Child's Play 3 (1991)

Undoubtedly the lesser of the first four "Child's Play" movies, "Child's Play 3", which pulls off a little time skip to plant a now teenaged Andy Barclay (Justin Whalen) into a military academy where the revived Chucky (Brad Dourif) naturally tracks him down, is still a decent little slasher movie. Granted, it only gets to be that because of a couple of standout death scenes (hello trash compacter!) and a cool carnival-set finale, but we're talking early 90s slasher fare here. Justin Whalen is pretty wooden as Andy, outshined by Perrey Reeves as spunky final girl Kristen and Travis Fine as secondary antagonist Lieutenant Colonel Shelton, and although Brad Dourif excellently voices Chucky once again, the material he's given here is a downgrade from the previous year's "Child's Play 2." Mostly this is a military school teen drama that accommodates its killer doll aspects in fun, if occasionally awkward ways en route to that great finale where Chucky has a messy encounter with an industrial fan. Sure, it could have been a whole lot better with a stronger lead and a more accomplished director, but it does the basics of what a "Child's Play" movie ought to do, and just about earns a passing grade.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (2024)

2023's "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" was bullshit; a fact tacitly acknowledged by "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2" when it downgrades its predecessor to movie-within-a-movie status and does a soft reset of the story of Christopher Robin (now played by Scott Chambers) and the anthropomorphic killer critters inspired by his earlier abandonment of them. This time Pooh (Ryan Oliva) and Piglet (Eddy MacKenzie) have company in the form of Owl (Marcus Massey), who becomes their de facto leader in their murderous quest for revenge against their former friend. No longer moving in slow motion and backed up by a sturdier script than the first movie had, Pooh and friends set out on a bloodier and better killing spree in what is essentially the first entry into Jagged Edge Productions' so-called "Poohniverse" franchise.

Pitched somewhere between "The Mean One" and "Terrifier", Rhys Frake-Waterfield's sequel surpasses its predecessor in every metric, which isn't to say it does anything special with its bloodthirsty versions of beloved A.A. Milne characters. What it does do is provide gleefully gory kill after kill, an actual plot that logically centers Christopher Robin, and much higher production values than survivors of the abortive 2023 movie might expect. Most refreshingly, the action isn't slowed down to a snail's pace like it was in the first movie; now that the cast and crew have an actual story to work with, there's little need to pad out its slim 93 minute runtime by having characters move in slow-motion or endlessly shamble around sets. There's an energy and structure to this movie that's very welcome.

But is it ultimately a good movie? Not really. Because while the splatfest kills and Scott Chambers' leading performance go a long way towards winning back some good will, the movie slackens between its killer set pieces, lacks substantial characters, and feels like it's once again jumped the shark by the time Pooh and co. are dropping one-liners in which they call their victims "bitch" like they're Freddy Krueger or something. When the "Terrifier" films exist, "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2" is intermittently entertaining (especially in a rave party sequence that sees Tigger viciously taking out a bunch of people) but redundant. Of course, even that seems miraculous after the disaster that "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey" was, but it doesn't quite make this new version good in its own right. Really, it's mediocre.

Old Man (2022)

"Old Man" is psychological horror as a two-man show, in which Stephen Lang takes the lead as the titular senior, who takes Mac Senter's Joe hostage when the latter makes the unwise decision to knock on the door of his cabin. What follows is a chamber piece of a movie in which Lang's clearly unstable character interrogates and menaces Senter's over the course of the runtime, although Joel Veach's script not so subtly hints that Senter himself may be harboring his own dark secrets.

Directed by Lucky McKee with less style than he usually brings to the table, "Old Man" is a limited but relatively engrossing flick that keeps you invested even after it reveals its underwhelming hand in a final act that brings together the stories of Old Man and Joe in a bloody but unspectacular way. In a way it has the vibe of a Stephen King short story adaptation, and boasts some of the shortcomings you might expect of a movie like that too.

Made six years after "Don't Breathe" (and a year after the awful "Don't Breathe 2"), the movie may be a little uninspired for having Stephen Lang play Old Man, but there's no denying that he plays the role. Indeed, he carries the movie over its hurdles and keeps it interesting when a lesser actor might have gotten lost in the material. As his co-lead, Marc Senter is given less to work with and can't really compare to Lang's performance, but I guess he does okay. Ultimately, Lang and Senter don't form the powerhouse double act that Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson did in "The Lighthouse", although I do prefer "Old Man" to that film. It's a bit conventional and predictable, but it has just enough to get a passing grade. You won't be blown away by this lesser McKee entry, but it's not a bad way to spend 97 minutes.

Leprechaun 2 (1994)

A downgrade in every sense from 1993's underrated "Leprechaun", "Leprechaun 2" finds Lubdan the Leprechaun (Warwick Davis) once again going after thieves of gold and anyone else who happens to get in his way, just without the laughs and personality of the first film. A bland horror movie with bland protagonists to match it, Rodman Flender's sequel also has the Leprechaun in pursuit of a new bride, sidestepping the events of the previous film entirely as he seeks to fulfill a thousand-year-old pledge and make Bridget (Shevonne Durkin) his betrothed. This is bad news for co-lead Cody (Charlie Heath), Bridget's actual boyfriend, who's having a hard enough time trying to fend off her other suitors while working at elderly grifter Morty's (Sandy Baron) "dark side" tour business. Cue up what can only loosely be called a battle of wits, in a relatively bloodless slasher movie that at least has the good grace to clock in at less than 90 minutes.

Predictably, Warwick Davis is the standout performer in "Leprechaun 2", comfortably outclassing a mostly talentless cast even if he's mostly given low-tier limericks and one-liners to spout en route to an inevitably underwhelming conclusion where he, Cody and Bridget duke it out for his gold and their lives/freedom. As Cody, Charlie Heath has all the aura of polystyrene, while Shevonne Darkin gives a pretty clumsy performance opposite him. Indeed, the only other actor besides Davis who exudes any tangible personality is Sandy Baron, whose George Carlin-esque mannerisms help make the shifty and greddy Morty one of the movie's two entertaining characters. That's still not enough to really care all that much when Morty eventually succumbs to Lubdan's sly spellcasting, but it's something I guess.

"Leprechaun 2" is bad but inoffensive, never really a slog to watch but almost completely devoid of interest. There are a couple of fun moments that make use of good practical effects work (such as when the Leprechaun brutally excises a homeless man's gold teeth, and another scene in which he rips off a man's finger in order to claim his gold ring) but these fall way short of making up for its glaring deficiency of style and scares. It's an easy but unrewarding watch that makes its predecessor look comparatively brilliant.

THE LEPRECHAUN FRANCHISE
Leprechaun (1993)
Leprechaun 2 (1994)
Leprechaun 3 (1995)
Leprechaun 4: In Space (1997)
Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)
Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood (2003)
Leprechaun: Origins (2014)
Leprechaun Returns (2018)

The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

A new and abysmal entry into the annals of misbegotten remakes, "The Strangers: Chapter 1" finds mediocracy merchant Renny Harlin grappling with material previously elevated by directors Bryan Bertino and Johannes Roberts. And while it's not really a surprise that Harlin (he of "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master", "Deep Blue Sea", and "The Covenant") wouldn't make a movie as good as either "The Strangers" or "The Strangers: Prey at Night", the scale of this disaster is almost impressive.

Outside of some nice cinematography exploiting the woodland locations of Bratislava (standing in for Venus, Oregon), this is a worthless reboot, which finds Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez (both insufferable) being harassed by the antagonists of the previous movies while vacationing in an Airbnb for their fifth anniversary. But whereas the murderous masked trio brought a constant sense of menace and threat in the 2008 and 2018 movies, enhanced by the alternately suspenseful and stylish approach those movies took, they resemble only shadows of their former selves here, mostly moving in slow motion (or even running away from the protagonists!) as their quarries stupidly fail to fight back or escape despite ample opportunities. If the trajectory of the movie's home invasion plot feels inevitable, it never comes across as natural, as it lamely recreates whole sequences from its predecessors, sans any semblance of authenticity or logic, en route to a flat and predictable ending that sets up for at least two more movies in a trilogy that threatens to be one of the worst in recent memory.

"The Strangers: Chapter 1" never scared or entertain me during a brief 90 minute runtime that somehow felt twice as long, although it did inspire a few groans and head in hands moments along the way. As a fan of the other movies in this series, I really wanted to enjoy this third entry, and looked for positives throughout. Alas, I just couldn't find them. This is a terrible, terrible movie, born of the foolish ideas that the masked assailants of the franchise need to be demystified, and that recycling material from better movies is something to build a trilogy around. Who knows; maybe the next couple of movies will turn things around for Harlin's reboot saga. It could hardly get worse.