Child's Play 2

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Like all great horror villains, Chucky would have his fair share of sequels to follow, starting with 'Child's Play 2' in 1990. It's relatively standard as far as horror sequels go - villain miraculously comes back to life for revenge, the lead comes back to be placed in some sort of special care scenario ('Elm Street 3', 'Halloween 5', 'Friday 5'), and several "nobody" characters are taken out by the killer in an ultimate mission of revenge (or copycatting). This was right around the time slasher horror was at a tipping point, but this managed to hold its own.

This time around, we are reunited with an 8-year-old Andy (Alex Vincent), two years after the events of the first film. He has since been placed in foster care while his mother has been placed under special care for her "delusions" about her boy's murderous doll, Chucky (Brad Douriff). Because of Andy and his mother's ravings about Chucky, the PlayPals toy company finds and rebuilds the doll in an effort to prove to the public that he's actually safe, and the Good Guy toy line isn't faulty. Once the eyes are put in, Chucky comes back to life, and he continues to pursue Andy in order to get his soul into Andy's body. Otherwise, he becomes "human" (but still in doll form), and trapped in that body.

In this chapter, Andy meets and befriends a teen trouble-maker (using the term loosely) named Kyle (Christine Elise). Here, she plays the role of caretaker to Andy just a bit more than the actual Foster parents. In some ways, she could be seen as the "final girl", but she's also a one-off who seems to be more of a mother figure for this chapter. Andy is the lead for this series, making the 'Child's Play' movies a little more unique in comparison to slashers of the time - the hero is just a little kid whereas the hero for basically anything else horror is a teenager played by a 30-something-year-old (with a few exceptions). It's further unique how often Vincent comes back to reprise this role, when you take Tommy Jarvis of 'Friday the 13th' and John Conner of 'Terminator' into consideration (someone new every time). They only missed once with 'Child's Play 3'.

I might like this one just a little bit more than the original. They both have their merits, and I might suggest that the original is far more creepy. But as a slasher flick, this fits a bit more with the horror tropes of the time (which my or may not be a good thing, depending on personal opinion). Plus, if I'm being honest, Chucky just looks a hell of a lot better here. He's still got that otherworldly animation to him, but he also looks and sounds so much more sinister in this one. He's actually more scary here, playing a monster, whereas in the first one he was very much still just a killer inside a doll. Sometimes it still looks kinda silly, but it didn't seem like we were watching children running around in Chucky masks as doubles, like in the first one (although we probably still did - they just did a better job of it here).

For my money, 'Child's Play 2' is a very worthy sequel to its predecessor, and the two films are very easy to watch back-to-back as a three-hour film. Though it might not quite be as creepy as the original, it still does a good with job developing Andy, making Chucky a little more vicious than he was before, and some of the kills get pretty creative. Of the original three, I'd probably suggest that this is my favourite, but the original is still the best overall. As for three, that re-review is coming soon. Although Chucky's not exactly my favourite horror villain, this is probably where I've enjoyed him the most aside from 'Curse'. So if you wanna go back to the old school slasher days, I'd recommend back-to-backing these on a dark and stormy night. It's good old fashioned slasher horror fun with a unique twist.

Body Count: 7
​Total: 11

​4/5​

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