Child’s Play 2 (1990)

It’s some months after the end of Child’s Play. Nobody believes the crazy story little Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) and his mother tell about the murders around them having been committed by a doll possessed by a serial killer out to steal Andy’s body, so Mum has been locked up in a psychiatric facility, and Andy is temporarily given into the joyous hands of the foster system. The film never tells us who the police think killed all these people, though they don’t seem to suspect Andy or his mother.

Be that as it may, out to prove that there was nothing at all wrong with their doll Chucky, the company who made him refurbishes the thing, finding nothing (which seems rather curious, what with the thing bleeding in film number one and all), but providing Chucky with the opportunity to live again (and of course to still be voiced by Brad Dourif). Of course, Chucky quickly sneaks and murders his way out.

While that’s going on, Andy is being given to his first foster family. As these things go, Joanne (Jenny Agutter) and Phil Simpson (Gerrit Graham) aren’t bad fosters at all. Well, Joanne’s pretty fantastic at least, while Phil – sceptic of Andy right from the start – will soon show that he’s not the kind of guy you want to have take care of a child with any deeper psychological problems. Andy quickly bonds with Joanne and even more so with the Simpson’s other foster kid, late teen Kyle (Christine Elise) but things take a rather dark turn once Chucky arrives and infiltrates the house as an undercover doll (damn you, mass marketed toys!). Chucky is still attempting to steal Andy’s body, but can’t help killing more people than can be good for his plans.

To enjoy John Lafia’s lesser sequel to that likeable (and sometimes cleverer than people – including myself – give it credit for) semi-classic Child’s Play, one really needs to keep in mind that it doesn’t take place in the real world, not even in the kind of real world where doll-possessing voodoo serial killers are to be found, but in Horror Movie Land.

It’s a place where kids who have gone through a deep trauma are quickly released from an institution to be given in laymen’s hands never to see a psychologist afterwards, where a possessed doll can just phone Foster Central, say it’s a little boy’s uncle, and get all the information about him it needs, where teachers lock unruly little boys up in their classroom (or is that an American thing, like voting insane crypto-fascist billionaires into the highest office?), where factories are built by M.C. Escher and contain absurd health hazards, and where protagonists only ever flee in the most idiotic direction. It is in fact a world where dolls possessed by serial killers are among the more probable things you’ll encounter.

If you’re like me, you can swallow this bizarre nonsense without even having to flinch, and may very well enjoy Child’s Play 2 for its virtues, like the way Don Mancini’s script may contain double the late 80s horror movie stupidity of its predecessor but also features many a clever little flourish to make the main characters a bit more believably human than you’d expect in their surroundings. There’s a sense of respect for the characters (well, most of them) many a horror film of the era lacks to its detriment which helps some of the kills become slightly more than just another murder on the check list. It’s also remarkable how Alex Vincent’s acting has improved in leaps and bounds in comparatively short time.

When that isn’t enough, it is generally a lot of fun to watch Mancini and Lafia (standing before a future of middling TV work) apply all the tricks of the thriller director’s trade to even the most ridiculous of set-ups.

To my own surprise, I even found myself rather pleased with the film’s sense of humour. Late 80s horror movie goofiness abounds, yet Child’s Play 2 never steps over the fine line between silly fun and annoying idiocy (unlike, say, the Nightmare on Elm Street films very quickly did), always realizing when to stop kidding around.

All this doesn’t come together to turn Child’s Play 2 into a masterpiece but it’s an unpretentious and well crafted bit of a good time (with people dying in horrible ways).

Monster! (1999)

Med student Travis (Tobias Mehler) comes to the charmingly named town of New Purgatory (you think it’s nice and sunny there?) to take care of his grandfather Lloyd Reeves (M. Emmet Walsh). When he was younger, Lloyd starred in a long series of local low budget horror movies that are still celebrated with an annual movie festival in town, but in his old age, Lloyd seems to have gotten it into his head these films are actually real, and he has been fighting a monster that returns every three years since 1969. People aren’t just talking about Lloyd, they are starting to think he might be some kind of crazy killer in the making.

After some embarrassing events, the boss of the local psychiatric clinic grudgingly releases Lloyd into Travis’s custody. Lloyd tries to explain the whole problem to Travis as he sees it: there’s not just the monster problem threatening the town, the place is actually getting trapped in the rules and tropes of one of his monster movies too whenever monster time comes around. Not surprisingly, Travis doesn’t believe a single word of this, and when a teenage couple is killed while Lloyd is out and about screeching warnings like a madman while wielding an axe, he even believes the going theory his grandpa is an axe-murdering maniac.

However, Travis will change his tune soon enough, and he, the town doctor’s daughter Jill (Angela Keep), and the white, hip-hop loving youth of town might just take over the town hero job from Lloyd.

The 90s were a particularly bad time for horror TV movies; as a matter of fact they were a pretty bad time for TV movies period. So stumbling about a neat little film like John Lafia’s horror comedy made for the UPN (whatever that is) among the dross is a rather pleasant event. What’s even more pleasant is that this is actually a film that gets the ironic and knowing approach to horror film – or to be precise, old monster movies – right. There’s neither superior smugness that suggests the filmmakers don’t actually like the genre they are working in nor the big gesture of deconstructing the genre further than the film actually does on display. Lafia’s approach is loving, slightly nostalgic, and often actually funny, playing with the elements that make up a monster movie while still allowing the film to be one.

You could of course argue the film treats its material in a rather harmless way, never really delving into how horrible the basic concept of a town regularly trapped in monster movie tropes actually is, with people forgetting the dead afterwards and falling into the character types of low budget movies every three years. It’s as nightmarish as Thomas Ligotti’s philosophical stance, the longer I think about it. But then, it’s probably for the better it’s not me writing these movies, or what is supposed to be a fun, knowing romp would turn into weird cosmicist nightmare without any solution.

Monster! isn’t totally unconscious of these things, though. At least, it makes the very sympathetic attempt to change the role of The Girl into something more active, even suggesting Jill might be the more competent Town Hero, which isn’t at all something I’d expected to find in a TV movie of its time. Why, there might even be hope of the town breaking out of the endless cycle and moving into another movie.

Otherwise, Monster! is very much your typical fun TV monster movie, the sort of thing you might get to see on the SyFy Channel if you’re lucky, with an unconvincing yet cute CGI monster, inexperienced but decent and pretty leads supported by some experienced character actors (Walsh is a total hoot, it’s only too bad he never actually played in many monster movies), and competent direction. I can see this as a feel-good movie for the whole family, if your family is a bit like mine.

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