CHUD II: Bud the Chud (1989)

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nTitle: C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud (1989)

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nDirector: David K. Irving

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nCast: Gerrit Graham, Robert Vaughn

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nReview:

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nThere’s sequels out there that have nothing to do with thenoriginal film, they are made and marketed as a sequel to the original film simplynas a way to make some money by riding on the coat tails of the first film whichnin most cases was moderately successful. Examples of this are films like TROLLnII (1990), which was marketed as a sequel to TROLL (1986), but doesn’t even have any trollsnin it, and doesn’t have anything to do with the original. Another good examplenwould be Day of the Dead 2: Contagium (2005), there’s many others, but thesentwo are the most clear examples I can think of right now. C.H.U.D. II: Bud thenChud is one of these ‘in name only’ sequels. What a waste of celluloid!  

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nRemember how in the first film we learned that the C.H.U.D.ncreatures were all part of a government experiment gone wrong?  Well, on this one the government has decidednto eliminate the ‘C.H.U.D. program’, so they send the last remaining C.H.U.D.nto a government science lab to get rid of it. A duo of high school studentsndecide to break into a government science lab to find a corpse for theirnscience teacher. They end up taking the C.H.U.D. with them and mistakenly bringingnhim back to life. Not only do they revive it, they also misplace it! The C.H.U.D.nends up infecting people all over town and creating and army of C.H.U.D.’s! Why?nWho the hell knows, this movie makes no sense to me. The guy who wrote it, EdnNaha wrote Stuart Gordon’s DOLLS (1987), Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989) and TROLL (1986) all pretty decent films in my book, but CHUD II feels likenhe wrote it in a day, there’s nothing special about it, it has no depth, nonmeaning, it’s a stupid film about kids trying to stop a hoard of stupid assnbumbling zombies. Ed Naha wrote this film, but you wouldn’t know by looking atnthe films credits because he was so ashamed to have been the author of thisnlame piece of zombie zinema that he changed his name on the credits to ‘M. KanenJeeves’; so that gives you an idea how special this film is. 

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nI’ll tell you the truth, it was extremely difficult stayingnawake through this one. It’s the kind of film that I fall asleep on because itnjust fails to grab me. I tried finishing this movie on three occasions, but itnwas just so difficult to maintain my interest in such an inept, vacuous movie.nIt had nothing to say, it was so infantile, it has no story to it. It has anpremise, that’s it. The premise is that a C.H.U.D. has escaped the militariesngrasp and is going around a small town biting people and turning them into C.H.U.D.’s.nNow remember how the C.H.U.D.’s in the first film were these creatures thatnused to be humans but mutated into these monstrous creatures with glowing yellowneyes? Well on this one they refer to that as a “rare occurrence” on this onenthe C.H.U.D.’s don’t even mutate, they look more like zombies; but not coolndecomposing walking corpses you would see in films like Return of the LivingnDead (1984), nope, these zombies look more like regular people with white makenup on their faces and bad teeth, which of course is a complete rip off. Soncheap! I felt cheated! Especially when we take in consideration that on thenposter for this film we see mutated zombies with glowing yellow eyes that shownup NOWHERE on this film! 

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nSeriously, this movie must have cost something like twondollars to make, it’s so cheap. I think most of the budget went on exploding anfast food joint and paying Robert Vaughn to play the military officialnresponsible for getting rid of the C.H.U.D.’s. This is supposed to be a horrorncomedy, though there’s very little of both of these elements on the film; it’s neithernfunny, nor horrifying, which brings me to my next point: for a zombie movie,nthis film is pretty blood less! There’s absolutely no gore anywhere on thisnfilm. And it’s supposed to be a zombie flick! I guess, if you wanted to shownyour seven year old little sibling their first zombie film you could probablynshow him or her this infantile film and they might even enjoy it because as anzombie film, it’s pretty harmless and silly. The zombies don’t even eat people,nthough this is what they are supposed to do because they are always saying “meat!”nwhen they see humans, but we never actually see anyone eating human flesh,nwhich of course will be a major let down for any zombie fan. Why let a guy who’s never made a horror film in his life direct a horror comedy? All David K. Irving ever directed were children’s films, which might explain why this second C.H.U.D. film ended up being so infantile in contrast to the first, which wasn’t a children’s film. 

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nHow stupid is this film? Well, at one point Bud the C.H.U.D.,nwho for some reason every C.H.U.D. follows and imitates, decides to head to thenlocal high school Halloween party, and just as they are entering the highnschool all the C.H.U.D.’s begin to do this choreographed dance sequence thatncomes out of nowhere and I’m like what the hell? Was that supposed to some sortnof homage to Michael Jackson’s THRILLER or something? Then they have Bud the C.H.U.D.ndoing some pretty stupid things like getting a hair cut, dressing up, killing anwoman doing her aerobics and attacking a fast food establishment. And it’s notnonly the C.H.U.D.’s that are stupid; the main characters do some pretty stupidnthings as well. The last twenty minutes are perhaps the only moderately coolnthing about the film because the filmmakers finally decided to show a couple ofndeaths to liven up the pace of the film, which up to this point is a completenborefest. I could say that seeing Robert Englund appear in the shortest cameonon the planet was amusing, but I would be lying because it’s a blink or you’llnmiss it type of thing, he walks in front of the camera walking a dog and then he’sngone. Personally I don’t recommend CHUD II: Bud the Chud because it has none ofnthe things that made the original C.H.U.D. film a watchable b-flick, this ‘innname only sequel’ is cheap and cheats it’s way out of showing us some monstersnby replacing said monsters with actors wearing white make up on their faces. It’snsilly in a very 80’s kind of way (the film has it’s own theme song!) and maybenyou might find some enjoyment in that, but ultimately, these CannibalisticnHumanoid Underground Dwellers are a total bore, directed by a guy who knewnnothing about what makes a good horror/comedy. I say give it a pass, there’snbetter zombie movies out there to see.

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nRating: 1 out of 5   
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