Brahms: The Boy II features a major twist that reframes and retroactively spoils what made the original work. The Boy was a surprisingly creepy horror thriller that arrived in 2016. It starred Lauren Cohan as Greta, a woman hired to care for a couple’s “boy,” who turns out to be a porcelain doll named Brahms. The doll is based off their real son, who died years before in a fire. Greta soon suspects Brahms’ spirit has possessed the doll, as it seems to move on its own and take revenge when angered.
The Boy was a surprise hit, earning over $60 million on a modest budget. Those are the kinds of numbers that inspire a sequel, but the story ended on a somewhat complete note. Greta eventually learns the real Brahms never died and is now an adult wearing a porcelain mask who lives inside the mansion walls. His parents intended Greta to be a companion for their evil son, but in the end, she seemingly kills him and the doll is smashed. Greta and her love interest escape, but the final scene shows Brahms piecing the shattered doll back together.
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Brahms: The Boy II is the 2020 sequel that finds a family heading to a house located near the mansion to do some healing following a home invasion. The family’s young son Jude was rendered mute due to trauma but while exploring the woods he recovers the Brahms doll buried in the ground. Jude takes the doll home and they form a creepy attachment, which the parents initially put down to Jude using the doll to express his emotions. The big twist of Brahms: The Boy II reveals the doll actually is possessed with some kind of demon that travels from family to family, causing death and destruction in search of a human host.
The main issue with Brahms: The Boy II’s big reveal is that it completely reframes the original. The twist that the real Brahms was alive and there was nothing supernatural is what made it work, but The Boy II bizarrely goes out of its way to undermine all that. It posits the real Brahms was nothing but a puppet for the doll, and the character seemingly died following the events of the original.
Brahms: The Boy II seemingly made this decision to make the doll the focus of the potential franchise, and it ends with the reveal Brahms successfully possessed Jude. Some movies are clearly made with no real thought of a follow-up, such as Highlander II: The Quickening. The original film ended with the story completely wrapped up, and the filmmakers were then forced to heavily retcon huge chucks of the story to make a sequel work, such as making the immortals aliens. While Brahms: The Boy II’s twist isn’t nearly as erroneous, its disregard for its own story logic serves to retroactively undermine the original for the sake of a lukewarm follow-up. The sequel did poorly at the box-office, however, making The Boy III unlikely.
