It’s pretty common for horror movie sequels to dip in quality, and Child’s Play 3 is yet another example of that. While the second movie may not have been as good as the first movie, it did have some good ideas and ultimately saved itself from being a bad movie by putting some fun, fresh ideas into it. Child’s Play 3 does nothing of the sort. The movie came out a mere nine months after Child’s Play 2, and so it was rushed out to capitalize on the success of the series. Screenwriter Don Mancini has even made it known that this is his least favorite movie in the series, since he had run out of ideas for it at this point. Because of this, Child’s Play 3 feels very uninspired, and so it’s a bit of a mess.

Despite coming out nine months later, Child’s Play 3 actually takes place eight years after the events of the second movie. We still follow the stories of Chucky and Andy Barclay, who is now a teenager heading off to a military school. It’s established in the opening scene that enough time has passed from the Chucky incidents that the toy company’s executives think it’s time to bring back the Good Guy dolls. Honestly, I will say that this seems like a more realistic scenario than how Chucky was revived in the second movie. Anyway, the remains of the old dolls are taken and crafted into new ones, one of these being the Chucky doll. So, Chucky comes back to life, and hunts after Andy once more. However, after meeting a young child at the military school, Chucky realizes he doesn’t need Andy’s body anymore, and so it’s up to Andy to stop Chucky from taking over the body of the young boy.

Honestly, on a conceptual level I don’t have a problem with the movie. With Child’s Play 2, my main problem was just that we were having almost the same plot as the original, but I don’t feel that way about Child’s Play 3. I think it was a good call recasting Andy as a teenager. While I don’t really like the new actor as much, making Andy not be a kid yet again opened up some new possibilities. Namely, I think it was a really cool choice to set the movie at a military school, as it gives some great moments of Chucky vs. the military. It all sounds pretty good to me on paper, and honestly for only having nine months to put the movie together, I think the movie does deserve some credit for not simply rehashing the same story again.

However, if I’m being honest, Child’s Play 2 might not have had the most original idea for a sequel, but at least it was entertaining most of the time. Child’s Play 3…really isn’t. The movie is honestly just so boring and forgettable. The main reason to watch it is of course for Chucky, who still gets a lot of great lines delivered by the awesome Brad Dourif. There are occasionally some pretty cool kills too, but ultimately most of the movie surrounding these scenes are just a real drag. The movie tries building up characters that I really didn’t wind up caring about at all, and even Andy himself just doesn’t have an interesting personality here. This really is my only real criticism, but I think it’s one of the worst movie sins to have your slasher film be boring to watch.

All in all, there are definitely some redeeming qualities about Child’s Play 3, but ultimately it’s just not a good movie. It has an interesting concept and some good Chucky moments, but most of the movie just isn’t that interesting. I’ve definitely seen much worse horror sequels than this, but that doesn’t make this any less disappointing. This is the kind of movie in a franchise that I’d only recommend to the most devoted, or people that want to watch through the whole franchise. Otherwise, there’s really no other reason to watch it on its own.

2/5