[Film Review] Child's Play 2

This review contains spoilers.


The question on your mind going into Child's Play 2 is more than likely "How does Chucky come back from being burnt to a crisp and beheaded?"  The answer is corporate greed.  Child's Play 2 opens with a Frankenstein type sequence where Chucky's burnt remains are rebuilt like new so that the Good Guys Corporation, who have taken a significant hit with this story of their doll murdering people (even if no one believes it actually happened), can run diagnostics on it, thinking maybe there is a kernel of truth in the story and that maybe it was one of their own disgruntled workers who may have tampered with the voice box or something.  They find nothing, not to much relief, as their stockholders still aren't happy.  The CEO and his protege the film introduces us to in this opening are cartoonishly corporate, with the protege mentioning at a liquor store that only accepts cash "Cash? That's a gold card.  It's as good as cash. I don't carry cash."  It sets the tone well, while also bridging some of the themes from the first film.

Child's Play 2 doesn't double down on those themes of consumerist over-saturation in kids TV, but instead goes for the tongue-in-cheek approach.  After all, the talking doll horror is old as Twilight Zone at the very least, nearly 30 years this film's senior.  There really isn't much place to go without getting overly meta about it, so instead here we get a film that revels in slasher film tropes and the ridiculously entertaining performance by Brad Dourif.  If not technically better than the original (nor scarier), it's a hell of a lot more fun.

No time is wasted before hearing Chucky speak (or seeing him kill someone), because tension is saved for the smaller moments.  Andy is in foster care, where his foster parents bicker over whether or not they should foster such an obviously disturbed child.  The use of tense, slow pans from either the foster parents' arguing to Andy or from Andy to Chucky give a nice sense of eventuality, of things coming into play.  One of the best cliches in these types of Stephen King-esque "only the kid knows the true horror of what is going on" types of stories is the isolation of our protagonist and the empathetic anxiety and frustration we feel for him.  Child's Play 2 introduces Kyle, Andy's older foster sister who is a misfit in a very late-80s way: she smokes, she curses, she sneaks out of the house at night, and thus is a perfect sympathizer with Andy's seemingly odd and often dark behavior.  But her sympathy comes at a cost in the final third of the movie: the film ceases its horror elements and becomes more of an action film, sort of like the latter part of The Terminator, where it becomes about teaming up to kill the evil machine before it kills them.

The movie really isn't scary at all, rather playing joyfully around its ridiculous premise (it's reminiscent of a Goosebumps book gone R-rated) and its vulgar villain.  It's a popcorn monster movie meant for late-night watching and maybe a few drinks or bowls to let the silliness stretch its legs.  It's simple and a well-worn story, but so obviously made for fun and with a wink.  Too bad Child's Play 3 is a thing.



7.0