Bride of Chucky (1999): C+

Given the Child’s Play franchise’s ludicrously non-terrifying premise – a cute and cuddly children’s doll with the soul of a killer terrorizes kids and teens – it’s not surprising that by the third go-around, 1999’s Bride of Chucky, the series had devolved into intentional self-parody. Ronny Yu’s sequel follows Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) and his bloodthirsty ex-girlfriend Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) – who Chucky inevitably winds up turning into a doll – as they attempt to possess two good-looking teenagers’ healthy bodies. The buxom, breathy Tilly is deliciously vampy as Chucky’s plastic lover, but the self-referential jokes about Chucky’s silliness, no matter how meta they may be, seem like the filmmakers’ desperate attempt to enliven a moribund series by aping Scream’s postmodern posture. Given that the Chucky films have always been satiric – how could horror movies about a stupid-looking murderous doll not be? – Bride of Chucky’s up-front recognition of its preposterousness winds up feeling redundant and more than a little wearisome.