That Time of the Month
Child's Play 2
You Can't Keep a Good Guy Down
By: Brandy S.
Child's Play 2 (1990)
It's been two years of bad times over at the toy company. I guess
when a boy claims that one of your dolls killed a bunch of people it
tends to put a damper on the profit margin. So, the almighty dollar
drives us forward into part 2, as the toy company Play Pals is trying
to uphold it's reputation by proving that Chucky was not possessed.
Extreme Makeover: Doll Edition commences, and we see Chucky
completely retouched and brought back to his former doll glory. As
soon as the new eyes hit the sockets he electrocutes a guy through
the machine and kills him. Like all good businessmen, the CEO orders
them to cover up the accidental death and move forward. Later, the
CEO jerk guy's assistant takes the doll home and, of course,
Chuckster kills him. Yup, Chucky's back.
During the two year gap, Andy's been placed in foster care and mommy
dearest is locked up in the loony bin, since the officers that were
on the case are denying everything. A nice way to wrap up some loose
ends of not being able to nab the same actors again. In the horror
industry a sequel makes or breaks you, and more often than not the
charm of the original film is lost under the weight of trying to rake
in another couple million bucks. Thankfully, this is not one of
those instances. Even with an almost entirely new cast, and although
it is hammed up a bit more, they still manage to pull off what they
had the first time around. The story isn't weak or lacking, it makes
sense continuity-wise, and they didn't dumb down the doll or any of
the creepiness from the original film. It wouldn't be a good sequel
without Dourif returning to bring the creep-factor in two fold as our
dear friend to the end. Also, I guess it's not too hard to book an 8
year old, as Vincent returns to continue his roll. His foster
parents are Phil a.k.a. Bud the CHUD (Gerrit Graham), and Joanne
a.k.a. Nurse Price (Jenny Agutter), which is a pretty awesomely weird
horror mash-up. They are also fostering an almost-eighteen-year-old
girl, Kyle (Christine Elise), who I'm sure every young boy, including
Andy, had the hots for.
When
Chucky first gets to Andy's new house, he meets the resident Good
Guy, Tommy, and brains him and buries him in the yard, then taking his
place in the house. When he first has to act as Tommy, the pause in
the line “Hi, I'm... Tommy!” is pure genius. This
time around, Chucky has amped up his determination quite a bit, since
he already failed once. He follows Andy everywhere, trying to get a
chance to play everyone's favorite game, Hide the Soul. Taking out
Sparklemotion bitch who, surprise, plays a mean teacher, is one of my
favorite kills. It's mostly due to the fact of how hateable she
always is, not
just in this flick.
After he takes out new dad Phil and Andy looks guilty once again,
sympathetic new mom Joanne turns on him and sends him back to the
foster system. Kyle finds the “dead” Tommy in the backyard and
takes Andy's side, and more or less takes on the roll of “mother”
from part one, in helping save Tommy and prove him innocent.
The first movie had a seriously great end-movie climax scene that
would surely be hard to top. However, I really like the ending to
part 2 more. Chucky is steering Andy all the way to the toy factory,
and Kyle chases him there. The shot of Andy running up
to the factory receiving doors with Chucky on his back is excellent,
only topped by Kyle's Indiana Jones move of rolling under the closing
door. Once inside, the same cloud graphics from part one return as
ol' Chuck does his voodoo hoodoo thing. She punts Chucky aside and
guides Andy across all kinds of dangerous equipment to escape. One
part is a production line of rolling bars, where Andy makes it all
the way to the top and then slides back down again when he loses his
grip. The camera follows him all the way down, and it's the coolest
shot in the movie.
During the chase, Chucky looses his hand and replaces it with a knife
by ripping off the handle and shoving the extended part of the blade
into his arm stub. Pretty disgustingly badass. The chase continues
and ultimately the kids best Chucky with the help of some various
machinery, eventually causing him to absolutely explode into a
gigantic goopy mess.
The end, again?
The end, again?
To Be Continued
