JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL
Brahms: The Boy II Movie Review: Katie Holmes' horror film is a sequel no one asked for
Brahms: The Boy II Movie Review: Katie Holmes' horror film is a masterclass on why certain films don't require a sequel, at all! Inspite of earnest performances, the William Brent Bell directorial neither scares nor thrills. Read the full review below.
Brahms: The Boy II
Brahms: The Boy II Cast: Katie Holmes, Ralph Ineson, Owain Yeoman, Christopher Convery
Brahms: The Boy II Director: William Brent Bell
Brahms: The Boy II Stars: 2.5/5
The recent influx in horror-genre movies has its obvious cons; i.e. you've seen it all! In all shapes, sizes and dolls! The jump scares may be aplenty but by now, it's almost a drawl that comes out rather than the gut-wrenching screams. Hence, making a horror film is not easy, especially when it's a sequel of the 2016 release, The Boy, which eventually gained a loyal fan following. After everything that was revealed in The Boy, my question even before watching Brahms: The Boy II was about its existence, in the first place!
For the unversed, Brahms: The Boy II sees a family, who is riddled by shock due to a scary home invasion, goes on a trip to unwind and ends up at the guest house of Heelshire's property, which fans of The Boy are well aware of! Trouble brews when Liza (Katie Holmes) and Sean's (Owain Yeoman) son Jude (Christopher Convery), who had turned mute as a traumatic after-effect to the robbery, stumbles upon the creepy doll named Brahms. From the get-go, Liza, who is battling with PTSD is wary of the doll as Jude urges his parents to follow Brahms' house rules. As you can expect, the horror follows the minute Jude gets his hands on Brahms!
I can say with certainty that Katie Holmes in terribly missed on the silver screen and inspite of the haphazard character sketch with no depth attached, Katie manages to instill sympathy in the audience for Liza. However, before the going could get good, the movie focuses more on freaking you out rather than actual character development. On the other hand, Owain almost feels like fodder to just be there at the right place at the right time, for plot convenience. The good thing about Christopher's portrayal of Jude is how eerily similar he looks to the doll, which adds some semblance to the half-baked storyline and for what it's worth, Convery delivers an earnestly spooky performance. In spite of limited screen time, Ralph Ineson as Joseph adds the daunting mystery severely required in a horror film.
Brahms: The Boy II fails spectacularly thanks to the disconcerted writing by Stacey Menear; who was also responsible for The Boy, which has no rhyme or reason to exist in the first place. One can't blame William Brent Bell's direction when the haphazard storytelling is a jumbled mess of sequences, concocted to give us cheap thrills! Brahms: The Boy II does have a few scary moments, like the gory home invasion sequence and the bullying scene, which scare in a psychological sense rather than unnecessary jump scares. Even the doll in itself is scary AF but the climax is such a dud that the most intriguing part of the film was the last few minutes, and that's not a compliment! In what could have been a better storytelling arc, Brahms: The Boy II neither scares nor thrills.
ALSO READ: Katie Holmes shares RARE photo with grown up daughter Suri Cruise from their winter wonderland trip
The production design, especially in regards to the Heelshire estate is magnificent and helps to add the necessary spooked out feeling for a classic horror film while Karl Walter Lindenlaub's cinematography tries to get the audience glued to the urgency of the situation. Alas, as I stated before, it's the story that truly fails in Brahms: The Boy II.
Brahms: The Boy II is a masterclass in why some movies don't require a sequel, at all!
Latest Articles
