Brahms: The Boy II Parent Guide

Liza (Katie Holmes) and Sean (Owain Yeoman) have a pleasant life with their son, Jude (Christopher Convery), in their lovely London home. But when a terrifying burglary leaves Liza injured and shaken, and Jude refusing to say a word to anyone, Sean suggests that they get out of town and decompress in the country. On a walk in the woods, Jude stumbles across a buried doll, with a strange face, and an even stranger list of rules which “he” expects to be followed…

There is a glut of “cursed kid/imaginary friend/cursed doll” movies, and they’re all basically interchangeable. This one is absolutely made from the same mold. It’s functionally a “color-by-numbers” of horror movie clichés. If you’ve seen enough horror flicks, you can count down to the jump scares pretty accurately, which completely eviscerates any tension the movie tries to build over its brisk 86 minute runtime.

Thankfully, despite its cumbersome title, Brahms: The Boy II is surprisingly short. It even feels short, although if it had made an 86 minute movie feel long, we’d have other problems. So, while it is unoriginal, it has the common courtesy to be brief. I’ll take that deal any day. Fantasy Island was equally unsurprising and over half an hour longer. Brahms also has the edge in acting quality, with Katie Holmes bringing a level of sincerity that almost manages to elevate the source material. Almost.

So the real question with most horror movies: is this suitable for a large group of overly-loud teenagers with nothing better to do on a Friday night (except that homework you keep trying to get them to do)? Unfortunately, yes. There is almost no seriously objectionable content. Even the violence, which sounds pretty bad when written down, mostly happens just off-screen or is non-fatal in nature. It’s also devastatingly boring, but loud teenagers make their own fun.

As brainless entertainment, you could do worse. Of course, for my money, I prefer to get slightly more brain. Not a lot, mind you. I’d settle for something that doesn’t make me wish I’d just sat in the car, waited ‘til the movie was over, and read random Wikipedia pages on my phone. Although, in fairness, very few movies clear that threshold. Which means that too many movies are lazy and boring, or that reading about northern pygmy owls is more fun than you thought.