A stand alone sequel to 2016’s The Boy, Brahms: The Boy II is a 2020 horror movie directed by William Brent Bell. Following a harrowing home invasion, Liza and Sean (Katie Holmes and Owain Yeoman, respectively) move to an old countryside house with their traumatised son, Jude (Christopher Convery), with only the old groundskeeper, Joseph (Ralph Ineson) nearby. Unexplainable events begin to plague the family after Jude finds an old porcelain doll buried in the woods, which Jude says calls itself Brahms.
+ personal favourite Ralph Ineson is in the movie, though not in any particularly substantial role. He’s also not a standout, by any stretch, but just hearing his voice gave me some hope this might not suck (spoiler: I was wrong)
+ thankfully, this movie does reference the first in at least a few interesting ways, and actually retcons one of my major issues with that original
– none of the acting is particularly good, with Katie Holmes in particular being as wooden and boring as you could imagine Even Ineson, praised above, is hardly anything to write home about. I guess even the best voice can’t make a horrid script sound good
– the plot starts out in standard horror movie sequel territory, and while nothing special is hardly offensive, until the final quarter or so of the movie just ruins any goodwill it may have squeezed out of you. The twist of the first movie was silly, but had it’s own little flair to it that made you appreciate what you had already watched; this was just garbage stacked on top of a pile of crap
– the film is far too liberal with its jump scares, and that far-too-familiar pitched tone indicating a jump scare is coming. Arguably even worse still, the jump scare are not scary. Maybe they should just be called ‘startle noises’ instead
> Suspension of disbelief is something you need to have in spades for most horror movies, but if my hundred kilo dining table was flipped over, and my young child claimed the doll did it, I’d be out of there instantly
Should you see this film: No. Far be it from me to throw shade onto someone else in a profession I can’t do, but director William Brent Bell is 0 for 6 in movies of his I have seen, and until something changes I can’t recommend any of his films.
MoshFish Reviews 