Like death and taxes, horror movie sequels exist as an utter inevitability. After 1988’s Child’s Play found a decent audience, it came as no surprise that Child’s Play 2 followed in 1990.

Set a couple of years after the first film’s horrific events, young Andy (Alex Vincent) ends up in foster care. His mom got sent to a psychiatric hospital, so he needs new adult supervision.

In addition, Play Pals – the company that created the “Good Guys” doll that terrorized Andy and others two years earlier – tries to overcome their bad publicity. Though Andy and his mom largely destroyed their Chucky doll, the Play Pals honchos order it reconstructed to prove it lacked the capability to achieve the violence Andy and his mom claimed.

Unsurprisingly, this goes awry. Still possessed by the spirit of homicidal maniac Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), Chucky comes back to life and pursues Andy, as he wants to take over the boy’s body for his own insidious ends.

Whereas the first film got a boost from the novelty of its concept, Play 2 lacks the same potential impact. As a sequel, surprise doesn’t fall on its side, so it needs to find something new to entertain audiences.

Which Play 2 largely fails to do. While it creates a moderately entertaining tale, it doesn’t break new ground.

A lot of Play 2 dances perilously close to remake territory. In the first flick, Andy knew Chucky killed people but no one believes him. In the sequel, Andy knows Chucky kills people but no one believes him.

Any changes in this theme feel like windowdressing. Andy’s shift from his mom’s care to a foster environment offers some potential twists, but it feels like Andy ends up in an alternate placement more to bring in new victims than to motivate the plot.

The movie’s main charms come from the cackling menace Dourif adds to Chucky, and that side of Play 2 works fine. Having seen how much Chucky dominates the more recent sequels, though, it can feel strange to see how relatively little he does here.

Dourif gets a decent-sized part, but he doesn’t give us as much as one might anticipate. Still, Dourif delivers his potentially silly one-liners with aplomb and creates the most vivid aspects of the movie. Like the prior flick, Play 2 doesn’t give Chucky the same room for comedy as later efforts, but Dourif makes the most of his opportunities.

In the original, Vincent provided a passable presence as Andy, and that remains the case here. Two years older, the boy might present slightly stronger acting than in the first flick, but don’t expect much. He remains adequate in the role and that’s about it.

Play 2 comes with fairly good talent in the other roles, as we find semi-names like Jenny Agutter, Gerrit Graham, Beth Grant, Grace Zabriskie and others. None of them do much with their roles, but they add a bit of credibility to the project.

I think Play 2 loses points due to its inherent redundancy. Too much of it feels like an echo of the prior film, and a few minor twists do too little to alter that formula.

At a brisk 83 minutes, Play 2 goes by quickly enough to keep us with it, so as uncreative as it may be, it remains watchable. It just can’t develop into anything more memorable or dynamic than that.

Child’s Play 2 appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though not great, the image seemed more than satisfactory.

Sharpness was largely positive. A few interiors appeared a little on the soft side, but the majority of the movie came across with good accuracy and delineation.

I noticed no issues with jaggies or shimmering, and the image lacked edge haloes. With a fair amount of grain, I didn’t sense any intrusive digital noise reduction, and print flaws were absent.

Colors seemed fairly positive. Play 2 went with a blue-influenced palette, but it opened up to brighter tones as well, and these seemed acceptably well-developed.

Blacks were fairly dark and tight, and shadows showed largely appropriate clarity, albeit a little on the dim side. I felt the transfer held up pretty well.

I also thought that the DTS-HD MA 2.0 soundtrack of Play 2 worked fine, and the forward channels dominated. They showed good stereo imaging for the score and also offered acceptable ambience.

Not surprisingly, the movie kicked to auditory life more actively during its occasional action scenes, and those offered decent use of all the channels. The elements seemed appropriately located and they blended together pretty well, though I never thought this turned into an especially involving affair.

Audio quality appeared solid. Dialogue came across as fairly natural and warm, though the lines did occasionally suffer from iffy looping. Music seemed bright and vibrant, as the score presented clear highs and tight low-end.

Effects packed a good punch, so those elements appeared distinct and vivid. They lacked problems related to distortion, and they demonstrated reasonably deep bass response. Overall, the soundtrack of Play 2 seemed more than acceptable given its age and origins.

The disc includes the movie’s trailer and no other extras.

In terms of horror sequels, I’ve seen many efforts weaker than Child’s Play 2, as it manages to give us a bit of entertainment. Unfortunately, it fails to develop anything fresh and it often feels like a rehash of the prior film. The Blu-ray brings mostly appealing picture and audio but it lacks supplements. Expect a passable second chapter in the Chucky saga.