Hey there folks. So... It's been a while. A few years in fact. Let me explain what happened. I had been doing this blog for over a year. At first I had lots of ideas and I enjoyed writing about them. I did the Top Movies That Made Me Who I Am. That was fun! I did retrospectives of the Friday the 13th series, Nightmare on Elm Street, heck, even Critters!!! Sadly though, I got burned out. When I first started I was doing at least a write-up a week. Doesn't sound like much, right? Look at those Youtube celebrities that do a video each week with special effects or lots of editing. That's harder, right?
As someone that decided they weren't cut out for editing or directing by going to film school and trying it, I will admit, yes, it's much harder. But that's obvious. I'm a huge procrastinator, especially when unmotivated, and after a while I saw the visitors to my blog dwindle. I felt like if no one was gonna read what I wrote, why do all the work. And there was a lot of work involved. See, I didn't just rewatch these movies. I watched, took notes, rewatched the movie with a commentary if available, looked peer reviewed research and watched all the making-ofs and retrospectives I could find. It took a lot of time to do just one film. So I slowed down and in the middle of reviewing the Child's Play films, I stopped. I was getting one or two views on my blog, and I knew who those two people were. It was... depressing.
Now, the question asked is, why did you not go back to it after the burn-out? Well, I almost did numerous times. I even announced it on Facebook a few times. I'd always watch the movie I was gonna talk about and then I wouldn't feel any inspiration. I think I just hit a wall. I felt I had nothing to talk about. Things are changing now, though.
Fast forward 2 years. I now work at my first full time job. I've worked it for one and half years. I own my own house now. I've started to enjoy movies again (not many new ones, though). I may not have the free time I used to, as I usually work 10 hour days, sometimes longer, and by time I get home I have time to eat, get a bath, maybe watch an episode of some show or something, then go to bed. And that's if I work 10 hours or less. But I do feel this urge to share again. So I have decided I will.
This blog is officially off hiatus, but it won't be completely the same as it was. Movies will probably still dominate my posts. They are my biggest love. However, expect to see some stuff on music I like or theme parks or books even. I don't want to get burned out talking about movies again. I mean, sure, it could be that the horror series that I left off on didn't have as much material for me to write about. The Chucky films for the most part do not have making-ofs or commentaries for me to draw anecdotes from. But neither did Critters, but I had fun doing those. Basically whatever strikes my fancy will be talked about here, besides politics, which I follow heavily as well.
I will warn you. There may be longish gaps between posts. As stated above, I work a lot. I'm tired a lot when I'm not working. And I do have other hobbies as well. Just... don't expect 3 blogs a week unless I'm having a manic episode or something. I do have some fun retrospectives lined up. The Disney Animated Classics, Godzilla films, Universal Horror, Hammer Horror, a redo of my top 50 favorite albums... Reviews of theme parks I've been to. Maybe if I ever finish one, I'll do one on a video game! But to start with, seeing as it's October now and there's another sequel on the way...
Yes, I'll be doing retrospectives on the Halloween films! (Damn it, that means I have to watch Halloween Resurrection again.) However, I believe I talked about the original film either once or twice way back on this same blog. You can just read that. I wrote it when I was still fresh, and I think I can't top it. So we'll be starting with 1981's Halloween II. Look for it, hopefully, tomorrow. I've done the research, I just have to re-watch the film tonight.
Feel free to read the old blog posts too! There's quite a bit there, and I'm surprised at the amount of Youtube embeds that still work. Some of the posters and pictures need to be re-uploaded though. Maybe I'll get to those some day. Not today though. It's dinner time. See ya soon!
(Anyone notice that the poster is a rip-off of Scream 2's poster?)
After the great horror wasteland that was the mid 1990s, Scream proved that horror films could be successful again. However, as Scream was basically a meta-slasher film with more comedy than terror, studios were still playing it somewhat safe. According to Don Mancini, the writer of all of the Chucky films, he began writing Bride of Chucky soon after seeing Scream and Universal giving him a call. Universal had noticed the success of Scream and was looking through which horror series they owned. I guess they decided Child's Play would work best for taking the piss out of. And Don Mancini agreed. It had been seven years since the last Chucky film. The series was considered dead. Don Mancini thought they'd done all they could with the series and Universal wasn't too proud of the box office on Child's Play 3.
So here's the story. It takes place just one month after the last film. (Now remember that Child's Play 3 jumped in time from the previous film and was set in 1998, a full 8 years later than than Child's Play 2. So the real world time has caught up with time in the movie continuity.) At the end of the last film, Chucky was shredded into many pieces by a gigantic fan. The beginning of this movie his shredded self is officially evidence in a police warehouse. One of the cops steals the remains for Charles Lee Ray's (Chucky's) girlfriend Tiffany (played by Jennifer Tilly). She kills the cop and takes the doll pieces back to her trailer home. There she sews Chucky back together and does the voodoo spell on him. At first it doesn't seem to work, but after David Arquette's weird brother (named Damian in the film) comes around and wants to do sexy things with Tiffany, Chucky smothers Damian with a pillow. (After yanking out his lip ring, which I find the most cringeworthy thing in the series.) Now, Tiffany brought Chucky back to life because she thought he was about to marry her before he died. He wasn't. He tells her so and she traps him. He gets loose and gets back at her by pushing a TV in the bath with her in it. Then Chucky puts Tiffany's soul in a doll as more punishment. And just now we learn that Charles Lee Ray was buried with an amulet that will let his soul return to his own body. (What a coincidence. After so many years, he remembers that.) So Chucky and Tiffany plan to use her next door neighbor Jesse (Nick Stabile) to take the dolls to the place the graveyard is. However, Jesse has his girlfriend in tow. (Katherine Heigl) His girlfriend has a overbearing police officer uncle that she lives with. Overbearing uncle gets in the way of Chucky's plans by planting marijuana in Jesse's van, so of course Chucky kills him. Things spiral more and more out of control as Jesse drives towards Charles Lee Ray's grave.
I decided to stop telling the plot as it'd take forever, and it's not really that important. The amulet was never spoken of in the series until this movie. It's basically a dark romantic comedy. Jesse and his girlfriend Jade are both suspected of doing the murders of everyone that gets in their way although it's always Chucky doing them. Chucky blows up a police car with a weasely cop in it, he gets an airbag to explode nails all into John Ritter's face, a couple having sex in a bed with a mirror above it get impaled with glass after the mirror breaks... (Okay, that last one was done by Tiffany to show Chucky she had it in her... and then Chucky and Tiffany have off-screen doll sex.) Chucky and Tiffany are basically a mirror-version of Jesse and Jade. This is something Tiffany notices early on, and she roots for Jesse and Jade to elope and live happily ever after. Chucky thinks young love is stupid and funny. My favorite scene is after Chucky and Tiffany have revealed themselves to Jesse and Jade and they're on their way to the graveyard in the trailer and a fight ensues between Chucky and Tiffany with Tiffany finally losing it with Chucky.
They kill the gay best friend of Jade and Jesse too. He eventually thinks his best friends are killers after he finds a body in the van. He threatens to turn in Jade and Jesse and backs out of the van, which is on the side of the interstate. He gets surprised by Chucky and ends up getting hit by a big rig. If you were gay in the 90s, you probably didn't live through a slasher film. Even if it was written by a gay guy like Don Mancini. Oh well. Guy was annoying anyway. He clearly thought his friends capable of murder.
The movie takes its title idea from Bride of Frankenstein, the first sequel to Universal's 1931 film. It also takes its style from that film. Bride of Frankenstein was basically the first dark comedy ever filmed. It was a sheer left turn from Frankenstein. There's a dandy scientist who makes miniature people and wants to continue Dr. Frankenstein's work and the monster wants a bride so he won't be alone. Oh, and he can talk in that one. Bride of Frankenstein is a much watch no matter if you want to see Bride of Chucky or not. But once you watch that film, you'll get what they were going for here. It's a tragic romance with a lot of comedy involved. (That's speaking of both films.)
I need to mention that the soundtrack is pretty great too. Not the score, which is pretty pedestrian, but the soundtrack. Basically a lot of metal is in the soundtrack. Artists like Judas Priest, Bruce Dickinson, Type O Negative, Motorhead, Slayer, and White Zombie are included in the soundtrack. For 1998 that's pretty amazing as metal was pretty much dead at the time in America.
Basically I don't have a lot to say on this film. It was a success at the box office making about twice it's 25 million dollar budget when it came out October 16, 1998. The critics thought it was better than the third film, which was easy to say anyway as the third film is pretty lackluster. Audiences were divided too. Many loved the new comedy take on Chucky, whereas horror fans were disappointed and hated the film. (They'd hate the next one even more.) It's the same situation that director Ronny Yu's other horror franchise film, Freddy Vs. Jason got. (That one was mostly comedy too, but a bit more subtle.) If there's one thing Ronny Yu got right here it was not taking the material seriously. After three films of doing that, there was no going back... not yet anyway. I mean, the opening scene in the police evidence warehouse you see Michael Myer's mask, Jason's mask, some of the Puppet Master dolls, Leatherface's chainsaw... Not subtle as to it's wink-wink nudge-nudgeness. I guess I could see this as succumbing to the slasher franchise curse. By the time Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th got to their later films, they started to make fun of themselves. At least here they went with it fully and intentionally. It's hardly horror and the comedy sometimes falls flat, but it was new and interesting for 1998. Graphic horror would again fall on hard times from 1999 to about 2003 due to Columbine and fears of violence in media, so there wouldn't be another Chucky film for six years. And when it did happen... Oh boy.
Next up, Seed of Chucky. Along with Child's Play 3, considered the worst of the films. Stay tuned.
It's finally here. The film that's been inundating your TV with TV spots and your movie theater with trailers for months. A movie that many feel is in the wrong hands, a pure cash grab to reap what Marvel/Disney sowed. However, I've not bought into that line of thought. In fact, Warner Bros. seems to be doing things quite differently than Disney/Marvel. Marvel Studios films are all some-what lighthearted (even Captain America: Winter Soldier had quite a bit of levity.) and colorful. I will admit, I don't read Marvel comics. I gave them a try in the mid-1990s and always disliked them apart from the various X-Men iterations. I've always been more a DC guy. Marvel's heroes aren't presented like gods for the most part. They're more human. DC has more aliens and uberminch (literally in Superman's case). They're more iconic. Especially since the early 1990s and late 80s, DC comics have for the most part been pretty dark. Superman since Crisis on Infinite Earths, the great reshaping of the DC universe in the mid 80s, has been a more dark character than he once was. Batman is darker. Green Lantern with the Parallax storyline in the mid-1990s where they made Hal Jordan a mass murderer and supervillain. The New 52 has continued that dark trend, albeit with a lot of horrible storylines. If you want lighter fare in the DC universe, even The Flash and Teen Titans can't give it to you much. Everything is broody. I just thought I had to explain this to people that say this movie is unlike the comics. It's not. It's very much like the present day DC comics. So with that out of the way, to the actual film.
So the movie starts with the whole Bruce Wayne parent death/funeral/finding the Batcave thing we feel like we've seen a hundred times... Because we basically have. Thankfully it's done over the credits and takes about 4 minutes. Fast forward to the attack on Metropolisfrom Man of Steel, this time through the eyes of Bruce Wayne, now in his 40s, as he tries to help people at his work and around Metropolis while Superman and Zod battle it out knocking down buildings, including the Wayne Enterprises tower, complete with his people inside. And with that we have why Batman hates Superman. Fast forward again 18 months and Superman saves Lois from a interview gone bad in military junta controlled Africa, resulting in some deaths. Now the US Senate is holding hearings on the Superman problem. Also, Lex Luthor, a young tech businessman who clearly is insane to anyone that meets him is weaponizing Kryptonite, his endgame, as we find out, to bring Superman down. (It's a spoiler, but not really, as Lex Luthor ALWAYS tries to bring Superman down. It's why he's there.) Oh, he's also got info on four other "meta-humans", namely Wonder Woman, The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman. He wants to rid the world of these meta-humans.
I thought the movie was good. It wasn't amazing or perfect, but it was surprisingly good. The characterizations were great for the most part. Ben Affleck is a great Bruce Wayne, probably the best we've gotten. He's less of a great Batman, but if you think that's a negative on his part remember that Michael Keaton did almost 0% of his Batsuit work in his two films. And we all love Keaton's Batman. The heavy armor Batsuit in the last 1/3 of the film looks stupid to me, but then again it did to me in Dark Knight Returns, which is where 1/2 this film's ideas spring from. Just a personal dislike. The regular Batsuit is more bulky for a more bulky Bruce. You don't really see it that well. In fact, there's more Bruce Wayne in this movie than there is Batman, which I really liked. It's one area where the more recent comics in the Batman line have strayed in my opinion. They've tried to make Batman the real person, and Wayne just a shell, a alter-ego. It started a while ago, but it's not something I've liked. In my opinion, that's more a Superman/Clark Kent thing. Speaking of Superman, I found him more interesting here than I did in Man of Steel. Henry Cavill is just not a great actor in my point of view, but he's got more to work with here than he did in Man of Steel which was hampered by Goyer's script. (This movie's script was written by Goyer and completely redone by Chris Terrio, writer of Argo.) Superman is fighting between his idealism and reality all throughout the film. It's heavy-handed. I'd have enjoyed more of America's backlash to Superman than we got. We saw it more through TV reports and Batman's rage than through the American people. I think America would hate and fear Superman. Heck, the whole world would. It's a loss of control over your own destiny that is ripe for a Superman film. I guess Zach Snyder decided he did that with Watchmen, but even that was through the superheroes' lives, not the regular people. I guess that's another movie for another day. I understand that. Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman is great! People clapped in my theater at her entrance as Wonder Woman. (Granted, you meet her much earlier in the film, just not in alter-ego and out of costume.) I am really looking forward to her stand-alone film. There's not much more to say as she's a secondary character in this movie. She has maybe 7 lines in the whole film. The other major character is Lex Luthor. Jessie Eisenberg plays him as... insane. He's not like Luthor in the comics or as we've seen him in other films. He's a jittery loony with lots of power. Anyone who spends a minute with the guy would know he's crazy. Not ecentric. Crazy! He's definitely the comic relief here, which is needed. Without him, the movie would be so drab and oppressive it'd be a chore to watch. Just don't go in expecting Luthor as we know him from previous media.
I've ready many negative reviews of this film. As I write this, it's at 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, I suggest you actually read the reviews. Most of the rotten reviews are not saying it's horrible beyond belief. They're saying it's an assault on the senses and too dark. I possibly agree on the first point. Not the second. Yes, there's a lot of fast cutting during action sequences. You get that in positive rated films too, though. Lots of explosions. What do you expect from a superhero film set in two cities? It's supposed to be this epic throwdown and all of a sudden you want a thinking man's film instead? Well, it tries to do that too. It's in that that it's a bit of a letdown. Subtle and Zach Snyder are opposing ends of a spectrum. The religious iconography in the film is so over the top. But is that a negative? Eh, to some, probably. There's a Bosch-like painting of demons in Lex Luthor's house that's talked about and shown twice in the film of demons coming up (or down) to earth. There's shots that linger for 5 or more seconds of heroic stances with light shining from behind or above as there would be in an epic comic panel. Lex Luthor seems in this film to be a militant diest bent on deicide. (He considers Superman to be an untrustworthy god.)
I must also mention that Metropolis and Gotham are now seemingly like Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota being just across the river from each other. That kinda pissed me off too. I know, it probably did no one else, but Metropolis isn't Bludhaven. I always considered Gotham to be like 50-100 miles from Metropolis. More like New York/Metropolis and Philadelphia/Gotham. Not like New York and Hoboken. I also thought Doomsday as the big baddie at the end was a misuse of the character. Basically they took the Doomsday comic storyline and shoved it into 30 minutes at the end and added Batman and Wonder Woman. I mean, it was cool to watch, but he went down pretty darn easily once they figured out how to do it. If you want something along the same lines, but more like the comic (though still quite different) the animated Superman: Doomsday is good. Honestly, the whole end battle here is pretty anti-climactic once you think about it. Yet, the movie is itself just a setup for Justice League, which comes out next year. Think of it as a prequel done before the main event.
A few other disjointed thoughts. I really liked Wonder Woman's theme. Sort of a heavily distorted electric guitar phrase. It's pretty badass. Then you have Lex Luthor's theme, which is a motif built on Mozart slowed down. Otherwise, it's the normal Hans Zimmer score. Lots of discordant chants and heavy bass to showcase what they want you to think is cool and epic. Zach Snyder's direction actually works quite well for this film. I mean, it is partially a Batman film, so the overcast skies, rain, and dark filters work. However, he does bring out the sunshine in some scenes. The action can be hard to follow at times. I timed one action scene in my head as I watched that had a cut rate of just over a second. That means that you had a different shot on an average of every second. This is a typical problem in modern action movies, however. Marvel does it too. Democractic senator Patrick Leahy, a huge Batman and comic book fan, is in this film as a United States senator. He has been in every Batman film since 1995's Batman Forever. However, in this film, he's in a Superman scene, oddly enough. (I guess because he's a comic book fan too. He wrote the intro to Green Arrow: The Archer's Quest, after all.)
Overall an enjoyable film, but with its fair share of problems. Not everyone will like Eisenberg's Luthor. This reviewer did. Some just really dislike Zach Snyder. He's hit or miss with me. For what it's worth, I disliked Man of Steel but liked this one. If you took Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns and mixed it with Superman: Doomsday and added Wonder Woman, you have this movie.
It's generally a bad idea to produce a sequel to a film so fast that it comes out less than a year after the preceding film. But that's just what David Kirschner, the producer of the Chucky series decided to do. Now, it was going to be harder to do this one as Don Mancini, creator and writer of the films had used up most of his ideas in the first and second films. And he had to write this new installment very quickly. In case you've forgotten the end of the second film (and how could you, really... it's the best ending in the whole series), Chucky's plastic is melted down in a big vat. A vat big enough to make many many Chucky dolls. Don Mancini's original plan was to have many Chuckys out there, as Charles Lee Ray's soul would have gone into the plastic of quite a few dolls. However, that just wasn't financially possible. So sad, as that would have made a much better film. Child's Play 3 is considered by most to be either the second worst or worst of the entire series. And if you just count the original three films, most likely it'll be considered the worst.
The plot to this one is set eight years after the last movie. The Play Pals toy company is finally ready to reintroduce the Good Guys dolls. Things have been quiet for eight years, after all. The first made doll is given to the president of the company, who is killed that night by the doll, who is, unsurprisingly, Chucky. This scene of the film is actually pretty good. The president is in a luxurious penthouse with lots of toys and gadgets laying around. And Chucky uses those to freak him out and eventually kill him. With the president's computer, he finds out where good ole Andy is these days. Andy has been in foster care for so long going from house to house that he ends up in military academy. He's now 16 and is played by Justin Whalin, the guy who played Jimmy Olsen in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Anyway, Chucky has himself mailed to Andy in a package. However, it's intercepted by the youngest cadet at the academy, Ronald Tyler. He's the biggest mistake of the movie. He's played by an actor that's about 11 years old, acts about 7 (he wanted the doll, after all), and is annoying as all hell believing Chucky is his friend and not believing Chucky's involved in the murders around him even after it talks to him. (In a deleted scene only in the TV version, you learn he's 8 1/2.) Andy would be getting along fine in military academy if it wasn't for Lieutenant Colonel Shelton. A guy in his upper teens who bullies his cadets, especially Andy. The climax of the film deals with the academy's annual war games. Unbeknownst to the cadets, Chucky has replaced the paintball rounds with live ammo. (I'm not sure how that works in real life. lol) Then there's a carnival, a big showdown, etc. Don't ask me why a carnival was put beside a military academy or why the movie went there. Even the writer, Don Mancini said it was a stupid idea.
I'm not a big fan of this film. It's got its moments of course. There's death by trash compactor and Chucky's funny in some parts. My favorite moment is when Chucky's about to kill the old Colonel, jumping out at him with the knife, and the guy dies right there of a friggin' heart attack!
But mostly, the plot just isn't that great. I mean, it's interesting having Andy in a military academy and Chucky still wanting to take over his body. But so many people are horrible in this film, you just want to see them die. And that's a first for the franchise, surprisingly. Sadly the annoying kid doesn't die. But man does everyone wish he did. I think the film was shot in a military academy for budget issues as well. With one place to film in, it cuts down on cost. (Well, there's also the carnival I guess.) The first two films were set in the city and required numerous locations. I think here we have a board room, a penthouse, an academy, and the carnival. That's it. Also, the Chucky robot here is not as good, in my opinion. Chucky's got kind of a fat face in this one, and more limited mobility in it. Most critics back in the day said that Chucky's movements were the film's saving grace, but I just don't see it. It's a step down from the second film. He looks like a robot here. A more evil cherub looking robot. At least he's still voiced by Brad Dourif. He's the only returning actor for the third film.
The film would open on August 30, 1991. That's a little under nine months after the second film. I do give the film props for being written, produced, and post-produced in that amount of time and the film not being completely horrible. One of the ways this was accomplished was by having a TV director, Jack Bender, direct the film. He'd done TV shows from back in 1977. Things like Eight is Enough, Falcon Crest, Fame, and The Paper Chase. He still directs now. He was a executive producer and was the lead director for Lost. He's also directed episodes of Game of Thrones, Alias, Felicity, The Sopranos, Under the Dome, and The Last Ship. All that despite directing this pretty lame film. The critics didn't like this one either. It's got a 23% on Rotten Tomatoes and I don't think Siskel and Ebert even reviewed it. The movie also only made just under $15 million in the United States, which is a little over half what the second film did. With the budget being estimated at being around $13 million, it just broke even.
Sadly, the movie is mostly known for being supposedly implicated in the murder of 2 year old James Bulger in February of 1993 in England. Two ten year old boys stole the 2 year old from a mall when his mom wasn't looking, taking him by the hand and taking him 2 1/2 miles away. Then they pushed him to the ground and threw a can of spray paint in his face. They took him farther along and tortured him, stomping on him and kicking him and threw heavy things at him. The boy was killed and they laid him across a train track hoping a train would run the body over and make it look like an accident. The train part did happen, but the boys weren't counting on CCTV in the mall from earlier when they thought it'd look like an accident. Days later the boys were apprehended. They had blue paint on their clothes and blood on their shoes. Blood that DNA matched to Bulger's. The kids were convicted and became the youngest convicted murderers of the 20th century.
Now, what does this have to do with Child's Play 3, you ask? Officially nothing. But you have to realize something about UK newspapers first. UK newspapers are like the supermarket tabloids are here. They can print anything they want and a lot of the time it's not true. See, the trial judge in the case stated that he thought violent videos may have been to blame and the UK papers got their scapegoat. After all, 10 year olds don't kill, do they? Jon Venables' father had rented Child's Play 3 not long before the murder. There's no evidence that Jon watched the film, but that hasn't ever mattered to social crusaders. See, there's a scene in the film where blue paint gets splashed on someone. Apparently since blue paint was used in the crime, that meant the film had to be where the kids got the idea from. (Yes, outside the BBC, the UK press is just as idiotic as America's.) Even with the police inspector on the case, the Minister of State at the Home Office, and the detective from the case saying they found no evidence the film was linked to the murder, people still know the film for it to this day. The murder of Suzanne Capper was also used by the press in an attempted link to the film. Investigators on that case also deny it.
So there you have it. A film only talked about today because of idiotic papers in the UK. They sure do love their moral panics, just like us.
This film ended the Child's Play series. It'd been worn out. Or at least, it was supposed to be the end. Later on in the late 90s, Don Mancini would bring the series back, but as a comedy-horror series very different from the first 3 films.
Hello friends, and welcome back to my blog. This time I'm going to keep it going regularly like it was in its first year hopefully. Now, the last blog I posted was on 1988's Child's Play, the first film in the Chucky series. That was back in October. It's now a new year and January, so if you need to refresh yourself on what I said there, feel free to do so. With that out of the way, let's move on to 1990's Child's Play 2.
After the success of the original film, United Artists and producer David Kirschner quickly started development on a sequel. The creator of the idea, Don Mancini would write the script again, this time on his own without touchups by John Lafia and Tom Holland (the director of the first film). However, there soon came a problem, which happens a lot in Hollywood. United Artists was to be sold to Qintex, and Australian media conglomerate, and they didn't want to do horror films. David Kirschner thus decided to shop the series around to other studios, all of them turning the Child's Play sequel down. It was decided that the film would have to be produced independently, so Kirschner started raising money. Universal said that they'd distribute the film, but would not put the money up to produce it.
Don Mancini still wanted to use ideas that were cut from his script during rewrites for the first movie. Things like the killing of the teacher that bullies Andy and the showdown in the Good Guy factory. With a bigger budget, the factory scene could be done. The story this time is that Play Pals, the toy company that built the Good Guy dolls, of which Chucky is one, is rebuilding the original doll that Charles Lee Ray possessed. I mean it was shot up, burned, etc numerous times in the first movie, but they use the same plastic, so I guess his spirit was still in there. It's two years after the first film. While Chucky's being reconstructed, the voodoo power shoots back into the doll, killing a technician or two. But the company president wants to show the public that there's nothing wrong with the dolls and to push them back on the public to make money again. Andy, the child from the first film, is now 8 years old. His mom is in the looney bin for supporting his story about his doll killing people. The two cops that saw it all happen? No clue what happened to them. It's not stated. Andy has been in social services for a while and is just now being fostered by a couple played by Jenny Agutter (An American Werewolf In London, Walkabout) and Gerrit Graham (Phantom of the Paradise, Used Cars). The husband is worried about Andy's mental state, but the wife is sure with time and patience Andy will be fine. Chucky tracks Andy down to his new abode and starts to cause trouble for him. He pretends to be a regular Good Guy doll with a different name while he breaks things of the couple's, causes trouble at Andy's school for which Andy gets the blame, starts killing those that have issues with Andy to frame him, etc. Also, Andy's not the only foster child with the couple. There's Kyle, who despite the name is a punkish teenage girl, not a boy from a cattle farm. (Sorry, for some reason that's automatically what I think of anyone named Kyle.) Obviously, the deaths start, and things get worse and worse for Andy, who decides Chucky must die, before he himself is killed.
I loved the ad campaign for this one. The whole Jack-in-the-box fake out was great. I still remember it from when I was five. It kinda scared me back then, but I was afraid of everything back then. Even the theme music to Rescue 911 for cryin' out loud, I have no idea why. But this ad campaign, I'm not alone in being affected by. I've heard others agree.
This is my favorite of the Child's Play films. At least out of the serious first three films. (They aren't titled Child's Play after that.) Chucky is downright brutal in this film. In the first film he just killed whoever he needed to or to get revenge. In this one, he kills people just for being around when they shouldn't be, like Andy's hateful teacher. (But most cheered her death, because she was mean.) The doll animatronics are at their best here. The same team did the special effects as did the first film, and it's obvious that advancements were made to the animatronics in the short amount of time between films. Chucky is way more expressive here than in 1988. The mouth movements are more realistic, there's more creases for facial movements, etc. Even Chucky walking looks better, mostly because they didn't use the little person and smaller sets as much this time, if at all. That was always jarring for me in the first film. This film is a bit bloodier too. Now, it's still not that gory really. I mean, the teacher gets killed by what I think is an air pump? And you don't really see it hit the skin. The film gets more and more preposterous and bloody as it goes though. I find the film to be a bit scary, but more because it shows some truth to the foster care system. The couple that fosters Andy can't have children biologically and foster kids so that they'll be able to actually adopt a baby. This happens in real life. If you've fostered, it's faster and easier to adopt. Now, Jenny Agutter's character is warm and nurturing to those she fosters. She wants to improve their lives. Her husband does it grudgingly. He borderline hates Andy because he thinks he's got mental issues and Chucky does things to make that worse. To be a foster kid anyway is probably terrifying, but to have one the parents not liking you and a doll trying to make your life a living hell must give one anxiety attacks!
I forgot to mention that Alex Vincent is back playing Andy. His acting in the first film was passable, which is more than one can say of most six year old actors. His acting here is better, yet still not quite believable in parts. Especially his conversation with his psychiatrist near the beginning of the film. His dialogue is more appropriate for a 12 year old than an 8 year old. The only other actor back for this film was Brad Dourif doing the voice of Chucky. He curses more here, and that's really the only difference between his performance in the first film. I liked the bond between Alex and Kyle, the girl who is fostered in the same house Andy is. At first they don't get along, but the form a bond over time. It's cute. Also, you can tell the actors liked each other, as has been confirmed by both actors in interviews later on.
The thing most people remember about this particular installment is the showdown in the toy factory at the end. There's piles of Good Guy dolls in their packaging stacked 7 or 8 high forming almost a labyrinth for Andy, Kyle, and Chucky to race through. The assembly line is running as well, as sadly noticed by the guy who gets pushed onto it and has his eyes popped in and replaced by doll eyes. (Ouch!) The ending of the first film reminded me of the end of Terminator with the Chucky doll continuing to attack after it'd been burned and shot numerous times. Well, we go farther here. Chucky gets reformed, his hand chopped off, stapled onto the assembly line, melted, etc. and still keeps coming numerous times after they think they've killed him. It's a lot of fun, the third act. Even Siskel and Ebert agree that the ending was good. And they didn't like the film. (Siskel and Ebert found these types of films harmful to the public good. And Siskel hated the child in danger plot.)
As I said, it's my favorite of the Child's Play films, if not the whole Chucky saga. (Still haven't watched the latest one.) The direction of this one sometimes gets chided by some fans. They say it's directed like a TV movie. That has some basis. John Lafia, who did some rewrites of the first film directs this one. Most of his work has been for TV. He directed some Babylon 5, but mostly TV miniseries and TV movies. Now, I don't agree that his work is as lazy as most TV work was in the 1990s. The cinematography? Maybe. But the cinematographer also did Batman Returns, won an award for Ed Wood, and still does feature film cinematography to this day. He's shown he can do good work. I think many just prefer the first film, which is fine. However, the first film is more Tom Holland's film. He directed and rewrote the film to be what he wanted it to be. (The voodoo, the police stuff.) This is more Don Mancini's vision with input from Lafia. Now Tom Holland has done good films, true. But I prefer this movie. It's meaner, I feel more sorry for Andy in it, it's not bogged down in police stuff. No, if you want a film with problems, you have to watch Child's Play 3.
If you've read my blog religiously by now (and come on, we know you have), you would know that by about 1985-1986, the horror genre was starting to die. It would take until about 1991 to really fully die, but thanks to the media's concern about violence in movies and the MPAA really taking a hard line on violence because of that, horror had to be quite tame for the most part. By 1988, the slasher films were all but dead. The installments of those series were showing less violence and blood for fear of X ratings. Thankfully, Child's Play isn't exactly a slasher film. The body count is pretty low and it's more of a regular horror film. For some reason it gets mixed in with slashers, I guess because the bad guy who possesses the Chucky doll was in fact a serial killer. That's about as close as it gets to a slasher in my mind. This film, if the technology had been available, would have fit right in the with the 1970s horror films like The Sentinel or Legacy.
So here's the story. There's this serial killer, the Lakeshore Strangler aka Charles Lee Ray (made up from killers Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald, and James Earl Ray) played by Brad Dourif. The cops finally chase him down after his partner drives off without him. Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon) follows him into a toy store that's closed for the night and shoots Ray. Ray knows that he's dying, but luckily he knows some voodoo (Because what serial killer doesn't, right?), and when he runs into a stack of Good Guy dolls, he uses voodoo to transfer his soul into one of the dolls just as he dies. (And as he dies, the building is struck by lightning and the store kinda... explodes.) Sometime after that, Karen Barlclay (Catherine Hicks) is celebrating her young son Andy's birthday. Andy is sad he didn't get the thing he wanted the most, which is a Good Guys doll that can say 3 different things back to you and is the size of a real child. She can't afford the doll with her salary, but thankfully a hobo is selling one behind where she works for a drastically reduced price. Andy is very happy with his new doll, but when mommy has to work late, her coworker babysits Andy and well, she ends up going through the high-rise apartment window and into a car below. From there, the police suspect Andy, his mother thinks he's going insane, there are more killings...
I've been of two minds about this film since I first saw it about 12 years ago. It's a fun little movie, but I can't take it seriously. Even though Chucky was not yet really comedic relief, and the animatronics look great, I'm always at a loss at how you can get killed by a little doll about the size of a four year old if you're really careful. Now yes, I know that many get killed because they don't know it's alive and a threat. A six year old can tell you their doll is alive continuously and you won't believe them. And if it gets a gun, that could be a problem. There's a scene in the film that's supposed to be frightening, the moment the mother gets to see Chucky come alive, but to me it's just damned hilarious.
How seriously can you take a doll suddenly thrashing and calling the lady onscreen a slut and a bitch? Reminds me of the native guy who goes insane at the end of Brave New World calling the main character a strumpet and a harlot and abusing himself. However, if it weren't for the unbelievableness of it, Child's Play wouldn't work for me. Chucky just isn't very scary to me. But he's darned entertaining. He's quick with a joke as he's killing people. He toys with Detective Norris as he attempts to kill him from the back seat as Norris is driving. Brad Dourif, the voice of Chucky, makes the movie at least work on an entertainment level. He's vicious, insane, and really really angry. Apparently Dourif would go around the studio yelling and screaming, working himself up before he recorded his lines, and by the time he was done doing the lines, he'd sometimes be on the verge of fainting. It's interesting to note that most of the cast never even saw Dourif. His lines were recorded earlier, and he was only in the beginning of the film in person. However, he did do rehearsals with Catherine Hicks. One thing I had never noticed before is that as the movie progresses and Ray's soul stays in the Chucky doll longer, the doll's face begins to look more and more like Charles Lee Ray. The hair recedes, the eyes become more full of life, it becomes more expressive, etc. I think it's a triumph of the special effects department that they did this without me noticing. (Or maybe it's bad that I didn't notice? I dunno.)
It's also remarkable that they got a somewhat good child actor to play Andy. Alex Vincent was only six years old at the time he was in this first installment. Sure, he's not as good as an adult veteran actor would be, but he's believable and isn't one of those kids you want to have die very early on just because they're annoying as hell. No, he's very cute and sincere. My only problem with Andy is down to screenwriting. He's very mature for a six year old. At one point he takes the Chicago elevated train by himself (well, the Chucky doll is with him too) to a bad part of Chicago at the behest of Chucky. None of the adults on the train or around him wonder what a six year old kid is doing by himself in the bad part of town? A bit too much suspension of disbelief for me. Now, Chucky told him to go there so he could speak (aka: kill) an old friend. The old friend being the one who left him behind at the beginning of the film. He sets the guy's house to explode, and just as the house is set to explode, Andy, who is outside, is looking for Chucky who walked away while Andy was "taking a tinkle." The kid manages to step into a hole just as the house is exploding behind him. It's like something out of friggin' Keystone Kops. The kid does a good job with crying when he's in the mental institution later on and he sees Chucky outside the building ready to kill him. (He finds out from his voodoo mentor before he kills him that he needs to find the human body he first came into contact with to possess or he'll be stuck as a doll forever.)
The directing of the movie is pretty good. Tom Holland directed this installment. He had directed the great horror-comedy Fright Night three years earlier. (Itself somewhat of a classic now.) That movie too starred Chris Sarandon. Sadly, after this film, his directing career sort of went downhill, the only two films worth note being Stephen King adaptations. (The Langoliers tv movie and Thinner) He made the decision not to show Chucky in full walking and talking mode until halfway through the film. It's an old horror rule mostly used for budgetary reasons, like with Jaws, but also has the effect of creating more suspense and putting the monster in your imagination, or so they say. To me, it doesn't always work. It doesn't really do much in this film. For most of the walking Chucky shots, they used a little person with 30% larger than normal props, set, and furniture. Sadly, it's pretty darn obvious when they used a person rather than the animatronic. The movement is different.
Although this is often considered the best of the franchise's films, it's not mine. It's up there near the top, though. It takes itself somewhat seriously unlike Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky do. In fact, this movie is so far from those two, it's almost like a different series. (You can basically separate the series into the first 3, the 4th and 5th, and the new 6th film.) I'm somewhat surprised this hasn't been remade yet. Not that I would want one. I'm glad it hasn't been. I'm guessing that Don Mancini, the writer, holds his creation's rights? (Actually, pretty sure Universal does.) The movie opened on November 9, 1988 to pretty good reviews. It currently has a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes (albeit with only 6 reviews). Siskel of Siskel and Ebert disliked the film because it relied on the old child in danger trope, which he always railed against. Roger Ebert enjoyed the film, much to my surprise.
On a 9 million dollar budget, Child's Play went on to make a respectable $44.2 million over the Thanskgiving/Christmas season of 1988. When the movie was released, there were protests outside of MGM, the studio that made the film. The protestors were concerned that the movie would cause violence in children. Apparently as the TV crews were starting to arrive to do live news reports on it, a guy working in producer David Kirschner's office said he could handle the group in 10 minutes. He went out, talked to the leader of the protest, shook his hand, and they left. It is not known publicly what was said. Even Kirschner doesn't know how the guy got the group to go away. Sadly when Child's Play 3 came around, the subject would be back in the press. The movie was successful enough to warrant a sequel, which began pre-production pretty quickly. However, it would soon hit trouble. That, however, is for the next installment.
4 1/2 out of 7 stars.
(Anyone else notice how Chucky's face kinda looks like Reagan's in The Exorcist?)
I've been trying to come up with things to say for this film and its sequel for months now. Being early 90s direct-to-video releases, there isn't much data on them. So I apologize for how short this write up is.
After the box office disappointment of Critters 2, the once promising series seemed to be done. For 3 years the franchise kept dormant. However, the late 1980s and early 1990s saw a surge in the idea of shooting movies on a low budget in order for the films to bypass theaters and go directly to VHS. It was akin to the idea of TV movies, but this way, instead of getting sponsers and the TV station to pay for it, you had the movie company pay more or less than a million bucks and hope to recoup the money with movie rental stores buying the rights to rent the film. (It may surprise some of you, but film ownership was not important in the early days of VHS. In fact, VHS was mainly made for the rental market back in the late 1970s, with VHS tapes costing about $100 each.) So New Line was eventually persuaded to fund two Critters films to be shot at the same time, both to be released straight-to-video, and to be released pretty much back to back as well.
The plot of Critters 3 is kind of like the first to films, but set in pretty much one building. There's this teenage girl, Annie, and her younger brother. They are going with their father to their apartment when their tire has a flat. They stop at a rest stop and there they meet Josh. Now Josh is played by a young Leonardo Di Caprio. Supposedly he was 17 when this film came out, but he looks maybe 14. Makes me wonder if perhaps the film was filmed way earlier than it was released and they decided at the last minute to release direct to video? (As I said, there's not much info on these films to find out.) Anyway, it was Di Caprio's first film. Now Josh starts playing frisbee with Annie and her brother, and when the frisbee goes into the woods, they are surprised by Charlie, the village drunk and now alien bounty hunter from the first two films. He's of course hunting Crites again and warns the kids who all think he's just the local crazy. Once the tire is fixed the kids leave. We also find out that Josh's stepdad, who he's traveling with, is a bad guy. He's the family's new landlord. Oh, also some Crites laid eggs under the family car and they are traveling with them to their apartment. Well, I think you can guess how it goes from there. The whole rest of the film takes place in the apartment. Of course Josh and his stepdad show up, people die, there's some funny hijinks with the Crites thrown in, and after everything's over they set up for the next movie which was apparently shot at the same time. Basically Charlie is told by a hologram of his best friend and bounty hunter Ug from the last two films that he apparently can't kill any more Crites. That they are now protected and to give him the eggs he finds.
I didn't like this film as much as the first two. The lower budget is very very obvious and none of the main characters from the first two films are major characters here. It's not a bad movie. It's even fun in some parts. (Like the fat lady getting shot repeatedly by the Crite's quills, which make people partially paralyzed. There's still a bit of blood and menace here, but not much. It's more of a made-for-tv type of movie. Nothing to really offend anyone... Except maybe the huge pair of panties the apartment maintenance guy holds up of the fat lady's. Yeesh!
Critters 4 (1992)
So at the end of the last film, Charlie, intergalactic bumbling bounty hunter, is told by a hologram of his friend an co-worker Ug that he can't kill Crites anymore as the two eggs he's about to smash are the last two and he can't cause a species' extinction and to put the eggs in a transport. Well, somehow Ug gets stuck in the transport too, and it takes him into space and puts him in suspended animation. In 2045, his pod is found by a salvage ship, but once the salvage ship captain reports the pod, Councilor Tetra tells the crew he will pay 3 times what they ask if they'll go to TerraCor, a space station, and hand it over. Everyone on the crew, except the young engineer's apprentice Ethan accept the idea. He just wants to get to earth and see his father, and this is another delay. When they arrive, the station is empty, the core is slowly building to meltdown, and the station computer won't do what it's told. (In fact, it always does the exact opposite, they find out.) Well, after finding this all out, Rick, the captain of the salvage ship, decides he wants all the money for himself and opens the pod. He finds Charlie, but doesn't believe he's the only thing in the pod. So he goes in and is eaten by freshly hatched baby Crites. At this point I should mention the other three characters. There's Bernie, the drug addicted cargo specialist. He's not a nice guy, just like the captain. Then there's the pilot Fran, played by Angela Bassett. She's sort of a mother figure to Ethan, our main character, on the ship. And there's Albert, the head engineer. He's played by Brad Dourif. So, now the Crites have hatched, we soon find they've laid more eggs and are commandeering the salvage ship and setting the course for Earth. Also, a recording was found showing that the station was being used to engineer bioweapons from alien species... Yeah... Now our entrepid crew must work its way through the space station towards their ship avoiding Crites along the way... But then Councilor Tetra shows up... and I'm gonna leave it there, because the ending is sort of a surprise.
Now, I will tell you. This movie doesn't have much Crite action in it. The budget went mostly to the space station sets, I think. Which is pretty sad as there isn't much to look at. White walls mostly. No, this is more character driven, which would be fine if the characters were interesting. They aren't. Brad Dourif does what he can with what he's got, but he's not playing crazy here like he usually does, so that's not much. The film is also essentially bloodless. Most of the comedy comes from the station's computer doing the opposite of what it's told to do, so there's not much to that either. I guess the most amusing thing is that the movie is essentially Alien Resurrection but made 5 years earlier. It even has Brad Dourif in it, albeit a very different character. No talk of "beautiful, beautiful butterfly!" here, thank you very much. And there's the engineering of a pesky alien monster to make bioweapons, which is the plot of the whole Alien franchise. All that's missing is an android and crazy Sigourney Weaver.
This was the second worst Critters film, in my opinion. The space setting, which is usually considered the point when horror series fail (Leprechaun and Jason X) works here. I mean, the Crites are aliens after all. The setting alone makes it better than the last film. It brings a new feeling to the series. What doesn't work is not having the Crites being the focus. The focus is on the corporation coming to take the Crites to make bioweapons and the station close to having a meltdown. The Crites are maybe in 5 minutes of the film. There's really only two attacks. Heck, if I remember correctly there's only two Crites in the whole film! However, I must say the end reveal of the movie is just about unforgivable. I mean it's believable, but it's not something the audience wants to happen, and it leaves the series on a sad note. If you want to know what I'm talking about, watch the film.
So, after all that time dreading talking about these movies, I've finally finished and can now move on to writing about movies that have commentaries or making-ofs to them... that have documentation of their making, or retrospectives so I can actually give you guys and gals some facts and anecdotes. I plan to start a write up of the Child's Play series next, so you have that to look forward to. Also, I started over a year ago doing write-ups for the Star Trek films and only got through the third one, so I plan to get back to that as well. We'll see how it goes.
