Little Willy (16:58)
IMDb; YouTube

This 2020 short film was presented by Alter in 2021.

A former child actor named Adam Castle (played by the short's writer/director, Andrew Bowser), who had starred as Bradley Caruthers in a horror franchise about a Chucky-like killer doll named Little Willy, is now grown up. He's a guest at a horror convention, but it seems like not too many people are interested in him. There are a few fans of the movies, but on the whole, Adam is definitely not having a good time, and seems pretty dejected about the state of his life, and drinks a lot. To make matters worse, the Little Willy doll apparently starts taunting him, though that may just be a hallucination. Meanwhile, Zach Galligan (from Gremlins) and Adrienne Barbeau play themselves, as other guests at the convention, who try to console Adam and give him advice (though it's not until near the end that they learn he's been hearing Willy talk to him). I don't want to say how it ends, but the film is both weird and disturbing. It's hard not to feel bad for Adam for most of the film, but... in the end... well, yeah, I'm not gonna talk about the end. But the film works as horror in a couple of different ways, from Adam's perspective and the perspectives of the people around him.

Anyway, it's kind of an interesting film, I guess. And I don't know what else to say. Except that the cast list includes someone playing "young Adam" as well as Jayma Mays playing Mrs. Caruthers (presumably the mother of Adam's character in the Little Willy movies?), but I definitely never saw either a young Adam or Jayma Mays anywhere in the film. Maybe they were just in photographs at Adam's booth? I don't know, but I find it confusing and disappointing not to have seen those characters, especially since I'm generally a fan of Mays's work in other things.