Brahms: The Boy II (Review)
Brahms: The Boy II is Just Another Reminder that Hollywood Makes a Lot of Movies We Don’t Need.
This week in unnecessary sequels no one asked for, we have Brahms: The Boy II. Now, I actually watched The Boy in theaters, so I was just as confused as everyone else when I saw that it was getting a follow-up film. Perhaps it would answer all the questions I had about The Boy, like, “What the hell is going on here” and “Why would anyone make this?” Alas, Brahms: The Boy II left me with even more unanswered questions. Actually, that’s not true. I had the same questions, but this time about two movies.
Brahms: The Boy II feels like a cringy excuse to “justify” the first film. Unfortunately, it does more harm than good, because now nothing makes sense. Those who saw The Boy might remember that it was a clichéd film about a psycho living inside the walls of a huge mansion who was obsessed with a creepy doll. Things didn’t end well for that guy, but luckily there’s a new family of idiots (Katie Holmes and Owain Yeoman) with a traumatized kid (Christopher Convery) to hang on to Brahms. In typical white people fashion, the parents are perfectly fine with their kid keeping a creepy-ass doll that he found BURIED in the woods. As you probably guessed, things don’t go well for them either, and things go from bad to worse as it becomes clear that Brahms is no ordinary piece of nightmare fuel.
I’ve mentioned in the past that the horror genre is only possible because of the stupidity of characters. No reasonable parent would allow their child to keep a doll they found buried in a suitcase coffin in the woods. Then again, Brahms: The Boy II makes it very clear early on just how stupid the parents in the film are. It starts with a home invasion which is the root of the trauma experienced by Holmes and Convery. The kid gets a therapist, but Homes refuses to talk about what happened even when she starts screaming herself awake at night. Needless to say, it becomes clear that no one in Brahms: The Boy II is an especially sharp cookie. I know what I said earlier about horror movies needing dumb people to seem plausible, but this film relies a little too much on the suspension of disbelief. At some point, I have to assume that Darwinism would have gotten involved.
I’ll admit that there are some pretty creepy moments in Brahms: The Boy II. However, it never actually manages to be scary at any point. This might be because the editing feels like it was done by an intern who doesn’t understand the concept of suspense. There are some cringy transitions that happen between scenes that completely undermine any sense of tension. Then again, it might be because the film is about a freaking doll that just sits there. While Brahms is definitely the stuff of nightmares, he’s not exactly intimidating. Even when his dark secret is revealed, the film remains more laughable than horrifying. Especially since the characters are all given so many red flags and they manage to consistently find the dumbest reasons to ignore them. In fact, I might go as far as to say that the scariest thing about Brahms: The Boy II is just how incompetent the parents are.
Horror is a genre that I tend to be pretty lenient with. Fans of Stars & Popcorn have probably found me saying “fans of horror will probably enjoy this film,” but that’s because we will watch anything. I mean, there are 3 Human Centipede movies at this point, and that’s something that we should probably talk to our therapists about. Horror is capable of wonderful and beautiful things, but so often it’s exploited by people that have no idea what lies at the heart of it. For me, horror is an escape from an anxiety disorder. I’m on edge all the time for no reason whatsoever. Horror movies give me an “excuse” for my nerves. It gives me a reason for why I think something terrible might happen at any moment. Brahms: The Boy II only calmed my nerves because I realized that watching it was the terrible thing that was happening to me. It’s terrible and not in a good way.
Brahms: The Boy II is the cinematic equivalent of trying to explain a bad joke after no one laughs. It basically digs itself deeper into a sad, sad, little hole. I have no idea why anyone thought that The Boy deserved a sequel, but it’s especially confusing that this film switches gears from psycho in the wall to demonic doll. None of it makes any sense, and what that terrifies me is that they’ll try to make another sequel to explain whether Brahms was possessed or haunted or what. Usually, I try to find something positive to say about the films I’ve seen, but this was a doozy. As rough as January was, I think that this might actually be the worst movie I’ve seen so far in 2020.
