Part 2 Week: Child's Play 2

Howdy boys and girls!  Welcome to Day 2 of Part 2 Week, the progression of sequels for horror films and the hideous and vile need for more capitalism.  Today is no exception in the realm of franchise as we taking a mildly eerie story of voodoo, soul transference and killer dolls to a height or low as it were.  A story of a wee lad that tormented by his bestest buddy in multiple murders and even attacks on his own person.  No, Barney did not get on a drunken terror and threaten to eviscerate a child so sorry.  This is Child's Play 2.

KHAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!!!!!!

Chucky: Okay, sport. We're gonna have a little game of Chucky Says.  Chucky says move your spoiler. Snap out of it! Ya act like ya never seen a dead body before!





With director Tom Holland (Fright Night, Fatal Beauty, The Temp, The Langoliers, Thinner and Masters of Horror) passing on the next opportunity, budding horror/scifi director John Lafia (Freddy's Nightmares, Dark Justice, Corpse Killer, Babylon 5, Stephen King's Dead Zone and The Rats) and Chucky creator Don Mancini resurrect the fallen Lake Shore Strangler, Charles Lee Ray for another helping of horror.

So opening with the typical time moving forward it has been two years since young Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent of Child's Play, Just Like in the Movies, Dead Country, House Guest and Curse of Chucky) had any incident with his "Good Guy" doll and the media has lost interest.  Please, 2 weeks and they would have moved on.  The company is backed up with dolls and we need to get production off right.   A slight incident involving a technician getting fried and driving fake plastic eyes through his ocular cavities does sort of set the tone.  I am seeing lawsuits, EPA, regulations people swarming but let us not dwell on repercussions of this nature.  Andy has been moved to a foster home due to his mother screaming in defense that her son was attacked by a killer doll and was sent to a psychiatric hospital.  The cops are staying away from the case in spite of two plain clothes that know the score.   Loosely translated, we could not afford Chris Sarandon's salary this time around.

I could take that leprechaun easily! 

With Chucky's...essence floating back into the newly reconditioned body of his Good Guy hell, He is looking for the one human that knows his true name and will take his body over for his own end.  Foster parents Joanne (Jenny Agutter of Walkabout, Logan's Run, An American Werewolf in London, The Alan Clark Diaries, The Invisibles and The Avengers) and Phil Simpson (Gerrit Graham of Cannonball!, Demon Seed, Used Cars, The Annihilators, Chopping Mall, Police Academy 6: City Under Siege and C.H.U.D. II- Bud the Chud) and who wouldn't want to be looked after by Jessica 6 and Bud the Chud?   Andy encounters Kyle (Christine Elise of China Beach, Boiling Point, Body Snatchers, In the Heat of the Night, ER and Mojave Phone Booth), a quick witted, no nonsense teen growing up way too fast and blah, blah blah.

After a fright with a Good Guy doll, Andy is settling in only to have Chucky nightmares and thrash in his sleep.  Were they truly nightmares or a deep foreboding dread of things to come?

Okay, now I am on about the pros and cons of this creation.  If we look purely by box office, the film actually doubled its investment so no money was really lost here.  We took a creepy story of an evil man prolonging his life through a doll and tried to turn it into a slasher franchise.   Animatronics puppetry and Special FX technician Kevin Yagher (Tales from the Crypt, Child's Play, Radio Flyer, Conspiracy Theory and Starship Troopers) and his production team really bring life into the Chucky puppets.  The effects for the doll have clearly improved and you have a wide range of different puppets  giving forced perspective, a really good POV shot and a rig you could wear on your arm to fight with, so the cheese factor is down a hair but at the same time I am really struggling with how any creature that barely comes up to my knee is that scary.
 
Brad Douriff pre-recorded most of his work so young Alex Vincent was more or less responding to a voice on tape as he interacted with the doll of doom.  Now they do not officially say what time of year this is all taking place but you get the feel it is early Fall and the Good Guy company is probably attempting to push their poorly made hammers, screwdrivers and horribly possessed dolls on the market again hence the big board meeting pow wow.   You should see their Bettie line ups with the doll houses built on ancient burial grounds.

Just my sinuses.  Nothing to worry about.