Review: Child's Play 2 (1990)

Child's Play 2 (1990)

Rated R

Score: 3 out of 5

Child's Play 2 is, for the most part, more of the same. It's got a higher body count and more Chucky, who's still as good as he was before, though I'd argue that it's a slightly worse film than the original where it counts, with weaker characters and a script that leaves interesting plot threads to dangle. I will, however, add a caveat here: the TV edit of this film that aired on basic cable included a lot of deleted scenes that fleshed out the supporting characters, to the point that many Child's Play fans recommend it over the theatrical cut in something of a Disturbing Behavior situation. (I've seen some fans say that this is the series' best film, and I suspect that most of them are talking about the TV edit, especially since, like the last movie, there really doesn't seem like there's a lot of violence to cut that would make the gorehounds unhappy.) While that film was a more extreme case than this one, it's still clear here that the studio took a weed-whacker to this movie and did a disservice to its story.

That being said, however, even if I found the story lacking and undercooked, there were enough seeds of a good story that did eventually blossom that I still enjoyed myself overall, especially when they were combined with the parts of the film that I unambiguously loved. It still nails the balance of humor and horror that set its predecessor apart, and even with its edits and short runtime, I found that it had enough meat on its bones to sustain itself. It's a far cry from the original, but if you liked that movie and wanna see Chucky back in action, this is still a fun ride.

After the events of the first movie, Karen Barclay was institutionalized and her son Andy is now in foster care. He winds up adopted by Phil and Joanne Simpson, a couple living in the suburbs struggling with Joanne's infertility who wish to adopt in order to finally raise a family. Moving into a new home, he's quickly introduced to his punkish foster sister Kyle (also adopted) and a strange new world far from his mother's working-class existence, all the while being badly scarred by his experience with Chucky. His fear turns out to be well-founded, as that doll is not quite dead, its remains having been taken by the Play Pals toy company that made it so that they can reassure stockholders after all the negative publicity the case got them. (The coverup seems to be "the electronic doll went haywire".) Naturally, once they refurbish Chucky's burnt-up corpse with some new plastic and molding, he immediately returns to form and plots to get revenge on Andy, the one person whose human vessel he can jump into so he can be reborn as a human, all while stalking the suburbs and killing anyone who gets in his way.

Chucky is once more the best part of the movie, played to form by Brad Dourif and brought to life with stellar animatronics that are only less impressive than in the first movie because they've already been done before. Whereas the first film took a bit of time before unleashing Chucky in order to build up a bit of a mystery as to whether he or Andy is doing the killings (an artifact of the original script where it was supposed to be a whodunit), here we all know that Chucky is the villain right out of the gate, and he comes to life in the first act to hold a gun to a man's head and act really grouchy about being a doll. Once more, the focus of the humor wisely isn't on late-period Freddy Krueger slapstick, but the interplay of having an extremely nasty, foul-mouthed criminal who just so happens to look like a children's toy. The secret sauce to Chucky, I feel, is that he's not written as a doll. In his human form, I can picture him as a great supporting character in a crime movie, a larger-than-life crook with a sick idea of fun and a certain gimmick to him who the main character is forced to deal with in order to get what he wants, either as a henchman for the main villain or as a shifty ally with his own agenda. What this film does is let the interplay of that personality and his appearance speak for itself, naturally drawing comedy from how it takes its ridiculous premise seriously while letting Dourif shine as opposed to just throwing a ton of "it's not the size, it's how you use it" doll jokes at the viewer.

This allows the film to maintain some actual scares in its murder sequences, which take the central premise just as seriously by emphasizing that, while a two-foot-tall killer can easily be thrown aside if you catch him, you've actually gotta catch him first, and he can hide in places a normal human can't reach. There is humor too in these sequences, but it's derived from Chucky's sadism and general dickishness. Outside of one standout eye-gouging towards the end, the kills here rely more on both the buildup and Chucky's force of personality than the gore effects. A certain sense of unreal whimsy is inevitable given the premise, but like the first movie, this one plays the basic premise of a killer doll with about as much sincerity as you can hope for.

The writing is where this movie kept me from giving it my unambiguous praise, as with the exception of Andy, most of the characters felt undercooked. I liked how the film explored Andy's trauma and continued paranoia, suggesting that he's probably never gonna have a normal life after what he saw. And it was a good thing that I did, because he was the anchor that kept this movie from flying completely off the rails, with everybody else being a one-note caricature. I liked Kyle's look at first, but her actress gave too flat a performance to really lend her much depth, and she settled into a rather generic final girl by the end. The teacher was styled as a mean, strict schoolmarm, but I didn't really buy it, not when the main instance of her being unreasonably mean to Andy comes because she has good reason to think that Andy did something truly nasty. (Yeah, it was Chucky being an asshole as usual, but she has no reason to even consider an evil doll.) Worst of all was the parents Phil and Joanne, the two characters probably hurt the most by the edits. While they originally had more nuance, with Phil being worried about his and his wife's ability to raise a family while Joanne is desperate to make it work, here Phil comes off as just a dick to Andy while Joanne comes off as a flat housewife. (Also, while Jenny Agutter gave a good performance otherwise, her American accent was extremely shaky.) The subplot about the company that made the Good Guy dolls also felt like it had little to do with the rest of the movie, there just to give an excuse for how Chucky came back. At risk of committing blasphemy, I actually liked how the 2019 remake handled the story about the doll's creators the Kaslan Corporation, using it to comment on callous tech and toy companies that don't care how their products affect people (especially the young). The early scenes seemed like they were leaning towards a similar subplot about the Play Pals Corporation that was satirizing the unsafe toys of that time (Lawn Darts, anyone?), but the film barely did anything with it beyond that except use it as an excuse to set the ending in a toy factory.

The Bottom Line

Despite a weaker script, this was still a worthy follow-up that had most of what made the first movie work, especially Brad Dourif's iconic performance as Chucky and some good scares augmented by great animatronic work. If you liked the original, you'll probably enjoy this as well, though I recommend seeking out the TV version if you can.