Brahms: The Boy II-- My take on the movie with spoilers!

PLOT SUMMARY: When Liza and Sean's mute son befriends a doll named Brahms, the parents quickly realize the doll comes with a dark history. 

You know how people move into a new house in horror movies and are instantly haunted by some ghost that was always waiting for the next family to spook?

Well, Brahms: The Boy 2 starts off things differently.

BRAHMS: THE BOY II Movie Plot 

The family, consisting of Liza, Sean and their son Jude, are living in a beautiful house, free from vengeful spirits.

However, a couple of burglars decide they too want to take a look into a house in a horror movie that has no spirits lingering around.

Liza is attacked while Jude has to watch helplessly. Sean is absent during this incident.

The next scene shows us, Liza, pretty much without and scars and talking to a psychiatrist with her husband. Jude has suffered a shock and can no longer speak.

Liza keeps having nightmares every night that causes her to scream in real. Jude is also seemingly insomniac as he keeps roaming around the house in the dark and comes into the bedroom just as Liza awakes from a nightmare.

Sean comes up with a brilliant plan to get away from the city and decides his family should spend time in a secluded guest house near the woods. The main house is actually supposed to be the house from the first part, The Boy, but only people with terrific memories will remember that.

Liza and Sean look around the property feeling bliss, to the point that they fail to notice their now mute son has wandered off in the woods. He unburies a doll and it is the same one from the first movie. He brings the doll to his parents and Liza immediately asks if he wants to keep it. Jude nods and that is it, his mother has allowed her son to pick up whatever he finds in the woods and keep it.

Liza cleans up the doll and thinks it is a proper and well-dressed plaything for her son.

Jude gets overly attached to the doll and Liza waves off the warning signs, thinking the doll will eventually help Jude deal with his trauma.

Over breakfast, Jude scribbles the doll’s name on his notebook: Brahms.

The parents are pleased their son has chosen such a sophisticated name. They don’t even blink when Jude writes down that the doll told him his name and that he didn’t just come up with a random name.

The parents are still at an “ignorance is bliss” stage.

Liza is still not over her own trauma so at first, we wonder if she is imagining the doll moving his head and eyes.

When one day, Jude hands over a list of rules set by Brahms, Liza loses it and lets him know that the parents will set the rules in the house and not his doll. Sean has no say in anything.

Liza further loses her temper when she finds Jude’s teddy mutilated. Sean hardly blinks and thinks his son is over it. Liza wants Jude to admit he ripped his teddy but Jude maintains he didn’t. Fingers are pointed at the doll and Liza is having none of it. She sends Jude to his room to reflect but instead finds someone running about the house.

She knocks on Jude’s door and reminds him he is grounded but Jude is right behind her, breaking her rules by going out to drink water.

Liza opens the door to find Brahms sitting on a chair. She is shocked because she is beginning to feel that the doll may be alive and her hunch is proven by this incident.

There’s also a groundskeeper, Joseph, who roams around with a shotgun and who rather than warning the family of the history of the place, keeps giving Liza and Jude weird glances.

It also seems that Brahms stares at Joseph but it could be that Jude just happens to carry the doll in a weird way. Joseph’s dog too senses evil in the doll and makes the mistake of growing first, then whimpering. Of course, Brahms decides he must take out the dog first even though it is an animal and his warnings cannot be understood by humans.

Why are defenceless animals killed in Horror movies? Are the demons and ghosts worried they might start talking all of a sudden? The family will be sceptical but they won’t really base decisions on a dog’s whimpering. So seriously, writers of horror movies need to spare the animals.

At home, Brahms makes his presence known even more by making Jude tell everyone his rules, one of which angers Liza because it says she cannot invite guests.

Liza wants to have people at the house and tells Jude that the doll cannot make rules.

She turns away and hears clattering. Somehow the doll manages to upturn the table. The power is never explained. Can the doll physically do so or use telekinesis?

Liza gets mad and decides to do away with the doll even though the psychiatrist, through video call expresses that there is an improvement in Jude’s communication skills.

Liza is disturbed by more nightmares, one in which she sees the doll open its mouth and vomit out bugs.

BRAHMS: THE BOY II Ending Explained with spoilers! 

Liza finally decides to investigate the doll’s history. Picking up a random doll from the woods was clearly not a good idea. She finds that dolls have a serial number but when she finds the number on the doll’s foot and types it online, it never occurs to her that the numbers may be inverted.

When common sense prevails after all these incidents, she picks up the paper from the trash can because she hasn’t cleared the dustbin in weeks.

She finds the doll is associated with a lot of mysterious happenings and realizes that it is evil. This is further confirmed after her family comes for a visit and one of the kids is injured after bullying Jude.

Joseph returns to tell the family that his dog was killed and tells Liza that Brahms will take Jude with him and lead him to evil.

By this time Jude has started uttering a few words and warns Greg's family that Brahms isn’t happy.

The family is taken to the basement and Joseph has Liza at gunpoint. Sean finally realizes he needs to be home at some point and save his family.

He smashes in the doll’s head just as Liza is trying to pacify everyone. The doll’s real face is revealed and it is weird with glowing eyes. He is supposed to be demonic but just looks pathetic.

The doll uses its power to throw Joseph into the furnace. Jude pretends to be friends with Brahms forever then betrays it by tossing him into the furnace.

The family continues to live in the house and be happy. Jude wakes up at night and puts on a doll mask.

This is supposed to be a nod to the original movie wherein it was hinted that the doll was haunted only for it to be revealed that there was a man living behind the walls.

Therein is where the problem with this movie lies. While the first movie established the doll was just a red herring for the actual villain in the movie, this movie shows that no it was the doll all along.

It was the doll that brainwashed Brahms into murdering people even though as shown in this movie, it had the power to throw things around and didn’t really need a human to get things done.

While the first movie cleverly tricks the viewer and reveals all only in the climax, the sequel does nothing original nor does it provide enough scares to keep you at the edge of the seat.

It would be better to watch The Boy again rather than the sequel.

Scare scale: 1.5/5