Greetings, and welcome back to October Horror Fest! Today, we will discuss one of my favorite horror movies, and one I’ve seen well over 10 times. It’s the sequel to one of the greats, and deserves its spot as one of the best horror sequels ever made. Beloved by its community, including myself, it holds a special place in the hearts of fans. Let’s see if today’s film can beat its predecessor, while giving us some scares in the process. Without further ado, sit back, relax, turn off the lights, grab some Candy and Popcorn, and let’s review…

Child’s Play 2

Our film begins with Play Pal toys, the owners of the Good Guy brand. Under a panic due to the Andy Barcaly incident, the company is trying to please stockholders. We learn that Karen Barcaly supported Andy’s story in court, and was taken to a psychiatric hospital. Andy is now in the foster system, waiting for a new family. We see our two executives, Mr. Sullivan, the CEO of the company or a high up board member, and Max, a low level exec. Max gives Mr. Sullivan the rundown, and assures him that the brand will be ok. We see that Play Pal toys got a hold of Chucky, still burnt and destroyed from the events of the first film. The company is in the middle of cleaning him up fully, turning him into a brand new Doll. Little did they know that the myth of the Lakeshore Strangler possessing the doll is true. Chucky is being worked on by two technicians. When they go to place Chucky’s eyes in, however, the machine stops. The technician begins to try to get it working, until lightning shoots out of Chucky, blasting the technician through the wall and immediately killing him. After the catastrophic death, Sullivan asks Max to clean up the entire situation, and as far as he and the stockholders know, the matter is finished. Sullivan gives Max Chucky, and leaves the scene.

We catch up with our boy, Andy Baracly. He is in the foster care building, and is struggling with his trauma. A new family arrives at the center, Phil and Joanne Simpson. The Simpsons (not to be confused with the actual Simpsons) have fostered many kids, and Andy will be there next. Phil, however, is cautious. We learn that everyone at the center thinks Andy turned his story about the murders into a fairytale, insisting that Chucky did it. We, of course, know he isn’t lying. Phil and Joanne eventually take Andy back to their house, where he meets our other main character, Kyle. Kyle is a 17 year old girl, with only one year left in the foster system, and who’s been in more families than she can count. By the way, she’s awesome (we’ll see this later). Kyle is at first dismissive of Andy, and he goes to his new room. Once in there, he finds a Good Guy doll, which immediately triggers his PTSD. Andy struggling with his trauma is a recurring theme of this amazing film, and will come up later.

We cut back to Max and Chucky, with Max now riding his car back home. He takes a pit stop, and Chucky uses this time to his advantage. He calls the foster center, posing as Andy’s “Uncle Charles”. He gets the location of his friend till the end, and holds Max hostage long enough to drive him to the Simpson’s house. Once there, he strangles Max with a plastic bag, and heads into the home. Chucky stumbles upon Tommy, the other Good Guy doll that Andy was afraid of. He smashes Tommy’s head in with an antique figure that is very important to Joanne. He takes Tommy, and buries him in the backyard, laughing hysterically.

The next day, Phil finds the broken figure, and grounds both Andy and Kyle after none of them confess to a crime they didn’t commit. We see Andy and Kyle’s bond grow closer and closer, and Phil becomes more distant and distant from his foster son. Chucky poses as Tommy, even briefly forgetting Tommy’s name, but remembering it just in time to fool Andy. Andy, still a child, brings “Tommy” with him to play with. Kyle and Andy head outside to play on the swings, and almost disturb the dirt below them just enough to expose Tommy’s body. Chucky knows that would be the end, and takes this as his time to strike.

Chucky ties Andy up using jump rope, and uses a Sock as a gag. He wakes Andy up, and he starts panicking. Chucky tells his old friend to play “Hide the Soul” with him, and begins his chant to transfer his soul into Andy before he becomes Human. This is, until Kyle comes in the window. Kyle is mortified by the sight, and unties Andy. He immediately tells her to kill Chucky, until Phil and Joanne come in. Phil has had enough with Andy, and throws Chucky into the basement, ensuring him that it’s all in his mind. The next day, Andy goes for his first day of School. He is ostracized by the kids around him, and is taken into detention on his first day. This is due to Chucky, being Chucky, writing obscenities on Andy’s homework for the teacher to see. Miss Kettlewell immediately holds Andy after school, and locks Chucky in the closet. She also pulls a pretty illegal move, and locks Andy in the classroom as she leaves. Chucky immediately makes his presence known, begging Andy to let him out in a kind voice, before turning and yelling curses at him. Andy escapes through a window, and runs back home. Miss Kettlewell comes back inside, sees the closet door rattling, and believes Andy is in there. She goes in, and in an extremely tense scene, Chucky strikes. He stabs her and flings her across the classroom, walking out of the closet with a ruler in his hand. He uses this same ruler to beat Miss Kettlewell to death.

Andy gets home, and is immediately yelled at by Phil. Phil has never liked the boy, and opens the closet door to show him that Chucky is still there. Chucky, of course, got home before the boy, and is sitting exactly where Phil left him. Later that night, we hear Phil talking about Andy. Joanne, who likes the boy, is trying to calm Phil down. Phil, on the other hand, hates Andy. Saying he needs professional help, and that he isn’t their real child. Kyle comes into Andy’s room, and a heartbreaking scene ensues. Andy tells Kyle that they will send him away, and he assures him that he needs to learn how to trust himself and count on only himself, and that he will be ok. Keep in mind, this poor boy is only 8 years old. Andy, still carrying the weight of his trauma, tells Kyle it doesn’t matter. Wherever he goes, Chucky will find him. This scene highlights his true loss of innocence due to the first film, and shows the heartbreak he endured.

Andy finally decides to act, and in the middle of the night, grabs a knife and goes to confront Chucky. An extremely, extremely intense scene follows, with Andy checking the basement, until he is finally attacked by Chucky. Chucky is able to knock Andy down to the floor. Before Chucky can transfer his soul, however, Andy grabs his knife and slashes Chucky in the face. Phil, hearing the commotion, comes down to the basement. He sees Andy with the knife, and tells him to drop it. Chucky, being the psychopath he is, grabs a hold of Phil’s Pajamas with a fire poker, which causes Phil to fall off the side of the stairs, and hang by a thread of his pants. Chucky, in true Chucky fashion, asks Phil, “How’s it hanging?”. Chucky then drops the fire poker, and Phi falls, immediately breaking his neck. Chucky goes to hide, and Kyle and Joanne head downstairs. Joanne breaks down next to her husband, and Kyle goes to call an ambulance. When Andy tries to approach his foster mother, she snaps at him, and tells him to get away.

Joanne starts packing Andy’s things, and sends him away with the foster house manager, Mrs. Poole. Kyle says goodbye to Andy, and hands him his suitcase. Andy tells her to be weary. Chucky is still in the cellar, and not to let him get her too. Kyle heeds his warning, and throws Chucky in the trash. Kyle heads outside to swing on the swing, and starts uncovering the dirt underneath her. She finds Tommy’s body, and goes to check on the trash can in a very tense scene. She takes off the lid, and Chucky is gone. We then hear a crash from Joanne’s room, and Kyle rushes into the house, but not before grabbing a knife. What follows is a terrifying scene, and still makes me nervous on my millionth viewing of this movie. Kyle goes into the dark hallway that leads to Joanne’s room, and finally finds her sitting in her chair, sewing. Kyle turns her around, and she’s gone. Her throat was slit, and she was gagged. Kyle is horrified, and falls back onto the bed. This is when Chucky rises from underneath the covers, and grabs her. Kyle and Chucky engage in a brawl, with Chucky getting a hold of her knife, and taking her hostage. Chucky forces her to drive him to Andy, and she begrudgingly concedes. Chucky, close to the foster center, tells Kyle to floor it, and that she does. Buckling herself in, she accelerates and rapidly stops, flinging Chucky out of the windshield. Chucky climbs back on to the car with his knife, and Kyle accelerates once again, flinging him against a Metal fence. She reverses and comes in once again, attempting to kill Chucky, but misses him. In a terrifying choice, Kyle gets out of the car to rescue Andy, and is once again subdued by Chucky, with him not messing around anymore. Being carried on her back, and holding a knife to her neck, Chucky and Kyle arrive at the foster center.

Andy, knowing that Chucky would find him, gets out of his Pajamas when Mrs. Poole leaves, and gets into his clothes and shoes. The fire alarm blares, and all the kids get out of the building. Once Andy and Mrs. Poole gets downstairs, they find Kyle and Chucky. Chucky is being held by her side, with his knife inching further and further up the back of Kyle’s neck, still hidden out of view. Mrs. Poole takes both Andy and Kyle into her office, and grabs Chucky away from Kyle. Chucky takes this as his time to strike, and stabs Mrs. Poole. She falls onto a printer, and photos of her dying face are printed and fall onto her corpse, in one of the Chucky franchise’s most famous kills. Kyle attempts to run out of the room with Andy, but Chucky won’t let that happen. He locks Kyle out while she bangs on the door, and plays “Chucky Says” with Andy. Andy, traumatized by the sight in front of him, freezes. Chucky horrifically asks him what’s wrong, and how it’s like he’s never seen a dead body before. Chucky takes Andy hostage, and tells him to run out of the room. They run to the open back of a newspaper truck, and wait to drive away.

Kyle notices, and hops back in the deserted Station Wagon to give pursuit. She is eventually able to force the truck off the road, but isn’t fast enough to get Andy. Andy and Chucky begin to run, and Kyle follows, heading back into the setting from the beginning, the Play Pal Toys factory. This is an incredible ending setting, and it makes for a truly amazing end. Chucky runs through the maze of Good Guy dolls stacked up high, and knocks Andy out. “Rest your eyes and count to Seven, once you wake you’ll be in heaven” the doll says to the boy, and begins the chant. He is so close to taking over Andy… until everything stops. The clouds that herald the Soul switch have gone away, and no lightning has struck. Andy wakes up, and Chucky begins to bleed from his nose. Chucky realizes his worst nightmare. He has become human again, and is now forever trapped in the body of the Good Guy Doll. Chucky, losing all purpose of keeping Andy alive, starts to attack. Kyle, from a floor above the two, pushes Good Guy Doll boxes onto Chucky, buying them some time. Kyle and Andy reunite, and immediately begin to run through the maze. Chucky breaks free of the boxes, and gives hot pursuit.

Kyle and Andy eventually reach the assembly line of the dolls, and climb up onto another level of the building. As Andy climbs after Kyle, Chucky appears, stabbing his knife close to the boy’s feet. Andy is finally able to get up with the help of Kyle, and Kyle closes the mini-gate on Chucky, pinning his hand to the floor. Kyle and Andy begin to run once more, and Chucky does the unthinkable. In great pain, he pulls his arm off of his hand, blood and arteries spilling everywhere, as he is once again human. He takes his knife, throws away the hilt, and stabs it into his own hand, now having a knife for a hand as a new weapon. Kyle and Andy make their way onto the Good Guy assembly line, barely missing a machine that inserts the eyes into the dolls. As they run, they cause a load up of Good Guy dolls on the line, and a technician comes down to repair the system. Chucky takes this as his time to strike, and as the technician begins to walk away, he is pinned down onto the line by Chucky. Fake eyes replace his real ones, and he is killed immediately in what is debatably the Child’s Play Franchise’s most famous kill.

Kyle and Andy find a machine that takes parts of multiple dolls and molds them together with plastic. Before they can use this machine, Chucky attacks, and Kyle gets Andy to duck just in time under Chucky’s blade. The assembly line starts once again, and staples Chucky to a plank headed to the machine. Chucky falls victim to the machine, and is seemingly killed while we see legs and arms get inserted into the machine, and the haunting screams of the doll. The monstrosity is then removed from the machine, now being hot plastic melded together with arms and legs, all covered in blood. Andy and Kyle both seemingly take this as the end of Chucky, and begin to leave. This is until we see a blood trail on the ground. Before the pair can leave, Kyle is knocked out by the swinging body of the technician on a rope, and falls onto the assembly line heading back to the Machine. Andy looks down, and in pure horror, sees Chucky, now missing his legs. He is covered in blood, wheeling himself to the boy on a board, swinging his knife maniacally. Andy dodges both of his knife swings, one cutting an electrical wire, leaving it writhing on the ground like a snake, and one lodging Chucky’s arm into a gutter. Andy looks up, and sees the overflow valve of hot wax right above him. Chucky now looks up in his own pure horror, as Andy releases the valve, covering the doll. Andy barely is able to save Kyle from entering the Machine, and the pair finally, finally, reach the end. Kyle looks at what happened to Chucky… and then he jumps up. He flails his arms at Kyle in a desperate attempt to kill her, now a monstrosity of wax. Kyle picks up the electric wire from before, and jams it into Chucky’s mouth. Chucky’s head begins to inflate, and the pair run and hide under stairs. Chucky’s head finally explodes, sending pieces everywhere.

Kyle, and an even more traumatized Andy finally leave the facility, stepping into the daylight. Andy asks Kyle where to go, and she replies to the boy, saying “home”. Andy asks where this is, and Kyle says she has no idea. The pair set out, not knowing where they’ll end up, but always knowing that they’ll be together. 

I hope you all enjoyed my review of Child’s Play 2! I apologize for the sequel so soon, but I absolutely ADORE this film, and I wanted to share it with you all! As day 10 approaches, we are almost ⅓ of the way done with the challenge, and I’m feeling amazing! I hope you all are too, but don’t forget the fear! However, when you go to sleep tonight, I’m warning you now, just remember… No matter how far you go, Chucky will always find you…