Film / Child's Play 2

It's playtime... again.

The second film of the Child's Play series.

The Barclays may have survived the previous movie, but Karen's story about a killer doll resulted in her being taken away for "psychological evaluation". The eight-year-old Andy has been placed in the foster care system. He is placed in the care of Phil and Joanne Simpson (Cult Classic veterans Gerrit Graham and Jenny Agutter) alongside their foster daughter Kyle (Christine Elise). What's more, however, is that's not even the real bad news: The Good Guy doll host has been rebuilt, with Charles Lee Ray's spirit living on once again... and this time, he's not playing around. Chucky soon locates Andy and the incidents start again. With no outside help, Andy must step up and face the killer doll on his own.

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This film provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc: Chucky was originally going to reincarnate right away, as an epilogue present in both the TV cut and the film novelization shows pieces of Chucky (most notably one of his eyes) falling into the machines making a new Good Guy doll. This epilogue was scrapped, as the sequel reveals Chucky ultimately had to wait eight years before getting a new body.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Grace Zabriskie's character get killed by Killer Doll Chucky aka "The Lakeshore Strangler" at the film's climax, which is funny as a decade earlier prior to the release of this sequel, Grace had played an alleged murder victim in the climax of the Don Knotts and Tim Conway mystery comedy The Private Eyes, where her character is found with a doll staged to look like it was strangling her, before it's revealed she and the other seemingly murdered victims have faked their own deaths.
  • Gerrit Graham's character Phil drives a red Ford Taurus station wagon, ironically a decade ago, Graham's previous character Jeff was superstitious about red cars being bad luck in Robert Zemeckis' Used Cars. Considering Phil would later get killed, maybe Jeff was right about red cars being bad luck if associated with one. Also, Graham's past character Jeff mentions he takes Valium, which Phil jokingly responds to Joanne's question to calm Andy down, that makes him rattle when he walks.
• Adaptation Deviation: A novelization of the film exists, and is roughly faithful to its source material, but also takes several deviations, adding some new scenes and changing others. The changes are mostly of the minor sort, though the Aborted Arc epilogue detailed above is included at the end.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive Tom Sullivan isn't quite as evil in the novelization as he is in the film, retaining enough humanity to care when the technician Bob Meyer is electrocuted and thrown through a window while reconstructing Chucky. He reacts the way a normal person would, screaming for someone to call an ambulance, while in the film he is coldly detached.
  • Phil Simpson is more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in the television version than the theatrical version, showing how his Jerkass moments spawned from his Anger Born of Worry for his wife and the Pet the Dog moments he has with her.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Phil Simpson is somehow even more of a Jerkass in the novelization. He gets some new Deadpan Snarker lines of a pointedly cruel sort, and Andy senses the first time he meets him that "there was something about this man that he didn't like".
  • And to contrast with his boss Sullivan, The Dragon Boyd Mattson is made more evil in the novelization (as well as the film's television cut) by being shown to be a cheating cad running around on his wife.
• Advertised Extra: Jenny Agutter and Gerrit Graham are given second and third billings, however in the theatrical cut, their characters the Simpsons were not really essential to invest in, while Kyle, played by Christine Elise who is billed fourth, has the most screen time just below Andy. Averted in the television cut, where they are given more screen time and focus on their one arc that involves their fostering duties, which actually makes them come across as a Decoy Protagonist couple until their deaths than in the theatrical version, which makes their actors' second and third billings below Kyle's actress' fourth billing a lot more sense than in the theatrical cut.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Stuck on the conveyor belt and being sent towards a grisly fate, Chucky begs Andy and Kyle to get him off under the guise that his prior Villainous Breakdown was all for show. They don't buy it.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's unknown how Joanne is Killed Offscreen by Chucky, either by getting her Throat Slashed with an unknown sharp weapon (which Chucky somehow did not have when ambushing Kyle), while being Bound and Gagged with fabric or if she was strangled with the fabric to a point it dug into her throat that she bled.
• Angry Item Tapping: Chucky taps a yardstick in his hand before beating a teacher to death with it for locking him in a closet.
• Artificial Limbs: Chucky replaces his hand with a knife after tearing his old one off to escape.
• Artistic License – Biology: When Chucky thrusts an air pump into Miss Kettlewell, he pumps air into her which causes her to fly out of the classroom's closet. In reality, an air pump would not be able to push someone with a strong force. Instead, it would cause an air embolism within the bloodstream, which can immediately put the person into shock and if left untreated would cause either a stroke, heart attack or organ failure.
• Artistic License – Law: After she gives Andy detention, Miss Kettlewell locks him in the classroom to keep him from going anywhere. While teachers can make a student stay after class, they aren't allowed to physically bar a student from being able to leave like that outside of a specific dangerous circumstance or medical emergency. Though, there could be a possibility that Miss Kettlewell is corrupt and deliberately commit these kinds of crimes behind the system's back in her teachings.
• Ascended Extra: The Simpsons are given more screen time in the television cut for the sequel to Decoy Protagonist levels prior to their deaths, which also made their actors' second and third billings just below Andy's actor's top billing more sense in contrast to the theatrical and home video cut where they are framed as irrelevant bystanders from the get-to that audiences should not invest into except Andy and Kyle. For her role being reduced to inoffensive levels, it's no wonder Jenny Agutter considered this film to be an Old Shameinvoked for her.
• Asshole Victim: In a recurring series trend, most of Chucky's victims fall under this:
  • First is Boyd Mattson, a Smug Snake who is somehow made even more of an asshole in the novelization and television cut.
  • Then there's Miss Kettlewell, a Sadist Teacher if ever there was one, and even shown to be outright abusive (which in turn makes her corrupt as those kinds of severe practices including physical abuse, which implied she would have inflicted on Andy if he stayed in class once she returned, held in schools were made illegal by the time the film was made) before crossing paths with Chucky.
  • Phil Simpson is sold as a Jerkass Obstructive Bureaucrat to viewers to make his death feel somewhat deserved. Defied in the TV cut, however, where he is depicted as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold instead. Nonetheless, however he's depicted in either version, he's actually ranked the least despicable compared to others in the film series.
  • The most tragic and yet pointed case is that of Joanne Simpson, who is made to Took a Level in Jerkass by having her turn on Andy and blame him for her husband's death shortly before Chucky puts her out of her misery.
  • Downplayed for Grace Poole, who fits more along the lines of Too Dumb to Live, as she just simply picked the wrong time to understandably reprimand Kyle (and presumably also Andy) for a fire alarm prank, which actually was caused by Chucky, who not long after kills Grace after ambushing her by speaking "Amazing! Isn't it?"
  • And finally there's the poor schmuck at the Good Guy factory, who outright subverts this by being a regular old Too Dumb to Live Mook who nevertheless gets the most horrifying death in the entire film.
• Berserk Button: FUCK YOU BITCH written by Chucky to pettily frame Andy is one for Miss Kettlewell, prompting her to blow her stack against Andy for allegedly writing this vulgar insult towards her on his assignment.
• Big "NO!": Chucky gives out a very big "No!" when he finds out that it's too late to Body Surf into Andy. Doubles as Skyward Scream when his "NO!" is heard as the camera zooms to the outside of the Good Guy factory.
• Big Sister Instinct: Kyle, Andy’s older foster sister, forms a sweet bond with him and becomes protective of the kid once she learns that Chucky is actually alive.
• Bittersweet Ending: At the end, Chucky is dead yet again (for now), but so are several innocents as well. Andy and Kyle are also left homeless after Chucky killed off the Simpsons and Grace, so they can't live in the foster home anymore. Though Kyle did say she saved up money from working part-time jobs, so they can at least use that to live on in the meantime.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Chucky improvises one with a knife after one of his hands gets ripped off near the film.
• Blood Upgrade: Chucky starts to take things more seriously when he sees that he's getting nosebleeds, indicating his time to possess Andy is running short.
• Bound and Gagged: Chucky ties up Andy the very first chance he gets in order to conduct the soul transfer between them. Only the timely arrival of Kyle saves him.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: Both of the Simpsons, which is hinted at in the film hence why they have an appearance of stereotypically ideal model Nuclear Family despite being Not So Above It All and expanded upon in the novelization. Phil is a bit of a health nut and they're both big on gardening.
• Broken Bird: A thoroughly unsympathetic case. Joanne, after feeling completely lost by Phil's death, but in turn Took a Level in Jerkass and not long after ends up an Asshole Victim.
• Chekhov's Gun: In the Good Guy factory climax, several things in the factory such as a molten plastic valve and an air hose are used to finally put an end to Chucky.
• Child Hater:
  • Chucky says "I hate kids" during the finale.
  • Phil (in the theatrical cut only) and Miss Kettlewell seem to be this.
  • Joanne starts to become this out of grief after her husband is killed and she falsely accused Andy as well as vindictively spurning Kyle's attempt to reason with her due to her newfound Irrational Hatred of burdening foster children and likely planning to immediately quit the foster parenting business due to her latest loss, but not long after, she gets hers.
• Combat Pragmatist: In the novelization Chucky muses in his internal monologue about the advantages of his doll body and how it puts him at the perfect height for "slashing people's legs, cutting them just behind the knees or severing their tendons".
• Conveyor Belt o' Doom: The climax involves some near misses with one in the Good Guys doll factory. There's a gruesome moment in the novelization where one of Chucky's victims (the poor sap who gets the Eye Scream) is pulled into one, with predictable results.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Tom Sullivan, the head of the Good Guy company, and his The Dragon Boyd Mattson.
• Covers Always Lie: The DVD cover shows Chucky about to decapitate a terrified-looking jack in the box with a pair of scissors, which also suggests that Chucky isn't the only living toy in the movie. Unfortunately, not once does a jack-in-the-box ever appear in the actual movie.^note One does, however, appear in the trailers, but it gets stomped by Chucky before it can open.
• Crapsaccharine World:
  • Despite the bright and garish (if somewhat eerie) look of the film, it's actually an unkind world that not even Andy is safe from other than Chucky (a toy company run by cold-hearted corrupt corporate executives including one Smug Snake cheating on his wife, an elementary school where it's implied sadist teachers are authorized to inflict physical and emotional child abuse on their students, and foster parents who, despite their appearances to be seemingly ideal-looking and what model families should look like, naturally disbelieve that a killer doll is on the loose out to get a child and can be vindictively judgmental if a child is a Hero with Bad Publicity and can easily deduce kids can be murderers ranging from an Obstructive Bureaucrat Jerkass foster father to a mother who starts out as caring and kind towards the child, but then Took a Level in Jerkass towards the kid after seeing her husband dead and irrationally jumped to a conclusion that the child killed him somehow just because of his prior reputation).
  • Not to mention Too Dumb to Live social workers and factory employees and a minor newspaper truck driver who understandably from an impartial viewpoint can be irked if getting run off the road for seemingly no reason (except to prevent a killer doll to transfer his soul to a child). Plus, in contrast to the seemingly and visually family-friendly environment, anyone besides Chucky can be Sir Swears-a-Lot (or go into a Cluster F-Bomb or inflict a Precision F-Strike towards somebody, like Kyle or the truck driver when confronting Kyle), though not as much as Chucky, who swears the most.
• Creepy Basement: The Simpsons have one, and there's a scene of Andy hunting for Chucky in it that leads to Phil's death.
• Dangerously Garish Environment: The bright colors of the Good Guy doll factory don't make it any less of a Nightmarish Factory filled with safety hazards.
• Darker and Edgier: In a way, despite having slightly more humor than the first film, it shows the death scenes to be uncomfortable to watch (including more bloody and violence-inflicting closeups), Chucky's Rasputinian Death to be more Bloodier and Gorier and Chucky dropping his Faux Affably Evil facade and acts more mean-spirited towards Andy then the first film that at the climax when he realized it's too late to Body Surf into Andy, he tries to kill 8-year-old Andy, plus the terrorizing and brooding orchestral music score by Graeme Revell further adds up the intense, creepy and scary mood.
• Dead Star Walking: Jenny Agutter, the most known name in the cast who is given second billing, is one of Chucky's victims. To a lesser extent, Gerrit Graham, a character actor who is well-known in cult film circuits such as Phantom of the Paradise and is billed beneath Agutter, ends up part of the body count too.
• Deadly Nosebleed: Chucky has periodic nosebleeds throughout the film as his doll body grows more human, and a big one towards the end where he attempts the soul transfer ritual only for it to fail because he took too long.
• Deadpan Snarker: Kyle:
  Chucky: Floor it!
  Kyle: Get real. This is a station wagon.
• Decoy Protagonist: Somewhat with the Simpsons such as Joanne (thanks to Jenny Agutter's second billing just below Andy's actor Alex Vincent's top billing), but only in the television cut due to more scenes that involve more insight to her and Phil as the first and second acts of the film focus largely on the foster couple. Phil is a Deuteragonist example, but like Joanne, only in the television cut. When they are killed and Joanne losing all audience sympathy after having Took a Level in Jerkass just before her own death after Phil's, Character Focus goes to either Kyle (whose actress Christine Elise notably was billed beneath Agutter's and Phil's actor Gerrit Graham's second and third billings despite her character's actual importance than the Simpsons) or back to Andy front and centre.
• Disappeared Dad: A bit of a recurring theme. Andy and Kyle both have MIA dads and even Chucky's father is mentioned in the novelization as having walked out before he was born.
• Expansion Pack Past: The novelization expands a great deal on Chucky's past as Charles Lee Ray, giving him a sort of Freudian Excuse mixed in with some healthy Irony: turns out his mother was a dwarf with psychotic resentment for "all the big people", and being raised under such a pillar of mental health took its toll on the budding young Charles Ray. At thirteen, he started his career of murder with her as his first victim. Years later, the television series would retcon away most of this, although it still keeps the part about his first victim being his mother.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: In the novelization, Chucky runs into a German shepherd on the way to Andy's new home. It gets scared and runs away.
• Eye Scream:
  • It opens with a close-up of Chucky's eye being removed. In extended footage from the TV version, Chucky's eye falls into a vat of plastic and is built into a new doll.
  • Towards the end, a factory worker falls onto the conveyor line where the dolls' eyes are put in.
• Flipping the Bird: Done by Kyle to Chucky as he's hauled down a Conveyor Belt o' Doom.
• Final Girl: Kyle is the last of Andy's foster family to survive, and she's instrumental in Chucky's defeat.
• Foreshadowing: In the novelization Andy has a point where he remembers his mom telling him to be "a good trooper". Cue the third film...
• Fostering for Profit: The theatrical cut gave off the impression the Simpsons became foster parents due to this. Averted in the television cut which explains a less monetary reason behind their foster duties due to Joanne's inability to have biological children.
• God of Evil: The voodoo entity Damballa, who Chucky refers to as "Mighty Damballa, ruler of life and death" in the novelization, is hinted to be this (contradicting both the faith of Chucky's teacher from the first film as well as the historical mythology of the loa Damballa). The novelization of the third film confirms it outright.
• Good Is Dumb: Unlike her Obstructive Bureaucratic husband, Joanne instantly grew with compassion for Andy despite herself naturally not believing Chucky is alive like everybody else except Andy, but she does not contribute to the main storyline and Took a Level in Jerkass after Phil's death when she finally accepts Phil's Insane Troll Logic of Andy being bad luck (and probably the killer as the theatrical cut implies unlike the television cut) before ending up an Asshole Victim one moment later. Despite being given more screen time in the television cut, her Took a Level in Jerkass move was worse than her theatrical depiction as while Phil's skepticism of taking care of Andy is more justifiable and reasonable than the television cut shows, it makes it look like her blaming Andy for being a killer was her Insane Troll Logic alone, not Phil's.
  • Grace Poole is also one of the few of adults who cared for Andy, but also naturally disbelieves in the existence of Chucky and understandably reprimands Kyle for pulling the fire alarm when it was in fact Chucky before immediately falling victim to him when Chucky ambushes her with his "Amazing isn't it?" liner before she had the chance to drop the Killer Doll. Even earlier, she failed to identify the man on the phone she had spoken to who called himself Andy's "Uncle Charles" was not other than Chucky himself, though she had no way to know it was a Killer Doll she was speaking to.
• Groin Attack: Chucky gets his groin stapled by a machine when he tries to attack Andy who's alerted by Kyle and ducks away the killer doll's knife attack. Chucky howls in pain as the machine staples his "balls", so to speak.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Chucky gets bisected towards the end. He still keeps coming...
• Hero with Bad Publicity: A good chunk of the cast believes that Andy is responsible for Chucky's murders from the first film.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Had Chucky not been overzealous and tried to cut Andy's legs (as revenge for causing the loss of his legs) and cut that air hose, Kyle wouldn't have had it to stuff in his mouth and eventually blow him up.
• Hollywood Voodoo: Chucky as in the first film, though the voodoo imagery is rolled back a great deal.
• Human Sacrifice: In the novelization Chucky has a flashback to his first human sacrificial offering to Damballa, a young woman (like most of his victims).
• Humiliation Conga: Chucky undergoes a very satisfying one at the end: finding out that he's trapped in the Good Guy doll forever, losing his hand and his legs, getting doused in molten plastic, and finally getting blown up.
• Hysterical Woman: Joanne, when grief-stricken over her husband's death.
• I Was Just Joking: At the climax, when Chucky is strapped to a Conveyor Belt of Doom, he calls out to Andy, "I was only playin'!"
• Improvised Weapon: As mentioned above, Chucky fashions a knife-hand for himself after getting his knife broken and ripping off his hand to escape the grate Kyle drops on him.
• In the Style of: The sequel gives off a vibe that it's directed by Wes Craven and produced by the horror genre production company active at the time Alive Films in the vein of films like Shocker (which was also distributed by Universal like this movie) as this sequel contains tropes common in Craven's works like, but not limited to Adults Are Useless, Family-Unfriendly Violence, Suburban Gothic and Practically Joker, not to mention most of the action held at a Stepford Suburbia setting just like in most of Craven's films.
• It's Up to You: Andy decides it's up to him to stop Chucky after a pep talk from Kyle, leading to him taking his first level up in Badass.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Phil may not be a saint, but his concerns about whether he and his wife are capable of caring for Andy and his emotional trauma and his questioning of his sanity over his overblown beliefs about a Killer Doll on the loose aren't exactly unfounded. The television version amps up the Has a Point part while reducing the Jerkass part of Phil's character.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Phil in the television cut.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Chucky destroys Tommy, the other Good Guy doll in the Simpson household, and takes its place. When Andy finds "Tommy", Chucky defaults to his normal Good Guy programming somewhat imperfectly, leaving Andy suspicious enough that he checks the batteries.
  Hi, I'm... Tommy, and I'm your friend to the end!
• Lighter and Softer: The television cut is this to the film's theatrical cut, due to it showing life for Andy is not as much of a Crapsack World that the theatrical version depicts instead, including more insight between him and social workers that the social workers are genuinely caring and kind and more insight on the Simpsons (which nearly makes them Decoy Protagonists in contrast to the non-vital roles they had in the theatrical cut) that shows that Phil is in fact a Jerk with a Heart of Gold than a straight Jerkass in the theatrical cut and and less of an Asshole Victim when he is killed, while explaining the personal issues the Simpsons are going through as a result of their fostering duties. However, conversely, it makes Mattson an Asshole Victim when it reveals him to be cheating on his wife with a woman named Gabrielle, something cut out in the theatrical cut.
• Minor Major Character: Those two blue-collar techs reassembling Chucky at the beginning? Yeah, turns out one of those two schlubs is the creator of the Good Guy doll. This is revealed in the novelization: his name is Hal Turner, and in classic There Are No Good Executives fashion he teamed up with Tom Sullivan to create the Good Guy only to be cheated out of all the profits and kept in a low-level technical position.
• Moral Myopia: Kyle in her free time loves smoking cigarettes. She has Andy hold one for a second to hang laundry, and he tries it. Kyle takes it away and says he shouldn't do so. When Andy points out why she can but he can't, Kyle claims there's an age gap between them and that grown-ups are allowed to do things like smoking. Andy points out she's a teenager, not an adult.
• Never Trust a Trailer: These two trailers with their catchy pop music for this film suggest this installment would be Lighter and Softer then the first film as a fun Evil Is Coolinvoked Horror Comedy rollercoaster thrill ride akin to that of the franchise's later entries Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky that would make the franchise known for being a horror comedy slasher series, rather than the mostly bleak and morbidly Darker and Edgier sequel it really is despite having downplayed horror-comedy elements, which can only adds to the installment's off-putting unsettledness (similar to Scream films, which Bride would make a reference to with its poster, for having horror comedy aspects while still predominately serious horror films) then coming across as being funny and Bloody Hilarious which Bride and Seed mostly showcased.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In her quest to save Andy from Chucky, Kyle does save Andy but at the end becomes homeless and her station wagon wrecked in a crash.
• No OSHA Compliance: The climax in the toy factory is a safety nightmare. The factory has machines that can maim, mangle, and kill and which don't seem to have any emergency shutoffs, the entire place is staffed at night by one guy, the layout seems to feature no paths between the machines (Andy and Kyle have to crawl through some of them, and even Chucky needs a vent at one point to get around), and there are pipes dripping molten plastic.
• Not So Above It All: Despite having the stereotypically ideal appearance of a model Nuclear Family (such as a mother and housewife who cooks and clean, having an office-worker for a husband as well as having well-supplying huge house fit for a general family (which consists of two-stories and a basement) and a family station wagon), the Simpsons are character-wise flawed in a way (Phil is a Jerkass Obstructive Bureaucrat, while Joanne, while initially appearing to be more compassionate and caring then Phil, is internally uptight and insecure and have Took a Level in Jerkass towards Andy after thinking Andy killed Phil, prompting her to snap at Andy and throwing him out of her house like trash). Also, see Crapsaccharine World above.
• Nuclear Family: Deconstructed, the Simpson foster family clearly are maintaining the stereotype to an extent, even though they are pointedly Not So Above It All.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: The doubtful Phil, as he approaches his fostering duties this way, especially in regards to Andy whom Phil prioritizes questioning his sanity and reputation and if he and his wife are well-prepared and confident enough to manage by themselves over doing the actual fostering and it's implied to be his actual job he goes to work to with a suitcase and in a suit.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Chucky somehow manages to get back home and into the basement from the school before Andy does, despite him running away first.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Chucky, when blood leaked from his nose, realizing he's starting to become human.
  • Kyle, when she found the Tommy Good Guy Doll that Chucky buried in the backyard.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: A minor example. Brad Dourif gets bumped up from Co-Starring in the first film to And Starring in this one.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Chucky is vanquished, but his rampage has left Andy and Kyle homeless and possibly to blame for Chucky's murders.
• Race Against the Clock: Chucky is now running out of time to Body Surf into Andy before he gets trapped in the doll. When he finally performs the ritual, he's too late, leading to a massive Villainous Breakdown.
• Rasputinian Death: Chucky's hand is detached, his legs are ripped off, he's doused in melted plastic and finally his head is inflated by a high-pressure air tube until it blows up.
• Schoolmarm: The Sadist Teacher Miss Kettlewell's physical appearance, her strict (though it's more an extreme take to the point of child abuse) approach and her chalkboard classroom fits the stereotype very well, with the exception the school she works at is a public elementary school, unlike most examples of this trope, which makes her one step away for fulfilling the 100% stereotype and almost gives an impression she was Born in the Wrong Century.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Chucky forces Kyle to drive him to Andy at knifepoint, but she is speeding and a police officer signals her to pull over. The officer starts to reprimand Kyle but catches sight of Chucky nosebleeding, and he is freaked out over a "plastic" doll bleeding that he lets Kyle go out of fear.
• Shout-Out:
  • Mattson joking on a rumor that someone tampered with a doll to say "Hi, I'm Chucky. I'm the Lakeshore Strangler, and I'm gonna kill you." may be a nod to Talky Tina from The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "Living Doll".
  • At Andy's school, Miss Kettlewell reads The Adventures of Pinocchio to the class.
  • Kyle and Andy hurrying through the labyrinthine warehouse of stacked up Good Guy doll boxes could be a homage to Wendy and Danny Torrance running through the hedge maze in the climax of The Shining.
  • The factory technician's small TV showing Frankenstein (1931), another Universal Pictures movie.
• Sinister Minister: Chucky in the novelization, which expands upon his devotion to the voodoo entity Damballa (said belief is genuine, to the point of Chucky's very first thoughts being praised by Damballa for giving him another chance to live, but it only makes him Egocentrically Religious as his faith is borne entirely out of gratitude for being allowed a sort of immortality to keep killing willy-nilly and there's no higher reason to it at all).
• Soft Reboot: The second film's director and owninvoked Wes Craven, John Lafia had felt they could better then the original film. Through his youth at the time, he felt competition with the original in a good way and wanted to make his version and take of the first movie's story that just so happened to be a sequel to it.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The technician Bob Meyer survives being electrocuted and thrown through a window in the novelization, whereas in the film he is not so lucky.
• Stepford Suburbia: The Simpsons' foster home's neighborhood. Also, see Crapsaccharine World above for more detail.
• Stupid Evil: Chucky indulges in this quite a bit in this film, and it ends up costing him dearly. To wit;
  • He takes the place of the Tommy doll Andy's foster family got him by smashing its face in with a rock and burying it in the backyard (all while laughing manically) — which is completely pointless because it's literally just a doll and he could've just as easily chucked it in the nearest trash bin and been done with it. This leads to him being found out when Kyle discovers the buried Tommy doll and realizes that Andy was telling the truth.
  • Much like the first movie, Chucky kills a whole lot of people and gets away with it by pretending to be an inanimate doll. Unlike the first movie, however, he knows from the start that he's got a short amount of time to transfer his soul to Andy's body and therefore really shouldn't be screwing around like this. He doesn't even have the excuse of killing people he holds responsible for his death — his victims are just random people this time around. This ends up biting him hard in the end, when he finally gets around to performing the transfer ritual and discovers he took too long with his killing spree and is now permanently stuck as a doll.
• Suburban Gothic: The Simpsons' foster home's Stepford Suburbia of a neighborhood set in a Crapsaccharine World/World of Jerkass-esque atmosphere with a Killer Doll on the loose in an installment of a Gothic Horror Slasher Movie Villain-Based Franchise.
• Super-Strength: Chucky is able to knock out Andy with his arm, even with a doll's body. The novelization notes several times that Chucky is abnormally strong relative to a doll, or even to a human.
• Supernatural-Proof Father: The Simpsons naturally do not believe Chucky's alive and out to get Andy. This caused them to be Locked Out of the Loop of the actual danger that bestows upon the foster family.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In the television cut, the Simpsons apparently act as this to Karen Barclay from the original film, for being concerned parents wondering why Andy is blaming an inanimate doll for the crimes, even the foster mother Joanne is played by an established actress Jenny Agutter and is second-billed under Alex Vincent, Andy's actor. However, the Simpsons are proven to be Decoy Protagonists when they fall victim to Chucky, while Kyle is the true Supporting Protagonist of the film next to Andy being the lead.
• Too Dumb to Live: Mattson, Joanne, the Play Pals factory workers and Grace Poole.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Joanne, leading her to become an Asshole Victim.
• Trail of Blood: Just as Andy and Kyle think Chucky is done for after being sent into the machine that messes up dolls, we focus on a pool of blood that extends on a long trail to indicate that he's not quite done yet.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Andy, at least from the POV of most of the other characters. As it turns out he's just reacting the way any child would to being stalked and terrorized by a killer doll, but since his story is so unbelievable most of them suspect him of being crazy instead.
• Underside Ride: Chucky does this with a school bus.
• Undignified Death: Several of Chucky's victims, but special mention goes to Mattson: he's held up by Chucky with a plastic water gun, has his hands tied behind him in his car with jump rope, and then gets suffocated with a little plastic bag as Chucky laughs at him like a loon.
• Vanity License Plate: Corrupt Corporate Executive Sullivan has one on his limo as a Freeze-Frame Bonus, it reads: FUN ONE. Darkly ironic, given Sullivan's grim disposition.
• [Verb] This!: After Tommy the Good Guys doll says that he likes to be hugged, Chucky says "Hug this!", before bashing his face in (why Chucky wants to "murder" a non-possessed, ordinary toy is known only to him).
• Villain Ball: Chucky might've had an easier time without Kyle getting in the way of his plans had he thrown the "Tommy" doll literally anywhere else away from the Simpson residence instead of poorly burying it under the swing in a manner that she easily uncovers.
• Villainous Breakdown: Chucky goes completely nuclear when he fails to transfer his soul into Andy's body.
• Wham Shot: When Kyle opens the garbage can and discovers Chucky is missing.
• Who Needs Their Whole Body?: Chucky loses his arm and legs but doesn't stop trying to kill Andy and Kyle.
• Woken Up at an Ungodly Hour: In the middle of the night, Andy attempts to kill Chucky who was locked up in the basement. He unintentionally woke up his foster parents thinking he's up to no good. Andy's foster dad tries to talk to him, only to get killed by Chucky.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Chucky, obviously. Aside from the terrorizing Andy show, there's also a really horrifying moment in the novelization where he's burying the Tommy doll and thinks to himself about the last time he had buried something that small. "She had been a bit bigger than the doll", the narration tells us. "But not much. Not too much."
  • There is also Sadist Teacher Miss Kettlewell, who was already shown to be emotionally abusive towards Andy after Chucky frames him by writing a vulgar insult on his schoolwork to push her Berserk Button and she herself would not look out of place as those old-fashioned, disciplining Schoolmarm stereotypes before the 1980s and '90s (which the original trilogy including this film took place and when they were filmed), where those practices were declared illegal in Western countries, so Miss Kettlewell would be considered corrupt even by the film's timeframe for her brutal methods. When she confronts and berates Andy for this alleged action against her, it can almost look like she was about to physically slap Andy for protesting his innocence to her or just looking at Chucky hiding in the classroom's cabinet.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When Chucky discovers that it's too late to use Andy as his new Soul Jar, he decides to kill him instead.

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