Movies
Let’s Admire the Awesome Haunted Attraction in ‘Child’s Play 3’
Enter… THE DEVIL’S LAIR.
The Jack Bender-directed Child’s Play 3 is often considered to be the runt of the franchise litter, and it’s not hard to see why. Set at a military academy, the 1991 slasher film recast the role of Andy Barclay for one final battle between Chucky and his greatest adversary, and even writer/series creator Don Mancini has stated that it’s his least favorite installment.
But no matter how you feel about Child’s Play 3, there’s one thing you simply cannot deny: the final act, mostly set inside the coolest ride-on haunted attraction of all time, is purely and simply awesome. Look. I have no idea why there’s a goddamn carnival right next to a military academy, but let’s pay no mind to the logic and admire the off-the-charts coolness.
Towards the end of the film, Chucky, Andy, and Andy’s friend Ronald make their way into the Devil’s Lair, and it’s there that Chucky attempts to hide his soul inside the body of young Ronald. Unfortunately for Chucky, Andy has other plans, and after an extended chase sequence, he eventually tosses the doll into a massive fan and, well, totally destroys him.
Those nasty scars all over Chucky in the later sequels? You can blame the fan.
Slasher film finales don’t get much more inventive or downright fun than Child’s Play 3‘s, which totally milks the Devil’s Lair attraction for all it’s worth. And oh boy is it the most sprawling, epic, and impressive haunt that’s ever been committed to film. Essentially, it’s a roller-coaster ride that takes carnival visitors deep into the bowels of Hell, and the attraction is outfitted with everything from flying beasts to a MASSIVE grim reaper. There’s also a literal mountain of human skulls in there, and did I mention that the carts are designed to look like evil fish monsters?
If I could visit one fictional film locale, it’d damn sure be Devil’s Lair.
Pay a virtual visit to the coolest haunt ever with some hand-selected Child’s Play 3 stills below!
It’s been eight years since Ari Aster came onto the scene and helped usher in a new wave of horror with Hereditary, one of the rare horror movies from the past ten years that still seems to come up in conversation every single week. And it’s back in the conversation this week, with Ari Aster revealing at an event that he’s already written a prequel to Hereditary!
Ari Aster was on hand at the American Cinematheque for Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair last week, a Los Angeles festival that screened all of Aster’s movies to date. The website Gold Derby reports that Aster revealed the Hereditary prequel script during a Q&A at the event, and you can watch the full Q&A conversation below for confirmation on the website’s report.
“I wrote a prequel to this,” Aster told the crowd, referring to Hereditary. “It never feels like the right time to do it. It’s a prequel, not a sequel so I don’t know where this goes.”
Would a potential Hereditary prequel dig deeper into the mythology of demon king Paimon? Unfortunately, Aster provides no further details on his prequel approach at this time.
Aster said of Hereditary during the same Q&A, “I was just trying to make a really good horror movie.” I think most horror fans would agree that he more than accomplished that goal, and the past eight years have proven that Hereditary is an enduring classic of its generation.
We celebrated the fifth anniversary of Hereditary here on BD back in 2023.
Ron Breton wrote, “Hereditary offers a similar emotional resonance to this new generation of horror – my generation of horror– as movie-goers in the seventies when they first saw Exorcist. Much like Aster’s film, we see the incomprehensible evil wear the face of a young girl; the victim of a raw deal she had no say in, as it tears a family to its core. Sure, both films offer so many terrifying visuals that can make the hair stand up on anyone’s neck – but it also depicts intense relationships and emotions that are tangible. Real. Familiar.”
“In that familiarity lies the uncanny, ready to rear its ugly head and force us to confront thoughts and horrors laying dormant and clawing at our psyche,” Breton continued his 5th anniversary celebration of Hereditary. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s been five or fifty years. These horrors are always there, as we become pawns in its horrible, hopeless machine.”
Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Ann Dowd, and Milly Shapiro star in Hereditary. In the film, “A grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences.”
That’s putting it mildly, eh?!
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