20 'Controversial' Movies Everyone Completely Over-Reacted To
7. Child's Play 3
The Film:
The weak, initially unnoticed third installment in the Child's Play franchise, which wastes its great villain and provides few scares. The fact that it's set in a military academy of all places and that Chucky's new target is a dreadful child actor doesn't help either.
The Controversy:
Following the horrifying murder of toddler James Bulger at the hands of 2 10-year old boys in England, the film was cited as a possible inspiration for the killing. As a result, most British people will probably have heard of this film. It led to a clampdown in home video releases.
Why It Was Wrong:
It was proved a long time ago by the police that the movie didn't inspire the murder and that the 2 boys are highly unlikely to have seen it.
There is a certain image which was linked to the murder but most viewers won't even notice that. It's a silly film that would never influence anyone to do anything. To be honest, could any film really be blamed for a murder like that?
Franchise creator Tom Holland, in his defense of the film put it perfectly: that viewers could only be influenced to copy violent content from films if they were unbalanced to begin with. Very few people would actually be influenced to commit violent actions based on what they saw in a film and these types of tragedies happen because of a variety of other factors too.
Come on, leave poor old Chucky alone.