CHUD II: Bud the Chud (1989)

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

Director: David K. Irving

Cast: Gerrit Graham, Robert Vaughn

Review:

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

Bud the C.H.U.D. resurrected by a hair dryer thrown in a bathtub! 

Remember how in the first film we learned that the C.H.U.D. creatures were all part of a government experiment gone wrong?  Well, on this one the government has decided to eliminate the ‘C.H.U.D. program’, so they send the last remaining C.H.U.D. to a government science lab to get rid of it. A duo of high school students decide to break into a government science lab to find a corpse for their science teacher. They end up taking the C.H.U.D. with them and mistakenly bringing him back to life. Not only do they revive it, they also misplace it! The C.H.U.D. ends up infecting people all over town and creating and army of C.H.U.D.’s! Why? Who the hell knows, this movie makes no sense to me. The guy who wrote it, Ed Naha 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 like he wrote it in a day, there’s nothing special about it, it has no depth, no meaning, it’s a stupid film about kids trying to stop a hoard of stupid ass bumbling zombies. Ed Naha wrote this film, but you wouldn’t know by looking at the films credits because he was so ashamed to have been the author of this lame piece of zombie zinema that he changed his name on the credits to ‘M. Kane Jeeves’; so that gives you an idea how special this film is. 

  

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

Seriously, this movie must have cost something like two dollars to make, it’s so cheap. I think most of the budget went on exploding a fast food joint and paying Robert Vaughn to play the military official responsible for getting rid of the C.H.U.D.’s. This is supposed to be a horror comedy, though there’s very little of both of these elements on the film; it’s neither funny, nor horrifying, which brings me to my next point: for a zombie movie, this film is pretty blood less! There’s absolutely no gore anywhere on this film. And it’s supposed to be a zombie flick! I guess, if you wanted to show your seven year old little sibling their first zombie film you could probably show him or her this infantile film and they might even enjoy it because as a zombie film, it’s pretty harmless and silly. The zombies don’t even eat people, though this is what they are supposed to do because they are always saying “meat!” when they see humans, but we never actually see anyone eating human flesh, which 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. 

Zombies go trick or treating on this film

How stupid is this film? Well, at one point Bud the C.H.U.D., who for some reason every C.H.U.D. follows and imitates, decides to head to the local high school Halloween party, and just as they are entering the high school all the C.H.U.D.’s begin to do this choreographed dance sequence that comes out of nowhere and I’m like what the hell? Was that supposed to some sort of homage to Michael Jackson’s THRILLER or something? Then they have Bud the C.H.U.D. doing some pretty stupid things like getting a hair cut, dressing up, killing a woman doing her aerobics and attacking a fast food establishment. And it’s not only the C.H.U.D.’s that are stupid; the main characters do some pretty stupid things as well. The last twenty minutes are perhaps the only moderately cool thing about the film because the filmmakers finally decided to show a couple of deaths to liven up the pace of the film, which up to this point is a complete borefest. I could say that seeing Robert Englund appear in the shortest cameo on the planet was amusing, but I would be lying because it’s a blink or you’ll miss it type of thing, he walks in front of the camera walking a dog and then he’s gone. Personally I don’t recommend CHUD II: Bud the Chud because it has none of the things that made the original C.H.U.D. film a watchable b-flick, this ‘in name only sequel’ is cheap and cheats it’s way out of showing us some monsters by replacing said monsters with actors wearing white make up on their faces. It’s silly in a very 80’s kind of way (the film has it’s own theme song!) and maybe you might find some enjoyment in that, but ultimately, these Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers are a total bore, directed by a guy who knew nothing about what makes a good horror/comedy. I say give it a pass, there’s better zombie movies out there to see.

Rating: 1 out of 5