalgamation of other Chucky-ish ideas, specifically that garbage truck kill felt just like a random Chucky kill they wanted to throw in there. So I'm gonna say fact.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:37

This one is a fiction. He was asked to start writing it before the second released, so good job, Brian. He stated it's his least favorite film because he was out of ideas after writing the second one. It was also Brad Doriff's least favorite film. It's also my least favorite Chucky film.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:52

Wait, Mac, does that mean you're going to be slashing every Chucky movie from here on out? We're gonna see.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

We're gonna find out together how it goes one day. If you slash this one and it's your least fave, you simply must. Well, we'll find out. We have to wait and see. But that has been fact or fiction.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:07

Well, there you have it, folks. Child's Play 3 from 1991 has earned three slashes and one hack. Now we've had a lot to talk about here, but it doesn't end here by any means. I know we still have a lot of burning thoughts that are written down in our notes that we didn't get to share, so we want to know what you think. Keep in mind there are a number of ways you can reach out to us, starting with our website, hackerslash.live, or on our social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:30

And if you're not afraid of dolls because they're just inanimate objects, you can also reach out to our hackerslash hotline and tell us about it. You can leave us a voicemail at 757-606-0128 or visit hackerslash.live to send us an audio message.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:44

Or if your soul is currently embedded in a child's doll, you can send us an email to feedback at hackerslash.com.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:49

If you've enjoyed listening to this episode, consider becoming one of our patrons like George and Jake. You can visit patreon.com slash hacker slash to earn cool perks for as low as $1 a month.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:58

See you next time, folks, and remember, tampering with the mail is a federal offense.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:03

Bye.