Child's Play 3 (1991)

The saddest entry in any horror franchise is the one that makes that last, floundering attempt to be scary before descending entirely into winking self-parody. The Child's Play/Chucky series (based on the execrable "My Buddy" doll, which it hilariously outlived by decades) was never very serious (or good) to begin with, and it's clearly just spinning its wheels here, but at least it's still trying to be a horror movie, instead of pummeling us with a bunch of tiresome one-liners and celebrity cameos like some sort of misguided Roseanne reunion special that doesn't even have the decency to feature both Beckys, naked, making out with each other. Not that there aren't one-liners, of course (this is a 1980s horror sequel), and the premise is fucking ridiculous (Chucky the killer doll mails himself to a military academy, where he befriends a thoroughly detestable knockoff of Webster) (yes, even more detestable than the actual Webster), but there are a couple of gruesome murders, the main chick's best friend is a hot redhead (I want her), there's not one but two scenes where Chucky is thrown into the garbage (an excellent idea deserves repeating), and, if the credits are to be believed, somewhere in this movie there's an actress named "Aimee Joy Slutske", and if she wasn't the most popular stripper working second shift at the IHOP, well, goddamn it, she deserved to be.

Aimee Joy Slutske, probably.

Unfortunately, even Aimee Joy Slutske's ostensible charms can't save this shitbasket of a movie, mainly because Chucky's intended victim is such a cloying, willfully obtuse little sneak-thief asshole that there's not a human being on Earth who will be rooting for his survival, which is kind of a problem when the entire plot hinges on rescuing him from a gruesome fate that he totally deserves. Seriously, he's the kind of kid that, when the surgeon says "We almost lost your son," his parents say "Try harder next time." If he were my child, our secret parental code word would be "hey kid, get in the van". It's a lie to say you'll never hate a small black child more because Rudy Huxtable still exists, but at least Rudy Huxtable ultimately grew up to star in porn. At least according to unattributed articles people keep posting on my Facebook feed.

----------

Redheads! Contact me! I'm on the Facebook!