Just watched this again to see if maybe I missed something the first time all those years ago.

I didn't.

This movie is a comedy. A bad one. Maybe if you're tired of "Scary Movie" type laughs, MAYBE this might be a bizarre change of pace for you. There's a story underneath this mess at least. Don't try connecting the dots tot he previous film though, you'll have an aneurysm.

It seems as if Mancini wanted to go for a bit of a change from the slasher tropes, but really kinda played into ones that hadn't developed yet. Hard not to think of a poorly done ANOES 6-7 replication here: Oddly enough that turn was to course-correct from what ANOES 6 was headed to. This is a movie that was coming off the heels of a rather strong Bride of Chucky, and steered right into the comedy lane (cue clip of the mack truck death from Bride)

The attempt at laughs (and nods to previous films) are painful, the story simply doesn't make much sense (considering how well the franchise was segueing between the previous films) and doesn't really seem to care about anything.

When you have John Waters in the movie playing a character straight (excuse the pun) you're in trouble. I'm sure people who look at horror with a stink eye may chuckle at the movie pointing at itself, but otherwise it just doesn't work. On any level.

It WAS in focus though.