I remember seeing Child’s Play 2 probably in 1991 at my buddy, Joe Reynold’s house. I thoroughly enjoyed this film then. I may have considered it better than the original. I was also a dumb 10 or 11 years old then. Back then, Joe and I went to some school dance. When we returned to his place, he thought it would be funny to scare his older sister, Holly. I don’t remember what he actually did, I want to say tapped on the glass or some such nonsense. Harmless, right? A minute or two later the neighbor across the street approached us wielding a gun. I learned a valuable lesson that night. That was the first and only night that I ever had a gun pointed at me. Terrifying!
I read up a little on this film. There’s something that really bothers me and I will talk about it when the time is right. Right now, I am eating a spicy chicken cup of soup, like the ramen soups in the styrofoam container. I took a nap to ease my headache. I’m ready. Catherine Hicks isn’t in this one. Beth Grant is in this as a teacher, I believe. The cast isn’t anything great, but they brought back Alex Vincent to play Andy. Brad Dourif remains the voice of Chucky. So we’re good, I hope. Come on nostalgia, don’t let me down like you always seem to. Let’s start Child’s Play 2.
Start Film
The opening credits show someone cleaning up the old burned Chucky and assembling him with a clean look and new parts. But why? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just make a new doll? Maybe not cheaper, more cost-effective considering the time spent. We arrive at the Play Pals Toy factory.
We meet Mr. Sullivan who owns the company and this guy named Mattson who is catching Sullivan up on things. It’s a way to catch us, viewers, up and tell us some important things. The police denied any of the crazy shit with the original Chucky. This led Andy’s mom, Karen, into a psychiatric ward of sorts. Now Andy is a ward of the state, presumably. Mattson thinks that someone must have messed with the cassette tape in the evil Chucky. But they got the doll back and are cleaning it up.
I can now touch on the thing that I didn’t like. I hate how they handled Karen and Mike. They both had stories to tell that were cut. Originally, there was supposed to be a court scene with Karen, but nope, it got cut. And the actress was available on set since she was married to Chucky’s main puppeteer. Mike was cut for budgetary purposes. If you know that you have something that is going to make money, find a way to please your fans. It’s not that complicated. Imagine if Marvel did that. The fans would be pissed.
I have one more thing to point out. This came out in November of 1990 and takes place in Chicago. Do you know what horror icon made his debut a week later in a film that takes place in Chicago? Home Alone premiered one week later, and we all know that we went on to become Jigsaw.
Sullivan wants to see the doll in his office. The toymakers were doing the final touches and the machine paused then electrocuted the one guy. What a ridiculous scene. Are we supposed to attribute the electricity to anything? By the time the paramedics appear, Chucky is elsewhere in the room and Sullivan is a dick.
We meet The Simpsons, Joanne and Phil, and they are going to be Andy’s foster parents. Phil is a bad driver. Do you think they ever regret going with Simpson as the last name? A year prior, The Simpsons had their own show debut on FOX. We meet Kyle, she is a blond chick that is supposed to be a teen, but she is clearly much older. She doesn’t like rules and likes to smoke. She wants to work but Joanne wants her to spend more time at home. Kyle doesn’t expect to live there much longer. I don’t expect her to live much longer.
Mattson stops at a liquor store to get his woman drunk on their two week anniversary. Chucky takes this opportunity to use Mattson’s car phone to call where Andy is and talks to a lady named Grace Poole. Mattson also doesn’t carry money and only has his gold card, and the liquor store owner refuses the card and only accepts cash. Think about that one and how we are nowadays. His car alarm is going off but he doesn’t notice anything odd. Chucky pulls a gun on Mattson, a toy gun, but a gun nonetheless. Chucky ties up Mattson and squirts him in the head. Then he suffocates him with a plastic bag while his hands are tied behind his back. That poor girl won’t be getting drunk tonight.
Oh yeah, the Simpsons have a Good Guys doll and his name is Tommy. They have had many foster kids it appears. Andy misses his mom. Chucky has already found Andy’s new home. He beats up Tommy with the antique doll and then buries Tommy in the backyard. Phil is superfly pissed about the doll being broken. Phil grounds them both. Kyle has a red bow in her hair, a green sweater, some long jean shorts, and some tights underneath. I gotta hand it to her, she knows how to dress. Andy tells Tommy that he hates him and checks his batteries, and “Tommy” has batteries in him.
Chucky has tied Andy in his sleep. Chucky wants that soul. Kyle happens to come in through Andy’s window. This wakes everybody up. Phil says that Kyle tied up Andy. Chucky got tossed in the basement. The next day, Kyle is in a black sweater, a brown plaid skirt, and has a necklace with a giant key on it. Andy gets on the bus and one kid shoves him because he could. Ohhhh, but Chucky is hiding under the bus. Andy spends recess tossing a red dodgeball at a cage that is 6 inches in front of him.
There’s Beth Grant as Miss Kettlewell, Andy’s teacher. The shoving boy is sitting behind Andy and flicks his ear. Andy gets in trouble. On Andy’s test paper, Chucky wrote FUCK YOU BITCH. Andy has to stay late in the locked classroom and Chucky is in the locked closet. Chucky wants ANgy to let him out. Andy escapes through a window. When Kettlewell returns, she demands that Andy come out of the closet, not like Tom Cruise, but an actual closet. She searches this big closet. Oh, I don’t have a good feeling about this Beth. You’ll do Speed in a few years and the world will know you. Chucky stabs her with a ball pump and she goes flying. Absurd. Chucky kills her with a yardstick.
Phil is pissed off when he asks Andy about what happened. Phil shows Andy that Tommy was down in the basement all along. Phil wants Andy gone, and Joanne doesn’t want to give up. Kyle tries to give him encouragement. Andy doesn’t give a fuck. He knows he gonna get got by Chucky.
At night, Andy finds the electric knife, and he wants to fuck Chucky up. Andy is stabbing the laundry. He goes to attack Chucky, but he hides when Phil shows up. Phil approached Andy. Phil gets tripped by Chucky and then dropped on his dome. Phil is dead and Joanne is pissed. She packs Andy’s shit up and Grace is there and Kyle is there too. Andy warns Kyle that Chucky is still in the basement. Grace takes Andy away.
Kyle takes Chucky and brings him outside and throws him in the garbage can. Kyle relaxes on the swing. This will end well for her. She kicks up first, right where Tommy was buried. Ohhhh shiiiit. Chucky is no longer in the garbage can. Kyle, just bail. Fuck Joanne and bail. Or scissor her and bail. Just bail. Kyle finds a sweet knife stashed away. There’s an ominous ball of red yarn. That’s fun. Kyle enters Joanne’s room and she has been killed. Chucky is behind Kyle. It’s on! Kyle hits him with a lamp but she dropped the sweet knife and now Chucky has it. This bad, mmkay. Chucky sweeps the leg and makes her drive him to Andy. He makes her drive fast and now a cop is following her. Do they still make Station Wagons? The cop is impressed by Kyle having a Good Guy, one who bleeds.
Grace tucks Andy in. Kyle gets sick o Chucky’s demands and sends him flying through the windshield. She tries to run him over and it was such a fail. She crashes into a wire fence. Chucky sneaks up on her and has her again. Andy has changed into the blue and yellow shirt that may look familiar to fans of Kindergarten Cop. Kyle pulls the fire alarm at the orphanage or whatever the place is called. Grace and Andy are the last 2 down and Chucky has a knife to Kyle’s back. Grace is pissed. Everybody in this film is just anger. Think about it. The happiest person was probably the officer that pulled over Kyle.
Grace takes Chucky from Kyle, and Chucky stabs Grace. Kyle tries to get Andy, but Chucky closes the door. Kyle is really bad at doing anything other than dressing fashionably. Chucky is riding on Andy’s back like Yoda did with Luke, except Chucky has the sweet knife. They hitch a ride on the back of a newspaper truck. Kyle is now gonna follow them. Kyle has chased them down. Chucky gives her the finger. She tries to get the driver to pull over, but now Andy and Chucky are gone. The driver looked like a younger, thinner version of Stanley from The Office. Ah, Andy is heading to the toy factory.
There are so many boxes of Good Guys since it is the Christmas season. Chucky is trying to perform the ritual, yet again and so it begins storming outside. He completes it, but it is too late. Chucky is trapped in the doll’s body. This is Chucky at his finest. He is so pissed off and Kyle comes in to save Andy. They go through this maze of Good Guys. Just knock the boxes over to dumbass.
They escape and find where the rollers are for products. I don’t know the technical term. Andy slides down and Chucky is on his heels. Kyle drops a gate onto Chucky’s hand. Looks super painful. He has to tear himself away from his hand. I hope Chucky is left-handed. Chucky spends time taking the handle off the knife and putting the blade in his arm. It’s pretty badass.
I want to know what the plan is for Kyle. Are you going to hang out here and keep running? There is a pileup by where the eyes are inserted. A technician comes down to fix it. He is in for a bad time. Yup, Chucky hits him and then he falls and gets a pair of eyes. Chucky goes after Andy but Andy ducks. Chucky is sent into a machine that is gonna fuck him up. Yup, it mangled him all to hell. But he’s still alive, right? Right? Chucky is attached to a board on wheels and Kyle just got taken out. Chucky got his knife stuck. Andy pours the hot melted plastic on Chucky, but Kyle is on a conveyer belt to death. Andy wakes her up just in time. They find Chucky and he rises one last time. But she puts this air hose in his mouth that causes his head to explode.
Kyle is going to take Andy home, wherever that may be. That’s the end of Child’s Play 2.
End Film
Was this intended to be the final film for the franchise? You always wonder that. And deep down inside, it is safe to assume that they write off a clear enough ending in case the film bombs, you can say it was the final one. But this was only the second film. I think they knew they had something with this franchise but needed a second successful film before they felt comfortable. Good thing they only needed two to feel comfortable because part 3…I’m not looking forward to that one.
This was fine for what it was, but a definite decline in quality. The visual effects were improved, but the acting and storytelling were pretty mediocre. The story could have been so much better. The camerawork that made the original so fun was no longer there. The girl who played Kyle, Christine Elise, clearly was trying hard. She did the best that she could but they wrote a bad role for her. Look at how they wrote Julie in New Nightmare and you can see how much better written that was.
I thought that Joanne would have a significantly bigger role, but she didn’t. Neither did Grace. They were both fodder for Chucky. Aside from Andy, what characters were really fleshed out? As I said earlier, most of the characters were just pissed off. I love the toy factory as the final location and is what I will always remember in this franchise. The toy factory has always stuck with me. The maze of Good Guys felt like a subtle nod to The Shining and Kubrick.
The problem here is that while you can re-watch it, once every decade is more than enough. It lacks heart. But Chucky became more crazed, and that matters because the horror icons need to constantly up their game or else they become stale as hell.
Rating: 5.2 – I know that’s a significant drop from the original to the sequel, but too many missed opportunities to go any higher. It was fun, but thankfully it was only 85 minutes.
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