Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by John Lafia
• Written by Don Mancini
• Starring
  • Alex Vincent
  • Jenny Agutter
  • Gerrit Graham
  • Christine Elise
  • Brad Dourif
• Produced by David Kirschner

The biggest problem with most horror sequels is how to bring the wisecracking titular bad guy back from what was pretty certain destruction at the end of the last movie. If you can get audiences to swallow a bolt of lightning, a flame-pissing dog, or “just ‘cuz,” then the movie will proceed just fine.

However, in the case of Child’s Play 2, not only is the resurrection far-fetched, but the filmmakers expect us to keep suspending our disbelief in equally large chunks throughout the running time.

To begin with, the resurrection: the Play Pals Toys corporation, under the burden of bad tabloid press about killer dolls, acquires the Chucky doll and refurbishes it to show stockholders that it’s okey-dokey. (In said refurbishment, we find out that the Good Guy doll has an improbable metal skull, which you would expect to make our little plastic killer topheavy. Think about it; it’s kinda comical. “I’m gonna get you, Andy! I’m gonna [THUD] Ow! Not again!”)

Of course, the CEO scrubs the idea of a song-and-dance for the jittery stockholders, especially when the automatic eye-insertion apparatus electrocutes one of the technicians putting Chucky back together, leaving the smarmy junior exec to do, well, something with it.

His “something” turns out to be taking it home with him.

Meanwhile, poor Andy is in a state home; his mother is under psychiatric evaluation because she won’t deny her story of a murderous doll, so Andy’s being farmed out for foster care. Despite the fact that he’ll still tell anyone who asks that the murders were committed by a walking, talking Good Guy doll, Family Services thinks he’s OK to be given to a nice but unskilled couple, Joanne and Phil Simpson (Jenny Agutter and Gerrit Graham, and insert your own “Doh!” joke here). The Simpsons live in an improbably palacial house for foster parents, filled with antiques (let’s see — troubled children, often with behavioral problems, plus breakable valuables — that’s brilliant). Also in the Simpson’s custody is Kyle, the girl with the boy’s name, who’s been in foster care since she was three (she’s currently almost eighteen), and who is the filmmakers’ fairy-tale version of what a bad girl would be like after almost fifteen years of being bounced around the foster care system.

Chucky somehow gets Andy’s current location simply by calling the state home (more on that later) and makes his way to the Simpsons’ house. Once there, he cleverly stands in for their own Good Guy doll (after breaking his head open with a porcelain statuette — wait, didn’t we just establish that their skulls were made of metal?), and burying him in the worst possible place, the dirt right beneath the swing in the back yard. ‘Cause that dirt won’t get scuffed off right away, no sir.

And then it’s on to the game of “Hide the Soul,” since Chucky’s still got to get his human serial-killer self out of the plastic toy and into a real body before his spirit attaches. (Given that he’s been in the Chucky doll for however long it’s been since the last movie, shouldn’t he have fused by now?) Of course he keeps getting interrupted, and in a rage killing bystanders; and of course, the adults poo-pooh his stories of Chucky come back to get him; apparently, they think he can tie himself to the bed all by himself.

It’s all very well-made and all, but the giant servings of unbelievability that I’m expected to swallow don’t go down very well, even with the initial premise of a killer doll. To wit:

- Why is Chucky so obsessed with possessing Andy specifically? In the beginning, while talking to a shrink, Andy says it’s because Andy was the first person Chucky told his secret to, but that just doesn’t hold much water. Why not just take the body of the junior exec, who’s got a fine car, a Gold Card, and a girlfriend who apparently turns into a sex kitten with the first sniff of vodka?

- Scriptwriter Don Mancini obviously knew absolutely nothing about foster care. Having had peripheral contact with both Family Services and Youth Corrections myself (I used to work at a group home), let me spell out the biggies:

• There ain’t no way that they’d give out Andy’s address over the phone to someone claiming to be his “Uncle Charles.”
• As I noted earlier, the Simpsons are scarcely typical foster parents.
• Andy’s new teacher sees fit to torment him on his first day; apparently, no one bothered to give her the history on her new student (standard practice).
• The Simpsons don’t immediately call a counsellor when Andy starts talking about Chucky’s misbehavin’.
• The state home has private rooms for each child (or at least for Andy).

Even more problems:

Joanne Simpson reads a foster kid “Hansel and Gretel” on his first night in her home? Thanks for setting the poor kid at ease, sister.

Kyle, for being bounced around all her life, sure bonds well with Andy awful quickly.

When Andy gets on the schoolbus for his first day, only the back seats are empty. Hello? In my school days, the back seats were the first ones taken.

There are plentiful boom and camera shadow mistakes during the “stalking in the basement” scene. (Yeah, I know I’m nitpicking; I just feel like being vindictive.)

Chucky’s a piece of plastic, for crying out loud; metal skull and all, he can’t weigh more than four pounds — not enough to be knocking people to the floor regularly, and certainly not enough to go flying through the windshield like a load of bricks when Kyle brakes suddenly.

The final showdown takes place in the Play Pals factory, in a nonsensical, Rube Goldbergesque factory where absolutely no one runs the labyrinthine assembly line (which is improbably clean and bright). and the stacks and stacks of Chucky dolls are arranged in a complex maze — apparently the forklift driver was bored one day.

Bottom line: In order to enjoy this movie, you’ve just gotta check your brain at the door.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 7
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 1
• dream sequences: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 2
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 5
  • Gerrit Graham (Phil Simpson) was a suicidal Q on the 2nd season Voyager “Death Wish,” and “the Hunter” in the DS9 “Captive Pursuit”
  • Brad Dourif (voice of Chucky) had a recurring role as “Crewman Suder” on Voyager
  • Raymond Singer (the social worker) was the doctor about to operate on Chekov in Star Trek 4
  • Adam Ryen (kid in school Rick Spires) was “Willie Potts” on the 4th season TNG “Brothers”
  • Don Pugsley (one of the technicians) was a generic alien on Voyager

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