Child's Play 2

by Matthew Costello

Chucky, the malevolent talking doll who once terrorized an entire city, is reborn with the help of the toy manufacturer that built him and returns to stalk innocent victims in search of a soul

Genres: Horror, Media Tie In

250 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1990

Reviews

[~Cyanide Latte~ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't the biggest fan of the first Child's Play film, and I wasn't sure I'd want to delve any further into this particular franchise. However, the 80s Slasher Librarian on YouTube, who is the same individual kind enough to have done fan-made audiobooks for the old Halloween movie novelizations and the Friday the 13th novelizations, had uploaded this as an audiobook as well. I like being able to have access to these out-of-print novelizations in some way, because I do feel like there's something more special about them. The authors usually seemed to make more of an effort to develop characters in these novels than what they got in the films, plus this was free to listen to and not a bad way of going through a little more of this franchise.

I enjoyed this enough to stop about halfway through and actually give Child's Play 2 a watch. The character of Kyle really struck a chord with me as I listened to the book and I was willing to try the movie for her. That being said, I feel like Matthew Costello really did a great job trying to draw out the story and give us a look at each of the characters (though the random backstory for Charles Lee Ray's childhood felt odd and out-of-place, and it is, according to my friends who watch the Chucky tv series, not canon to what was recently made and shown on-screen.)

I'm glad I went through this and I look forward to eventually going through the novelization of the third installment!

[Quentin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll go ahead and say that this is around a 3.5 rounded to 4 for me in terms of how I liked this novelization.

So, after waiting a long time to get copies of both this and Child's Play 3,(both at the same time on EBay and for a cheap price!) I read this one as soon as I could. This novelization follows the movie pretty well, with not many differences besides some dialogue changes. What made this one interesting, though, is the effort Matthew J. Costello put in delving into the thoughts of the characters, mainly Andy, Kyle and Chucky. Mixed with brief flashbacks to the first Child's Play, which I felt flowed very well, and a crazy yet intriguing backstory not in any of the films of Chucky and his mother, it felt as though Matthew tried his best to flesh this one out.

This, like many others, has some flaws. As much as I liked Matthew's writing style, it also had problems. There were a lot--and I mean a lot--of basically delivered sentences such as this:

"And she felt something on the ground. Something hard.
She stopped and leaned forward to look down at the ground.
It was a red sneaker. A small red sneaker." (Costello 176)

This is Kyle--for the uninitiated, the woman that becomes stuck with Andy at the end who was also a foster child--finding the corpse of a Good Guy doll named Tommy. There's plenty of more sentences like that if I remember well. There's also moments where it repeats things or says them in a way that makes you feel if this was meant to be a YA novelization instead of an adult novelization.

There's also a strange thing where, despite swearing being littered all over this, the F-word (which is literally what Andy thinks at one point) is absent except for two scenes. If you seen any of the movies, Chucky says that like it's part of his vocabulary.

Besides some of my qualms with this novelization, I'd say it was worth waiting a year or more finding this one. If you do come across this, pick it up. Because, like many other horror novelizations, this and Child's Play 3 are going for very outrageous prices.

[Candalynn Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

as a big fan of the child's play franchise, I loved reading it finally finished the other day, I love all the extra details you can get in this book. was lucky enough to find a cheap physical copy of this novelization :) if you really love chucky! go for it but getting the book can be quite a challenge at times because of the price.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of this is pretty close to what we saw onscreen. You might see some characters slightly differently. The big thing that people talk about is Chucky's backstory. Here, he had a mother who had dwarfism, and was made fun of for her condition. And she wasn't really nice either, so he killed her and buried her in the park, getting away because he was only 13. Some of that hasn't really aged well, and I do prefer his backstory as depicted in the Chucky TV show. But it felt believable reading about how he wanted his mother to know how much he hated her. There's also a little reference to the army of Chuckys idea, which Mancini wasn't able to have in this movie but later got in Cult of Chucky and the TV series. And the book ends with the alternate ending where Chucky is reassembled pretty much right away.

[Mikepottz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Lee Ray serial killer enters a Good Guy Doll and needs to see Andy to take over his body. He also killed his midget mother when he was 13 years old. Chucky has started to become somewhat human in this little doll and starts to bleed. As time is running out Chucky is going to go on a killing rampage, killing Andy's foster father and mother, plunging a pump into a teacher who oozes blood before being pounded with a yard stick dozens of times to the face, and a showdown in a factory with Chucky unable to enter Andy's body will result in Chucky losing his wrist and attaching a knife and fast thinking Andy putting an end for the time being. Hard to find but such an awesome read. This being the best in a great franchise. A stalking doll can never be good.

[Thomas V · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was excited to get my hands on this one because it is nearly impossible to find! Fun read, though not much additional content from the movie. I don’t know if I was actually expecting anything additional, just an observation. It is fun to hear the inner thoughts of the characters, otherwise it follows the movie very closely, from what I recall.

[Serena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really really enjoyed this novelization, very eerie and suspenseful. Though I know what’ll happen, having seen the movie, I was still throughly entertained, I even enjoyed the added content exclusive to the book! A definite recommend if you’re lucky enough to find it in the wild!

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Youtube

[Nosramus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neurodivergent Chucky real

[Jevron McCrory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe I'm a tad biased about giving this book such a high rating but Don Mancini's rollicking screenplay actually makes for a just as entertaining literary narrative. As one of the other reviewers of this book, I had no idea this book existed, found out and hunted it down. It's damn cool!

Quite obviously, I like the way the author takes you inside each of the character's heads as only a book can do. It was interesting to find out who was thinking what at each seminal scene. I also appreciated how the book was able to fill in certain details that the movie had not the time spare to explain (how Chucky got out of the basement to follow Andy to school, WHY he followed him to school instead of attacking him BEFORE he got on the bus, etc...)

What most surprised me was how much detail was put over about Charles Lee Ray's (and even Andy's) past. Who knew that Chucky's real birth mother had been a midget?! I certainly didn't! The irony being that a hatred of 'short people' led to him killing her, and then HE ends up as a 'short person.' I also had no knowledge of a murder he committed whilst offering the death up to Damballa. All new info to me, which leads me to question, was ANY of this history sanctioned, or was the author allowed to do whatever he wanted with an established horror ICON's history??

The prose was fairly basic and easy to follow, peppered with a few witticisms from whoever's POV we happened to be following at that time, the length slim and about right and the descriptions never gratuitous.

I would recommend this book to a horror fan, IF you can find it. It's now something of a rarity.

[Chris]

It was pretty much a scene by scene retelling of Part 2. It had some good insight on the characters, that you don't get in the movies. I enjoyed it. A good book that I didn't even know existed.