Movie Info
Movie Name: Brahms: The Boy II
Studio: STX Films
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): February 21, 2020
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Welcome back, Brahms…now go away and never come back
Liza (Katie Holmes) and her son Jude (Christopher Convery) have survived a violent home invasion. With Jude retreating inside himself, Liza and her husband Sean (Owain Yeoman) have decided to get out of the city and stay at a country home in their attempts to recover. Jude discovers a strange porcelain doll in the woods and takes the name Brahms for the doll. When Jude begins to claim that the doll is speaking to him, and starts blaming the doll for dangerous mishaps, Liza questions if the doll could be something more than a toy.
Directed by William Brent Bell, Brahms: The Boy II is a horror thriller. A sequel to 2016’s The Boy and released to theaters just before the COVID-19 lockdown, the movie was critically panned but was a small success at the box office. The film was nominated for a Razzie for Worst Actress (Holmes along with The Secret: Dare to Dream).
The Boy had a few moments but mostly was ho-hum. I felt that to take a creepy doll and not make him the villain of the movie was a mistake. Brahms: The Boy II tries to rectify this, but it comes off as desperate and dull.
That’s right, mom…bad boy for life!
This movie tries to establish that the doll is possessed after having the Brahms character living in the walls the previous movie and being the killer. The walk back sets up a bizarre “history” of killer dolls on the property and that the dolls all have sway on their children. The addition of a doll that is actually demonic doesn’t actually add any scares…the only good “death” (the character actually survives) is a result of schadenfreude when a bully cousin gets impaled on a crocket wicket that he himself broke. It all leads up to an ending with the doll having a creature looking doll inside of its porcelain head that kind looks like a butthole…gross? Yeah. Scary? No.
Katie Holmes really feels like she’s slumming it here. The movie gives her character little depth (she might be “crazy” because of her head injury) and it feels like it pales in comparisons to other recent traumatized mothers like Toni Collette in Hereditary or Essie Davis in The Babadook. Christopher Covery is put in a big pressure role to play the creepy, non-communicative kid and he does ok (the script is just awful). Owain Yeoman is a non-character in the father, and like Ralph Ineson, it feels like his character doesn’t do much until the end.
“I need TP for my bunghole”
Sorry, Brahms…this is 2020 no TP for you!
Brahms is a creepy doll, but it has been let down by two movies that don’t recognize the ability of a doll to creep out people. This movie plays it slightly better since Brahms is moving on its own. There are some nice subtle changes like Brahms’ mouth smiling when Holmes is examining it’s hands and feet with the flashlight and then turning back to its standard scowl when the flashlight shines on it. That last effect of Brahms “revealed” however once again missed a chance for a good scare.
Brahms: The Boy II is a waste of time. I had hope with The Boy and this pretty much dashed any hope left. Instead of being a clever and scary horror film, it comes off as a B-grade horror movie that was granted an A-grade budget. With mediocre returns, I hope The Boy stays dead…
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