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

There's been a few films in my moviegoing life that I walked away from feeling that they were infinitely better than they had any right to be, and the original C.H.U.D. is one of them.  I went in expecting a good early-'80s style body count flick with lots of corny characters and dialogue.  The last thing I expected was a genuinely well-written and acted flick that did an amazing job maximizing its budget.  I also loved the serious approach that it took to its amazingly craptacular material.  Making a movie about human flesh-eating subterranean humanoids and managing to make it decidedly NON-cringe-inducing might seem like a very tall order indeed, but the flick managed to pull it off.

The sequel, though?  Not so much, because C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud just ain't very good.  Gone are the actors who were able to milk every bit of emotion and resonance from their characters and the simple-yet-effective story.  In its place are a group of dopey kids and a whole lot of cheese.  And not the good kind. 

PLOT:  Some indeterminate amount of time after the events of the original film, the military have taken control of the government's C.H.U.D. project and are looking - and failing - to mine the CHUDS as biological weapons.  The final remaining CHUD (named "Bud", hence the title) is stolen from the facility by cool teen Steve and his nerdy friend Kevin after they lose their soon-to-be-dissected cadaver for their biology class and need a replacement.  Of course, Bud soon springs to life and begins causing havoc, creating more CHUDS in the process while also acting out a whole bunch of nonsensical comedy scenes.  Most of the movie concerns itself with Steve, Kevin and their cute chick friend Katie tracking down Bud after he pulls his best Logan's Run routine, as well as the military guys trying to clean up their own mess.  All in all, not the most captivating stuff.
PLOT RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  This was by far the saving grace of the first movie, as John Heard, Daniel Stern etc. put a whole lot of energy and honesty into their characters and managed to squeeze a lot of genuine emotion out of the proceedings.  While I can't necessarily fault the actors in this flick, the characters are all paper-thin stereotypes.  The kids are just as one-note as I described above, and the military douchebags...yeah.  That's all I'm going to say.  I will throw this tidbit out there, however: Steve is played by Brian Robbins, a guy who went on to direct movies like Good Burger, Varsity Blues, Hardball and....Ready to Rumble.  All hail the king!  Finally, Tricia Leigh Fisher (Carrie Fisher's real-life half sister), who plays Katie, looks pretty damn good in a swimsuit, so there's that.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: * out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  There's not much redeeming factor to the film in this regard, either.  It IS possible to have a movie that is "so bad it's good," where a film's cheesiness actually lends itself to group viewings and MST3K-style quips.  This movie, though, doesn't work in a crowd setting.  There just isn't enough in the way of over-the-top violence or cheesy sex scenes, and since the movie itself seems to be a self-parody, it's not really possible to mine it for more comedy with whatever friends (read: victims) you can con into watching this thing with you.
COOL FACTOR: * out of ****.

OVERALL:  Ouch.  At only 84 minutes long, this movie was a damn chore to sit through.  Tepid characters, bad scripting, and bad comedy would have been bad enough, but it's made all the worse by just how different the tone of this movie is from its far superior original.  As such, C.H.U.D. II didn't make much of a wave with the horror-going audience, hitting video store shelves (no theatrical release this time) in 1989 and vanishing from the public consciousness in short order.  Having said that, it was still better than, say, Leprechaun. 

OVERALL RATING: * out of ****.  It's times like this that I'm REALLY happy I don't do the mega-sized reviews anymore, because doing a total blow-by-blow of this film would have been torture.