Child's Play 2 1990

Dir: John Lafia
St: Brad Dourif;  Alex Vincent;  Christine Elise; Jenny Agutter

At the end of the first film Chucky, the evil killer doll, was somewhat...charred. As the sequel opens we see the doll being refurbished.  Apparently the toy company wants to find the cause of the reported 'malfunction'.

The first death happens almost immediately and tells us what sort of film we can expect. It's ridiculous and cartoonish with no sense of horror whatsoever. I doubt anyone over the age of 12 would even blink. But it does signify that Chucky is back.

His little friend Andy Barclay is in foster care after his mum was sectioned for raving about a killer doll. Now Chucky needs to track him down to avoid being trapped in his plastic form forever. He escapes the factory when a toy exec throws him in the boot of his car. He repeatedly slams the door on the doll's head and we think 'uh oh,he's not going to like that!'.

There is no mystery in this film. Chucky is facially and physically mobile from the start and wise cracking all the way. Unfortunately this means the film is less scary than the first and lacks suspense in the beginning but tension is still created by Chucky's relentless stalking.

Andy (still cute) is staying with a sweet little family who have no idea what they are getting into when they take Andy into their home. Chucky quickly manages to infiltrate the house by taking the place of another Good Guy doll (is there a word for doll murder? Plasticide perhaps?).

Of course Andy's foster parents don't heed his warnings about Chucky and they both meet a nasty end. There are a couple of nice hints early in the film to potential grisly murder weapons. One is a brutal looking machine in the toy factory and the other is an old fashioned sewing machine which we fear could be used to horrible effect.

People seem to die in really schlocky ways, with bug eyes and mouths agape - neither scary nor gruesome. In parts the film actually seems more parody than sequel. Still I cannot deny how messed up Chucky can look. His expression is feral, brutal and inhuman.An actors face can only move in certain ways but with a doll the features can be distorted to monstrous proportions.

Andy's foster sister, Kyle, doesn't seem too phased by a knife wielding devil-doll and I had to wonder if she was a sassy precursor to Sydney Prescott five years later?  When Chucky eventually catches up to Andy it's Kyle to the rescue. Very improbably the final players end up at the toy factory. We get another little nod to Kubrick here as Kyle and Andy are pursued through a maze of boxes.

I must admit that the escape scene in the toy factory is fairly nerve jangling,  with Chucky's grotesquely determined face and his hellish screams when he tries to free his trapped hand from a machine.

In fact the closing scenes of this film are amongst my favourite in all horror movies and I'm not going to spoil it by saying more... Ok let me just say that there is gore, tension and some full on scary nastiness. Chucky's curtain call is spectacularly gruesome, almost barf worthy.  Let's face it,  there are things you can do to plastic that you csnnot do ti flesh. And a hybrid of the two is just gross.

As with the first film, suspend disbelief,  munch your popcorn and have a laugh. It's not a masterpiece but its watchable and the ending merits 6/10.