(1991)
Dir - Jack Bender
Overall: MEH
By the time that they reached the third installment, the Child's Play franchise had not gone full self-aware comedy, but it sure was inching its way awfully close. Child's Play 3 was released nine months after its predecessor and was a rushed job for series' creator Don Mancini, who was tasked with churning out the next script before Child's Play 2 had even wrapped up. Taking place seven years in the future, it has a now teenage Andy enrolled in a military academy where other kids close to his age act like raving asshole drill sergeants and Andrew Robinson gets to chew the scenery in three scenes as a dog clipper-friendly barber. While the setting is different by necessity, it is still the same ole gag of Brad Dourif's Chucky once again getting lazily resurrected and still trying to get himself into a human body while nobody believes that such a thing could possibly be happening. Dourif is as effortlessly amusing as ever, pushing this into goofier terrain even as the tone still tries to balance its ridiculousness as a suspenseful slasher movie of sorts. Sadly it does not go hard in either direction, coming off like the quick cash grab that it is and offering up nothing new or better in the process.
(1992)
Dir - Ted Nicolaou
Overall: MEH
Blue Oyster Cult and Charles Band collaborating? What will they think of next? Full Moon Entertainment's curious fascination with little things soldiers on with Bad Channels, a sci-fi/horror musical spoof with a wacky premise that is matched by a purposely silly presentation. While the film is never funny, it is also never obnoxious or dull. Subspecies director Ted Nicolaou was also behind the lens on 1986's unwatchablely grating TerrorVision, but thankfully the similar shtick is done without insulting the audience here. An alien warrior and its cutesy robot invade a radio station in the middle of an elaborate promotion gimmick where the DJ is chained to his chair until a caller can guess the lock's combination and in turn win a free convertible. Oh, and the aliens use some kind of fungus to capture women over the airwaves, but only after most of them witness a rockin' musical number just to stretch the run time out further. Band and Jackson Barr's script has a barrage of desperate ideas, the characters are likeable, the cornball special effects are agreeable, Martha Quinn is adorable as a savvy news reporter, and the mostly Blue Oyster Cult soundtrack could be much worse. It is the type of intentionally dopey movie that has its heart in the right place and does not overstay its welcome, but it also fails to deliver the nyuck nyucks and is only amusing on paper.
(1993)
Dir - Alex Winter/Tom Stern
Overall: MEH
The feature debut from writer/director/actors Alex Winter and Tom Stern, Freaked features a stacked cast, an A-team crop of special effects artists, and the Butthole Surfers, Parliament, and Henry Rollins providing some jams. An absurdist gross-out black comedy in the vein of Winter and Stern's MTV sketch show The Idiot Box, the film was originally concocted as a full-length follow-up to Winter, Stern, and the Suffers' 1988 horror short Bar-B-Que Movie, but once a major studio was involved, the budget ballooned under the pretense that it qualify for a PG-13 rating, (which it barely does). The film was ultimately and unceremoniously dumped once a new studio head took over and hated the results. Such results are a big, loud, and aggressively stupid mess, loaded with juvenile, surreal, head-scratching, and forth-wall breaking gags that more often than not miss their mark. On the plus side though, the tone is consistently over the top, the cartoonish production design is outstanding, and everyone on screen knows the assignment. Randy Quaid, William Sadler, an uncredited Keanu Reeves, Mr. T, Bobcat Goldthwait, and even Morgan Fairchild and Brooke Shields prove to be good sports along with even more recognizable faces. The whole thing comes off like Tod Browning's Freaks if it was done by twelve year old Frank Henenlotter fans who think that farts and vomit are the world's greatest gift to comedy, but it is hard to hate the jacked-up enthusiasm on display.
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