Brahms: The Boy II is a Horror Movie by William Brent Bell, and the sequel to The Boy.
Jude (Christopher Convery) is a boy who lost the ability to speak after watching his mom Liza (Katie Holmes) get attacked right in front of him by hooded men who broke into their house while they were home. Thinking a change of scenery might be helpful to him, the family's psychiatrist suggest that they, along with Liza's husband Sean (Owain Yeoman) move out into the countryside.
The family moves into a new house set up near a decrepit old mansion. While arriving at the grounds, Jude finds something sticking up from the ground. Curious, he goes to it and starts digging, whereupon he finds a porcelain doll buried in the earth. His parents decide to let him keep the doll, which he named Brahms, in the hopes it will help him recover.
At first it seems Brahms is indeed doing just that. However, as time goes on, Jude's attachment to Brahms starts to get concerning. What's more, Liza seems to think something might be up.
The film was released on February 21st, 2020.
Brahms: The Boy II contains examples of:
- Artifact of Doom: In a reverse of the first film's twist, where it turned out that the Brahms doll was just a doll, here it is revealed that the doll actually is evil, and that it corrupts its owners, like the Heelshire's son and now Jude.
- Bludgeoned to Death: Sean uses a croquet mallet to smash Brahm's porcelain head.
- Cerebus Call-Back: At the beginning of the movie when Liza comes home, we see Jude hiding under the stairs waiting to scare her as a joke. Later that night when she comes downstairs looking for Jude, we see a home invader hiding under the stairs in the same spot.
- Creepy Doll: Brahms was already this in the first movie, but this trope starts to get ramped up in this one.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Brahms has been destroyed, Jude's gotten over his mutism, and the family is safe back in their old home. Then Jude puts on Brahms' old mask and starts talking to him in the mirror, showing that Brahms' influence still has a hold on Jude.
- The Eyes Have It: One scene has Liza walk past Brahms, and his eyes visibly follow her.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: During a visit, Jude's cousin Will breaks a croquet mallet in half, leaving the sharp end sticking up from the floor. During a tussle, Will falls on it and it gets driven through his shoulder, requiring him to be rushed to the hospital.
- Jumpscare: In one scene, when Liza is checking Brahms' hands and feet for an identifying number, she shines her light on Brahms' face... and Brahms' mouth snaps open, letting loose a horde of bugs on Liza. Of course, it was another psychotic episode of hers and didn't really happen.
- Kill It with Fire: Jude tries to break Brahms' hold on him by throwing him into the furnace in the basement of Heelshire Mansion.
- Meaningful Background Event: When Liza is looking for the doll's mould number, she shines the flashlight on his hand. In the dark background, Brahms is smiling at her. As she brings the light back to his face, the smile disappears, replaced by the doll's usual expression.
- Monochromatic Eyes: One night, while looking for Brahms' production number, Liza shines her light in Brahms' face. His eyes go solid white before he vomits a cloud of bugs in her face.
- Retcon: The Reveal in the first film indicated that Brahms was truly just a normal (if a bit creepy) doll, and Brahms (the human) was the real danger. In this film, it's revealed that Brahms the doll was Evil All Along and manipulated the original human Brahms (and numerous other people) to committing terrible acts. To drive the point further home, the original film had Cole break Brahms, revealing it to be hollow porcelain. In this movie, Brahms is revealed to have a second, more demonic face underneath the porcelain head.
- On a somewhat minor note, the final shot of the first film showed Brahms the doll being repaired by a pair of hands, heavily implied to be the human Brahms doing it. This film retcons it so that it was Joseph who repaired Brahms. This also seems to imply that the human Brahms actually did succumb to his injuries at the end of the first movie.
- Talking with Signs: Jude does this for much of the first half of the movie thanks to the trauma of the home invasion.
