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| Note how the Bud the C.H.U.D. subtitle isn't used here. |
As you saw yesterday, the first C.H.U.D. is a film that has a lot of elements I can appreciate, especially the designs of the monsters, but I ultimately feel it's a big missed opportunity due to the story not focusing enough on the monsters themselves; this film has no untapped potential whatsoever. Rather than a true sequel, it's a movie that takes the same basic setup of Night of the Creeps and then tries to be a horror comedy in the style of The Return of the Living Dead (specifically, the extremely silly second one). The problem is that it tries so hard to be totally ridiculous and zany, in both its comedy and depiction of its setting and characters, that it falls flat and comes off as just stupid. It's not an entry of Movies That Suck because it didn't completely piss me off but, trust me, there are many other horror-comedies that are more deserving of your time.
The C.H.U.D. Research Project, an ongoing series of experiments by the U.S. military that involves injecting soldiers with an enzyme capable of allowing them to go on fighting even after they're clinically dead, has been terminated for being too risky, much to the irritation of its chief proponent, Colonel Masters. However, just as he's about to be destroyed, Bud Oliver, the last remaining specimen of the experiment, attacks and kills the man assigned to put him down and escapes into the building. He doesn't get far, though, before Masters and his men find and freeze him. Until the project is picked back up again, Masters decides to have Bud stored at the Winter Haven Center for Disease Control, a government-funded facility in a tiny, American town. At the town's high school, teenage student Steve Williams accidentally causes a fire in biology class and, as punishment, he and his friend, Kevin, are forced to work in the school's loading dock. There, they accidentally send the gurney housing a cadaver their teacher was planning on having them work on the following day rolling out into the streets. Unable to catch it, and deciding against telling their teacher what happened, Steve talks Kevin into finding a replacement. That night, the two of them sneak into the Center for Disease Control and decide to take Bud's body, but since the biology lab is locked up, they sneak the corpse into Steve's house, hiding him in the bathroom. In their frantically trying to keep Steve's parents from finding out, they unwittingly revive Bud when Steve drops a plugged-in hairdryer into the tub's water. Thinking they've discovered a way of creating life that has to do with electricity and the ingredients of a bubble-bath, Steve hides Bud down in the basement while he and Kevin go out to eat with their other friend, Katie, telling her what's happened. However, while they're gone, Bud escapes the house and starts biting anybody and anything he comes across, slowly creating an ever-growing army of C.H.U.D.s that could threaten the existence of the entire human race.
While the original C.H.U.D. was director Douglas Cheek's only theatrical film, David K. Irving had a handful of movies under his belt by the time he directed this. While his first directorial effort, 1983's Good-Bye Cruel World, was an R-rated comedy, his next three films were live-action adaptations of famous fairy tales done for Cannon Films: Rumpelstiltskin, The Emperor's New Clothes, and Sleeping Beauty. After C.H.U.D. II, he directed one more actual movie, Night of the Cyclone, a 1990 action-thriller starring Kris Kristofferson, before disappearing until the late 90's. From 1999 to 2008, he wrote and directed a number of documentary shorts but other than that, really hasn't done anything in recent years. He did do a commentary for Vestron's Blu-Ray release of C.H.U.D. II in 2016, so he must not be too ashamed of it.
One of the many compliments I could give the first C.H.U.D. is that it was fortunate to have a good cast that also happened to be made up of some familiar faces. While there are some notable actors who appear in this film as well, none of the characters are as memorable or likable, including the three teenage leads, who are where the film feels a bit like Night of the Creeps. On the boys' side of the trio, you have Steve Williams (Brian Robbins), a free-spirited young slacker who's a bit of a troublemaker and constantly screws things up, and his straight-A but very meek friend, Kevin (Bill Calvert), who constantly ends up in trouble because of his antics. Their relationship is a lot like Chris and J.C. in Night of the Creeps in that Steve is often trying to get the more withdrawn Kevin to loosen up and not be such a stiff (albeit, in a more obnoxious manner), telling him he wouldn't have as much fun as he does if it weren't for him. After they get in trouble when Steve's biology class experiment go awry and starts a small fire (I don't know why Kevin gets in trouble; he manages to get the fire under control by throwing sand on it), he and Kevin further complicate things when, while having to organize stuff for the lab at the school's loading dock, they come across the cadaver their biology teacher intends for them to work on the next day. Steve fools around with it and when Kevin tries to make him stop, he accidentally pushes the gurney out of the building and sends it into the streets. After they're unable to catch it, Steve decides that, rather than explaining what happened and getting into more trouble, they should get a replacement and go to the town's Center for Disease Control, where they find Bud. They bring him to Steve's house and Kevin has to distract the parents while Steve sneaks the body through the front door and eventually settles on putting it in the bathtub upstairs. Then, he accidentally drops a hairdryer into the water-filled tub with Bud, creating the electric spark necessary to restore him to life. While Kevin is freaked out and horrified by this, Steve is elated, as he thinks he discovered the secret of life and, after initially thinking it could net them an A in biology, goes on to feel that it could potentially net them a Nobel Prize if they go public with it. Once they get Bud down into the basement, they stupidly decide to go have dinner with their other friend, Katie, leaving his parents alone in the house with Bud. Kevin, being more sensible, feels that they should just come clean about what happened, while Steve is all about getting that fame and fortune, deciding to go ahead and announce what they've discovered when they overhear that the police are searching for them.
This is where you start to realize just how dumb and naive Steve can be. They overhear the police report describe Katie's car, so Steve says they'll just walk to school, but then, Kevin says that they likely also have the license plate's number. Steve's response? "So." Was anybody that oblivious when they were in high school? I seriously hope not. Anyway, Steve then formulates the plan to take Bud to the nearest TV station... only to get back home and find that he's not in the basement. So, they spend the whole night looking for him but, when they can't find him, they decide to continue the search the next morning. Kevin, again, suggests that they should turn themselves in but Steve, yet again, shoots that down, saying they'd be giving someone else the chance to go down in history (he says in the "anals" of history, one of many times he says something wrong, because he's a dumbass). The next day, as they look for Bud again, Steve is still confident that they'll find him, despite having overheard a conversation between his mother and Col. Masters and Graves and now knowing that people from the military are looking for them. All three of them prove to be totally oblivious, as they don't notice a massacre that goes on inside of a fast food place they're sitting right in front and it takes Kevin a while to notice that Bud is sitting in the back of the truck that was parked next to them the whole time. Plus, it's only when they follow Bud to a farm in the country that they start to realize what they're up against, as they see the other C.H.U.D.s that he's amassed and witness their mutant, undead properties. That's when they're taken in by the military to the Center for Disease Control for questioning and learn everything there is to know about the C.H.U.D.s. They then realize that the C.H.U.D.s will head to the Halloween dance going on at the school that night and, with Graves' help, escape to the school to stop them. There, Kevin decides they need to isolate the C.H.U.D.s from everyone else in order to freeze them with one of the subzero weapons the military were packing, even though it would only be a temporary fix. That's when they stumble across a way to destroy them by introducing electrical charges into their bodies once they're frozen (they discover this by destroying their "chudified" biology teacher) and so, Kevin decides to then lure the C.H.U.D.s into the school pool, freeze it, and then destroy them with electricity. Despite some hiccups along the way, and Steve repeatedly making stupid, unfunny comments, the plan does end up working and the C.H.U.D.s are destroyed. But, during the chaos, Steve is bitten on the foot and he disappears the next day, leaving his friends a note saying that he's off to see the world and grow as a person. In reality, he's now become a C.H.U.D. himself and is hitchhiking with another one.
In playing Bud, Graham gives a mostly pantomime performance. Occasionally, he does say random words and phrases, like, "Meat," "Nice cut," and, "Small fry," but, for the most part, his performance is mainly in the vein of Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster, using his body language and facial expressions. Like I said, he shifts between coming off as dopey and downright slapsticky, with this really awkward, spastic walk, to being a snarling, angry creature that can turn others he bites into C.H.U.D.s like him. There is some true intelligence within Bud, along with the basic instincts to avoid being detected, not eating foul-smelling dog-food, and to feed on meat when he becomes hungry. He has a sense of style about him, knowing how nice the drunk guy's suit jacket looks, as well as what a nice haircut looks like, and he's smart enough to hide anything that he gets blood on, as well as that belching in public is frowned upon, given his facial expressions when he does it at one point. He also has a habit of cracking his knuckles before doing something in an apparent attempt to make himself look slick. And then, of course, there's the fact that he becomes leader of the C.H.U.D.s and, after inspecting them to make sure they look nice, has them follow him into town on Halloween night, where there are plenty of people to feast on. Upon finding a flyer for the dance at the high school, he knows that it's a certifiable buffet and leads them there, having them do a military-style chant where he goes, "Eat 'em up, eat 'em up!", and they respond with, "Yum, yum, yum!" Ironically, when they make their way into the school, they have the hardest time biting anyone because of their crazy dance moves and the whole time, none of the kids realize the danger they're in. Katie then shows up in a swimsuit and lures them to the pool (I have to admit, Bud's exclamation of, "Ka-Tie!", is kind of funny), where they plan to freeze and destroy them with electrical currents. Though he falls into the pool and gets frozen, Bud manages to break out of the ice and chase Katie up onto the diving board. Once he's cornered her, he pulls his own heart out and tries to give it to her, in a very sincere-looking gesture (when he finds the flier for the dance earlier, he acts conflicted and glances back and forth between her picture and the flier, seeming to realize she would be put in danger if he takes the other C.H.U.D.s there). But, Kevin promptly freezes him and he and Steve destroy all of the C.H.U.D.s with the electrical current. Bud's head, which severed from his frozen body when it fell off the diving board and shattered, is still active for a bit but Steve takes an axe to it, ending Bud once and for all.
In a way, Masters is akin to Wilson from the first C.H.U.D. in that he's a second antagonist in addition to the monsters and is another corrupt government official who's trying to keep his dirty little secret from being made public. However, he's not as despicable as Wilson, mostly because he's so broad and cartoonish in his depiction but also because he doesn't deliberately try to kill other people in order to cover everything. Not saying he wouldn't, given how crazy he is, and he does take Steve, Kevin, and Katie in without giving them a chance to explain themselves, but he's a different kind of villain for a very different kind of movie. After the incident at the diner, Masters and his team catch up to Bud and the other C.H.U.D.s he's created at a farm in the countryside, where he witnesses the creatures' ability to mutate and adapt when a frozen one deliberately raises his body temperature in order to melt the ice. Yet again, he's more ecstatic about it than concerned, describing it as beautiful and excitedly noting how soon, there will be no way to stop the C.H.U.D.s at all. Despite this, he gives his men orders to hunt down and destroy all of them by the next morning, while he and Graves take the kids to the Center for Disease Control, telling him to grill them about what they know. Remembering then that it's Halloween night and the streets are crawling with potential victims, Masters decides to head into town himself, even though he has no idea how to kill the C.H.U.D.s, saying, "That's the sport of the hunt. That's the thrill of war." He heads out to his car, unaware that Sam, the soldier who's been his chauffeur the whole time, has been turned into a C.H.U.D. Masters disappears from the movie after that and isn't around for the climax, but the movie ends with him, now a C.H.U.D., hiding in the back of truck that the chudified Steve is using to hitchhike out of town.
Steve's family are rather typical in how they're depicted. His mother, Melissa (Sandra Kerns), is a fairly bubbly housewife who enjoys watching nature documentaries, dotes on their poodle, Jasper, and is fairly forgiving of Steve's screw-ups, particularly at school. His dad, Wade (Jack Riley), is much more strict and narrow-minded, talking about grounding Steve if he gets another bad grad, and is intent upon him going into the traditional family business of construction. He won't hear of him doing anything else, bringing up the old saying, "I brought that kid into this world and I can take him out of it." Both of them like Kevin and feel that he's a good influence on Steve, with Wade saying that he hopes Steve will learn to think things through like he does. Through the whole movie, Wade and Melissa are totally unaware of what's going on, as they never see Bud when Steve and Kevin are keeping him in the house and, while they take their young daughter, Sally (Jami Lynn Grenham), trick-or-treating on Halloween night, they never get attacked by the C.H.U.D.s (even though it looks like they do at one point). Speaking of Sally, she does see Bud when Steve first hides him in the bathroom and he tries to get rid of her by telling her that she's having a nightmare. When that doesn't work, he tells her that Bud is going to come to life and kill in her sleep if she doesn't go back to bed, which she promptly does. A minute later, she does come out of the bedroom again and asks a stunned Kevin, who's just witnessed Bud's resurrection, if she's having a nightmare, to which he answers, "We both are." Sally goes back into her room and doesn't come out for the rest of the night, not even to have dinner, and the next morning, she witnesses the now chudified Jasper's attack on the mailman outside. After seeing the guy being dragged away by the monstrous poodle, Sally runs back to her room, simply telling her dad that the mailman's gone when he asks if he's come by yet. Not too long afterward, Col. Masters and Graves drop by the house and talk to Melissa, asking to see Steve. That's when Masters tells her that her son is dead meat and Melissa, rather than being horrified by this remark and threatening to have him arrested for it, responds, "Well, isn't that a little harsh?" The last time you see Steve's family is when they show up at the school after the C.H.U.D.s have been taken care of, when a cadaver on a gurney (as in the one they lost at the beginning) bumps into the back of the car, prompting Sally to go, "Uh-oh," and duck down. Given that Steve is revealed to have become a C.H.U.D. at the end, our not seeing his family again after scene makes for an unsettling possibility.
Most of the ancillary characters you meet in the film end up getting turned into C.H.U.D.s, with the first one technically being Jasper, the Williams' poodle, whom Bud hunts down and bites into. He pops in and out of the movie after that, in order to bite and chudify the mailman and Sam, Masters' soldier chauffeur. He also shows up at the end and is revealed to be going with the now chudified Steve as he hitchhikes out of town. Bud's first human victim is Susan (Jo Ann Dearing), a woman whom he watches doing step aerobics from outside her window (he also happily imitates her movements)... until she decides she's had enough and stops to have a cigarette. She then opens up a can of cat-food and puts it outside on the porch, where she meets Bud. At first, she's taken with him, due to his size and well-built appearance, but screams in horror when he smiles and shows his sharp teeth (as if the pasty white skin wasn't enough to clue her in that this guy wasn't normal). This angers him and he attacks and bites her, turning her into a C.H.U.D., and as soon as she's changed, she starts looking for her cat again, though for a very different reason. Shortly after that, Bud comes across the drunken man (Mark S. Lane) whose suit jacket he takes and wears after biting him, but not before the guy stumbles out of a bar, yelling at the people inside, and goes to take a leak to the left of a dumpster. Don the barber (Frank Birney) gets bitten by Bud the next morning and he proceeds to go Sweeney Todd on the guy who comes in afterward, slicing him with a razor before taking a bite and stumbling out of the shop, fiddling with his flimsy toupee while looking at himself in the reflection of some glass. The mailman (Ritch Shydner) who gets attacked by Jasper while stopping at the Williams' mailbox is actually played by an actor whom the filmmakers initially had in mind to play Bud himself before they settled on Gerrit Graham. He later resurrects during an autopsy and bites and infects the coroner. When the kids find Bud and some other C.H.U.D.s hiding out in a barn, the farmer (Marvin J. McIntyre) shows up and, despite his ridiculous line, "What in the Wide World of Sports is going on here?!" (did anyone really think that was clever?), proves to be a bit of a badass, blasting one C.H.U.D. with a double-barrel shotgun and sending him through the barn's wall. Unfortunately, the C.H.U.D.s promptly overwhelm and bite him, but even as a C.H.U.D., he's tough, as he gets frozen, only to deliberately raise his body temperature to thaw himself out and escape, much to Masters' demented delight.
Sam (Judd Omen), the soldier who drives Col. Masters and Graves around town, manages to survive walking into a diner that's full of C.H.U.D.s and also dodges the bazooka shell that Masters fires at the place, but that night, while Masters and Graves have the kids detained at the Center for Disease Control, he hears and sees Jasper barking and whimpering in a nearby bush. Despite the fact that Jasper also starts letting out these unearthly snarls, Sam approaches the bush, trying to bait him out, and eventually gets attacked and turned into a C.H.U.D. He still poses as Masters' driver when the colonel rushes out to the car upon hearing about that it's Halloween, and when he gets in the backseat, telling him they're going to see some real action, Sam moans, "Okay, you go it!" We can probably guess that Sam bit and turned Masters into a C.H.U.D. A couple of random appearances are Norman Fell and June Lockhart as this old couple who make the mistake of letting some chudified trick-or-treaters into their house. After they kill and eat their pet bird, they turn on them, making them C.H.U.D.s as well. (Incidentally, twenty years prior, both Fell and Robert Vaughn had appeared in Bullitt. Like I said with Russ Tamblyn in Dracula vs. Frankenstein, it's amazing the effect that time can have on one's career, isn't it?) And when the kids make their way to the high school near the end of the film, they discover that their biology teacher, Mr. Proctor (Robert Symonds), got turned into a C.H.U.D. as well at some point. He lurches after them around the biology lab, trying to get his hands on them, and actually laughing evilly at several points, before they destroy him with an electric shock after he's frozen, discovering the key to destroying the C.H.U.D.s.
Would you believe me if I told you that director David Irving's mother is in this film? Well, she is, and more significantly, she happens to be Priscilla Pointer, who horror fans will know as the unintentionally unsympathetic character of Dr. Simms in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Here, she appears briefly at the very beginning as Dr. Berlin, a scientist who's completely against the C.H.U.D. Research Project, pointing its inherently deadly cons out to Col. Masters after the project has been officially terminated. And speaking of A Nightmare on Elm Street, at the beginning of the third act, when the C.H.U.D.s look down on the town, the camera follows a guy in a trench-coat who's walking the street while holding a little girl's hand. You recognize him? You should. It's Robert Englund! Yeah, I did a double-take when I saw him but I initially figured that it was probably just somebody who looked like him, seeing as how his name didn't pop up in the credits. But no, it actually is him in an uncredited cameo. Interesting bit of trivia and a surprising appearance, which they seemed to want you to notice, given how the camera follows him during that shot, but I don't get what the point of it is or why he did it, unless he was friends with somebody involved with the movie. Maybe it was Priscilla Pointer's doing? I don't know.
So, does this movie have any connection to the first C.H.U.D. whatsoever? Well, there is one possible, albeit very minute, allusion to that movie at the beginning, when Dr. Berlin is telling Col. Masters of the downsides of the C.H.U.D. enzyme, saying, "There was a reason that these creatures were kept underground." I'm guessing that's supposed to suggest that the enzyme they've been experimenting with was derived from the creatures in the original film, explaining why all the test subjects ended up becoming violent and cannibalistic, but when I first heard the line, I thought she was talking about the ill-fated test subjects that have all been destroyed, except for Bud, and that "C.H.U.D." was just some acronym they came up with for their creation. Then again, since we're dealing with a derived enzyme rather than actual contamination by the C.H.U.D.s themselves, it could also explain why the creatures in this movie look nothing like them. I guess going by that logic, the video cover isn't that much of a lie, but think about what this also suggests: rather than being destroyed, the C.H.U.D.s were simply contained in the sewers below New York, at least long enough for them to be experimented on in order to create this enzyme. Funnily enough, that scenario is possible, given how the first film was focusing more on Wilson as the real villain, ending on his death after he tries to kill the main characters so they won't expose his underground toxic waste dump. You could assume that the C.H.U.D.s got caught up in the explosion that was set off by his truck blowing up since the tunnels had been filled with gas but you don't know for sure. Again, remember, this is just me expounding on one vague line at the beginning, so who knows if this is what was actually intended. If so, then it's actually a brilliant way of doing a completely different sequel, regardless of whether or not said sequel is good.
As anyone who's seen it can tell you, the movie's biggest failing is that it's a comedy that's not funny, which always makes for a miserable sit. I wouldn't even call it a horror-comedy because not once does this movie try to be scary and disturbing in addition to the "laughs," such as An American Werewolf in London, and it's never that gruesome or over-the-top gory, like Peter Jackson's horror films. It is like Return of the Living Dead Part II in how it tries to be so over-the-top and goofy with its material that it ends up coming off as just plain stupid. You have attempts at slapstick and pratfalls, like Bud slipping and falling flat on his ass when he gets out of the tub after being resurrected, the one C.H.U.D. who chases after his severed head and repeatedly kicks it across the ground as he tries to get it, and the C.H.U.D.s being clumsy and unable to claim any victims at the Halloween party; numerous dumb jokes and lines, such as that Wide World of Sports line I mentioned earlier, Steve commenting that Bud's cannibalism could count as a personality quirk, and Melissa's very demure reaction to Col. Masters threatening her son; and attempts at full-on parody, like when the C.H.U.D.s dance towards the high school in a synchronized manner that's very reminiscent of Thriller. Plus, there's the fact that so many of the characters you meet are played in an exaggerated, caricatured manner: Steve doesn't care about school, gets bad grades, and is rather dumb; Kevin is an intelligent but meek, nerdy teen; Katie is the kind of tough girl who hates being excluded and concerned about solely because of her gender; Col. Masters is a very over-the-top, douchey adult antagonist; Graves is his snively, much put-upon crony; and Steve's family is made up of the classic bubbly, slightly airhead mother, overbearing father, and occasionally annoying little sister. That's saying nothing of how exaggerated the ancillary characters are, like Susan, who hates working out and only does it to stay thin, talking about how she's going to have a cigarette and a pizza once she's finished; the redneck farmer who takes a shotgun to any trespassers on his property, the sweet old couple who make the mistake of letting in the C.H.U.D. trick-or-treaters, and the old, gray-haired science teacher who, as you might have noticed, has something of a passing resemblance to Doc Brown. I'll go into more detail on the comedy shortly but I think you get the point: the movie tries so hard that it falls on its face.
Since it's a comedy set in a small American town rather than a serious monster movie set on and below the seedy, grimy streets of New York, C.H.U.D. II is shot in a more traditional style, as opposed to the grainy, gritty look of the first film and, since they likely didn't have much money to work with, there are no notable locations or sets, save for maybe the control rooms at the Winter Haven Center for Disease Control, which are high-tech but in a very generic way. Despite the low budget and crappy subject matter he was working with, David K. Irving tried to get a little fancy with the cinematography and editing whenever he could. For instance, he shot the entire first scene, where a doctor comes in and heads down to where Bud is being housed in order to destroy him, in one long, continuous shot, as if he's Alfred Hitchcock or John Carpenter. He did similarly long, continuous shots in other parts of the movie, like when Bud is shown to be watching the kids as they search for him in the mall, with the camera moving down some stairs to their level until he walks into view, and when the coroner is about to start his autopsy on the mailman, where the camera circles the table. Also, during the climax, he tends to use a lot of slow-motion for certain scenes, like when the C.H.U.D.s fall into the pool and when Bud's frozen body gets shattered, I guess in an attempt to make it feel more dramatic, but, like everything else, it comes off as corny. Speaking of editing, the way the opening is cut together makes it a tad confusing as to where it takes place (or at least, it did to me). It looks like it takes place in a normal hospital, which is strange anyway, since you'd wonder why they'd be keeping a dangerous experimental subject in such a place (I say that, and then I think, "Yeah, keeping him at a small town's Disease Control Center makes so much more sense), but then, the movie cuts to the boardroom where Col. Masters is told that the C.H.U.D. Research Project has been cancelled. When Bud gets loose from the room he was contained in, Masters and his men get the call about it and, in the next shot, are now out of that boardroom and searching the halls for him. Now, Graves does tell the person on the phone, "We'll be right there," so they were actually somewhere else and drove over to the hospital to take care of the matter, but other than that line, which is easy to forget, the editing makes it look like they were on a different floor of the building and merely took the elevator down to deal with this little problem.
I've never listened to the audio commentary for the first C.H.U.D. but I've heard that one of the things the director and the actors bring up is that they wish the creatures in that film looked more like what you get here, a notion I don't understand. I really like the creature designs in the first movie, which help it stand out a little bit, and plus, I think it's safe to say that those monsters have become somewhat iconic; the creatures in this movie are little more than dime-a-dozen zombies, likely inspired by the Romero movies, given their chalky, gray complexions and red circles around the eyes, while their tendency to go for their victims' brains is likely inspired by The Return of the Living Dead. Make no mistake, despite being called C.H.U.D.s, they clearly are undead, given their slow, shambling movements, stiff postures, and how they can survive even when their heads are sliced off, something the monsters in the first movie couldn't do. As with most modern zombie movies, getting bit by one ensures that you'll become one as well (to be fair, though, it was heavily implied that Victor's transformation into a C.H.U.D. in the first movie came about as a result of the bite in his leg), although the bites to the brain ensure that the enzyme will spread faster, and it applies to animals as well as humans. They're susceptible to cold, as the military often blast them with a subzero mist, but all it does is slow them down rather than actually kill them, and the enzyme's mutating properties allow them to become gradually stronger and harder to kill. It turns out that freezing them and then hitting them with an electric current is the way to put them down for good, though whether that vulnerability would remain if they continued to mutate is anyone's guess. Intelligence-wise, they sit somewhere between the zombies in the Romero films and the Return of the Living Dead films, in that they can talk, retain more of their original personas than the former, and are even capable of driving vehicles, but aren't as articulate and intelligent as the latter proved to be, as they say little more than simple words and phrases. The sound of the C.H.U.D.s' vocalizations tend to switch back and forth between sounding fairly normal to having an unearthly, distorted texture that's most reminiscent of the sound design in The Howling.
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| Isn't the comedy here just brilliant? |
The first C.H.U.D. was not a gorefest by any means and mainly just showcased the gruesome aftermath of the monsters' attacks, but this film is so devoid of the red stuff that it might as well be rated PG-13. The only splash of blood that I could think of is a cutaway when Don, the chudified barber, slashes a guy's throat with a straight razor, and the one really gruesome moment, which itself isn't even that gory, comes at the end, when Bud rips his own heart out of his chest and tries to give it to Katie; aside from that, all of the instances where the C.H.U.D.s bite into someone occur off-camera, the moment where one gets his head knocked and chases it across the ground is done purely for laughs, which you can also say about Bud's severed head at the end, as the way they did the effect is very obvious (you don't even see Steve bring the axe down on the head), the autopsy scene shows nothing, and when they explode, there's no gore whatsoever. Actually, other than some decent shots of frozen C.H.U.D.s starting to defrost (especially Mr. Proctor during the third act), the makeup effects work in this film is very limited and hardly impressive. There are some optical effects here, such as arcs and sparks of electrical energy, beams of light shooting out of the frozen C.H.U.D.s and cracks appearing on them before they explode, and some subtle optical work is done for when the pool at the end freezes up, and there are also some physical effects for the ice and exploding frozen C.H.U.D.s that aren't too shoddy, but that's about it as far as effects work goes.
The movie opens up with that long tracking shot that follows a physician, Dr. Kellaway, down the hallways and to an elevator that he plans to take down to administer some type of therapy, a syringe full of a green liquid, to a patient he has down there. While he's walking, you hear someone attempting to page another doctor over the intercom, to the point where they actually get frustrated and ask, "Where the hell are you? I'm not fooling around." Upon reaching the bottom floor, Kellaway walks some more hallways and a guard lets him into a room where a body is lying on a gurney. Taking out the syringe and preparing for an injection, he tells the body, whom he calls Mr. Oliver, to wake up, telling him that he doesn't want to miss his last meal. However, while he's in there, the body comes to life and attacks him, which goes unnoticed for a few seconds by the guard, who's looking at a magazine rather than at the monitor on his desk, which has no sound. After killing Kellaway, and apparently splashing blood on the lens of the security camera, the reanimated body makes its way out of the room. Elsewhere, after having been told that the C.H.U.D. Research Project has been terminated, Col. Masters learns from Graves that the last remaining C.H.U.D., which was meant to be destroyed, has escaped. While everyone else is horrified at this, Masters seems happy and, within a cut, he, Graves, and some armed men arrive at the hospital. Masters tells them not to damage the C.H.U.D. but to just freeze him. The group rounds a corner and slowly approaches a door where they can hear what sounds like moaning behind it. But, when Masters opens the door, a cat jumps out at him. While they're distracted, the C.H.U.D. bursts out of some double-doors behind them and backhands Masters, sending him into a corner. The other men, aside from Graves, who keeps yelling, "Get him!", repeatedly, blast him with some extremely cold mist. It only takes a few seconds until he's frozen solid and Masters, satisfied, orders the body to be sent to the Winter Haven Center for Disease Control until the project gets more funding.
We're then introduced to Steve, Kevin, and Katie, as they're sitting in biology class, while their teacher, Mr. Proctor, tells them that they're going to work with an actual cadaver the next day. He then decides to see how the students' individual experiments are going and calls up Steve, who tells everyone to look at a frog, whom he calls Benji, that's lying in a trap, unable to use his back legs. Grabbing a couple of electrodes, Steve attempts to demonstrate the symbiosis (or, as he says before Katie corrects him, "symbiology") between electricity and life. But, as the frog manages to get up on its legs and prepares to hop out of the tray, Steve brings the electrodes together and creates a spark that sets the part of the desk in front of the tray on fire. Despite Kevin's warnings, Steve grabs a beaker full of liquid and throws it on the flames, only to make the fire worse. Proctor evacuates the other students, while Kevin grabs a bucket of sand and throws it on the fire, extinguishing a little bit of it. Later, as they're working at the school's loading dock as punishment, one of the frogs Kevin is trying to keep contained gets loose and he chases it across the floor, getting underneath a gurney and whacking his head on its underside. Seeing a covered figure lying on the gurney, they realize that it's the cadaver Proctor had intended for them to work with the next day. Steve, being stupid, starts pounding on the cadaver's chest, exclaiming, "Cold blue! Cold blue!", and Kevin tries to cover the body back up. But, when he bends over, he accidentally nudges the gurney with his knee and it goes rolling out of the dock. Running after it, they see it's rolling down the street and try as hard as he can to see chase it. Kevin panics when he sees it's heading for the highway, saying that Proctor will know it was their fault and they'll get expelled. Try as they might, it's a lost cause, as the gurney rolls on down the road and heads down the highway, cars swerving to avoid running into it. As they catch their breath, Steve figures they have two choices: either they tell Proctor what happened or they can find a replacement for it.
Obviously, Steve talks Kevin into going for the latter option. That night, while Katie waits for them in her car, the two of them sneak into the Disease Control Center and end up in the very room where the C.H.U.D.'s body is stored. Kevin isn't too sure but Steve figures that it's a perfect replacement and prepare to move him. Realizing that the biology lab is locked up by this point, Steve tries to talk Kevin into keeping the body at his house that night but Kevin isn't having it, telling him that, since he got to dress up as a doctor when they sneaked in, he gets the body. So, once they've gotten the body out of the building without anyone noticing (we don't get to see how they pulled that off) and arrive at Steve's house, he and Kevin carry the body up to the front door. Inside, Steve's parents are watching TV, when they hear them come in. Hearing him say that Kevin's with him, Melissa Williams invites him in. Steve tells Kevin to keep his parents busy while he tries to get the body down into the basement. Kevin walks in and starts watching what they're watching: a documentary on the Alaskan wilderness. Steve struggles to get the body down the stairs that lead to the basement, only to run into a little obstacle when Jasper, the family poodle, starts barking, threatening to get his parents' attention. Unable to get around him, Steve then starts dragging the body up the other flight of stairs. Though he manages to make it up there, Jasper follows him and won't stop barking and growling at the corpse, and with that, Steve kicks him down the stairs like a football. Hearing him whining after this, Melissa is about to get up to let him out but Kevin offers to do it for her. Upstairs, Steve continues struggling with the corpse, when his little sister, Sally, comes out of her bedroom and asks who the corpse is. Steve tries to tell her it's nobody and that she's just having a bad dream, having to threaten the obstinate girl to get rid of her, telling her that if she doesn't get back in bed, the body will come alive and kill her while she's sleeping. With that, he drags the body into the bathroom and dumps it in the bathtub, which is filled with water.
Kevin comes upstairs and Steve yanks him into the bathroom. Showing him what he did with the body, the two of them try to calm down, Steve using a hairdryer to get rid of the sweat that's undoubtedly accumulated over him, and they try to figure out what to do. Melissa knocks on the other side of the door, startling Steve and causing him to drop the dryer into the bathtub, sending electric shocks through the water and into the body. Steve manages to send Melissa away, as Kevin unplugs the dryer, but after she's walked away, Bud.'s brain reactivates from the charge and he awakens. Steve and Kevin both panic at the sight of this and Bud promptly sits up in the tub. There's a fairly funny part when, after looking around, he realizes they're screaming at him and he does the same at them. They stop and so does he, with Bud standing up awkwardly in the tub, trying to balance himself. But, when he steps out of the tub, his feet fly out from under him on the slippery floor and falls on his back. While he lays there, Steve becomes elated, thinking they've discovered the secret of life, while Kevin slumps to the floor, saying he feels like he's going to be sick. Steve picks him up, telling him that this could get them an A in biology, as Bud gets up and sits down on the closed toilet, readjusting his nose and groaning in pain from it. Steve comes up with a plan to get Bud down in the basement, sending the reluctant Kevin out to see if the coast is clear. Kevin walks out of the bathroom in a daze and, after seeing that there's no one around, the two of them lead the confused and groaning Bud down the hall and the stairs leading to the basement, closing the door behind him. They then rush back up to wipe off the wet footprints Bud left on the main stars, telling Melissa to not go up there because Jasper had an accident. Deciding they should give Katie the good news, and feeling nothing could go wrong if they're gone for only twenty minutes, Steve tells Melissa that he and Kevin are going out to eat with Katie. The two of them head out, letting Jasper back in through the front door as they go.
While Steve and Kate are eating at a fast food diner called Bossy Burgers, Bud starts to break out of the basement, smashing his arm through the door and sending Jasper, who was sitting in front of it, running. Also, while Col. Masters and Graves are informed of Bud's disappearance at the Disease Control Center, being told that they have video footage of the teenagers who took and their car's license plate, as well as what the worst case scenario could be, Melissa and Wade are sitting down to dinner themselves. Melissa puts some dog-food in Jasper's food bowl, calling for him, while downstairs, Bud kicks open the basement door. He wanders upstairs to the spot where the food bowl is, right across from where Steve's parents are sitting at the dining room table. Sniffing the dog-food, he lets out a groan of disgust (which Melissa thinks was Wade, telling her that what's on the plate is only broccoli), when he hears Jasper barking on the main stairs. He sees the dog run away from him and muttering, "Meat," he chases after him (again, Melissa thought that was Wade and tells him there's meatloaf on his plate). Stumbling down the upstairs hallway, Bud gets distracted and walks into the bathroom. Picking some stuff off the top of the toilet and dropping it, he fiddles around until he finds the lever and pushes it. He recoils and growls when he hears the sound of the toilet flushing but then, out of curiosity, he does it again. This causes the toilet to begin to overflow, which Bud chuckles at playfully, and he does it several more times, causing toilet water to leak out onto the floor. Stepping on the water, Bud backs up and snarls when he sees his reflection in the mirror, but gradually realizes that he's looking at himself, reaching out and touching the glass. He leans in for a better look, when he hears Jasper barking at him again and resumes the chase. He ends up in Steve's room and searches for Jasper, who's hiding under the bed, when he looks at the mirror and sees a picture stuck in the corner. Pulling it out, it's revealed to be a group shot of Steve, Kevin, and Katie. Taken with Katie, but not happy at seeing Steve and Kevin on either side of her, Bud rips off the sides of the picture, so her image is the only one that's there. Jasper barks again and Bud chases him out of the room. Bud chases Jasper down into the basement, while Melissa walks up to stairs, calling for Sally, who hasn't come down for dinner. Up there, she looks into the bathroom and sees that the toilet is running over. She calls Wade up and he just barely misses seeing Bud chase Jasper out a side-door, into the backyard. Jasper runs into the bushes out back but Bud follows after him, honing in on his barks, and while he's out of sight, some snarling, followed by a chomp and the sound of Jasper howling, signifies that he finally got ahold of his prey. Walking back out of the bushes, muttering, "Good doggy," Bud picks some stuff out of his teeth and uses a piece of laundry hanging from a line to wipe his mouth; in the bushes, Jasper's body twitches and he can be heard snarling.
At the Disease Control Center, Masters and Wade learn how fast the C.H.U.D. enzyme could spread through bites and create more monsters, while at Bossy Burgers, the kids are leaving when they overhear a report about an APB that's been put out on them over a nearby police car's radio. Steve decides they should go ahead and take Bud to a nearby television station to reveal him to the world, unaware that he's currently wandering the neighborhood. Arriving back at Steve's house, they find the hole Bud punched through the door, but they somehow figure that he's still in there and that Steve's parents are none the wiser. They search down there, while the now undead and monstrous Jasper watches from the window, growling. Meanwhile, in his meanderings about the neighborhood, Bud comes across the home of Susan, who he sees doing step aerobics in her living room through the front window. Walking around to the side window for a better look, Bud watches as Susan does the workout, admitting that she only works out like this because she eats too much. He actually tries to copy her movements and those of the women in the workout video on TV, unbeknownst to Susan, who goes on complaining. In imitating her, Bud slips and falls into the trashcans, which Susan thinks was the sound of her cat, Jogger, messing about. Seeing nothing when she looks out the window, she goes back to exercising, talking about how she's going to have a cigarette and order a pizza once she's done. She decides that she's now, turns off the TV, and starts calling for Jogger, as continues mimicking her movements as he walks around the house. She opens up a can of catnip and takes it out on the porch, putting it into Jogger's food bowl. That's when a pair of large feet step in front of her and, impressed by this, she follows the legs attached to them up to the torso and finally to Bud's head. Instead of being put off by his deathly pale appearance, Susan is taken enough to ask him if he lives in the neighborhood and then, if he's heterosexual (has anyone ever seriously asked that of someone they're interested?). Asking him if he has a job and what his name is, Susan doesn't get an answer, but they looks at Bud's army dog-tags and sees his name. She smiles at him and he smiles back, revealing his sharp teeth. Susan then promptly screams at him and he, in turn, snarls, grabs her, lifts her up, and bites into her. Dropping her body down on the porch, Bud walks off.
The kids are out driving around, searching for Bud (on the radio is a report of a "rabid" French poodle stalking Winter Haven), Susan resurrects as a C.H.U.D. and, like Bud with the dog-food, sniffs the cat-food and lets out a disgusted groan. She looks around for Jogger and calls for him, saying, "Dinnertime." In another part of town, a drunken man wanders out of a bar, yelling, "To hell with all of you! This is the worst day of my life!", and stumbles down the sidewalk. He then runs to the other side of a dumpster against the wall, mumbling about how his wife left him, and starts using that spot as a restroom. Bud then wanders up and, making sure no one's around, cracks his knuckles and lunges towards the spot, overpowering and biting the drunk. He then walks back out, now wearing the man's suit jacket, which he dusts off and buttons. After burping slightly, he just looks around, seeming quite pleased with himself. Elsewhere, the kids decide to call it a night, as they're really tired, planning to start searching again the next day.
The next morning, Sally is eating a bowl of cereal while looking out the window and watches as the mailman walks up to the box. As he's about to put the mail in (he's reading and chuckling at it first), he hears Jasper growling nearby. At first, he makes a comment about him and, when he sees him, he comments, "Yeah, nice haircut." But, when he actually looks at Jasper and sees how freakish he looks, he starts to realize he's in trouble. As Sally watches, Jasper charges at the mailman and jumps right at him. The man lets out a terrified scream as he struggles with the monstrous little dog, only to get bitten on the neck and falling to the ground. Jasper pulls his across the grass by his hand, the mailman continuing to scream, and Sally runs back into the dining room, putting her bowl on the table. Wade asks her if the mailman has come by yet and she simply says, "He's gone," before heading upstairs. Both of them are completely oblivious to Jasper's loud, crazy snarling and the mailman's screams outside. Kevin and Katie drive up and rush into the house, each of them giving Wade a different reason for why they're not already at school: "fire drill," "bomb scare." Inside, Melissa is trying to make Sally realize that she's not having a nightmare, and when she sees the kids and ask if it's a school holiday, Katie says that the plumbing broke down. Steve shows up and he and the others are about to head out to find Bud, when Col. Masters and Graves arrive at the house in a government car. The three of them duck out of sight and, when Melissa answers the door, they overhear the two men talk about how they've stolen some government property and Masters saying Steve is dead meat. Once they're gone, the kids sneak out of the house, not realizing how important it is that they find Bud.
In town, Bud comes out of a barbershop, wearing a barber's towel around his neck, which he's using to dab his face. He then sees that it's got blood on it and quickly gets rid of it, before looking at himself in some glass, slicking his hair back, and muttering, "Nice cut." But then, he sees Masters' car come peeling around a quarter and ducks into a movie theater to avoid being seen. Both him and the kids are searching for Bud, the latter of whom search the inside of a mall, not knowing that Bud is watching them but keeping his distance. Still taken with the lovely Katie, he sits on the rim of a fountain and sighs... and then grabs and bites into the head of a koi in the water (the fish looks really fake). Outside, the kids walk across the street and pass by Susan, who hisses at them as she walks past them. Steve figures she's a health food nut who doesn't have enough meat in her diet. With that, they decide to drive out to Bossy Burger again for lunch. In the barbershop, the now chudified barber, Don, ties a towel around a customer's neck. The man, hearing that he's the first customer, goes on about how people would now rather get their hair cut at the mall and how times have changed, all while Don sharpens his straight razor on a leather belt. Turning him around so he's facing the mirror, and then fiddling with his toupee, Don raises the razor up in the air (I wasn't kidding when I said this scene is like Sweeney Todd) and slices him, sending some blood splashing on the wall, before taking a bite out of him. He then walks outside and, like Bud before him, looks at his reflection in the glass, again fiddling with his toupee. At that moment, Masters' car drives by, but even though he and Glass see Don, Masters writes him off as just an ugly barber. Elsewhere, at Bossy Burger, Katie comes out with the food, when a pickup truck full of some pale, groaning guys pulls up beside them. Katie and Kevin make comments about them, thinking they're just a bunch of sickly-looking people, as they walk into the diner. They head up to the counter and when they're asked what they'd like, they all say, "Meat." The guy at the counter points out the different types of burgers that they have, when they look at his name-tag, which reads "BOBBY," and they all decide they want him. Out in the car, the kids eat their lunch, completely oblivious to the massacre that's going on right in front of them. The C.H.U.D.s then come back out, having chudified everyone in the diner, and get back into their truck. That's when Kevin finally notices that Bud has been sitting in the back of the truck the whole time and he and Steve tell Katie to follow the truck.
Sam, Master and Graves' driver, pulls into the Bossy Burger's parking lot and heads inside to get them some food, while Masters and Graves continue talking, the colonel mentioning that the experiments weren't exactly legal and that the C.H.U.D. enzyme tends to have mutating properties. As soon as he walks inside and heads up to the counter and is attacked by the C.H.U.D.s, who start chasing him around the diner. Seeing from this car, Masters immediately knows what's going on and is delighted about it, while Graves gets out and futilely shoots through the windows with his handgun. Masters has him shoot the car's trunk, popping it to reveal a small cache of weapons inside. With no other way out, Sam smashes through the diner's window and quickly runs for it, as Masters fires a bazooka and blows the place sky-high. Getting on the car's phone, Masters calls HQ and tells them to send as many armed men down to Winter Haven as possible, adding that they best not tell the President. Hanging up, Masters tells Sam to drive to the outskirts of town in order to search for more C.H.U.D.s. However, after they leave, it's revealed that the C.H.U.D.s inside the diner weren't killed at all, as they rise from the rubble, with a chudified cook commenting, "What a blast!" (God, this humor sucks!)
Meanwhile, Steve, Kevin, and Katie find the pickup truck parked outside of a barn on a farm out in the country. Inside the barn, they find Bud standing there but he's not at all happy to see them, as he growls and yells at them. But then, he looks at Katie and, smiling, mutters her name. Before they can take advantage of this, other C.H.U.D.s show themselves and begin moving in. The farmer then comes in through the barn's back door and is not pleased to see all of these random people on his property. One C.H.U.D. approaches him, muttering, "Yum, yum, yum," and the farmer, in turn, points his shotgun at him. He warns him to stay away but, when he approaches, he fires, sending him flying through the barn's wall. The farmer then tells the others to get out as well, but then, the C.H.U.D. staggers back inside. The farmer tries to smack him with the gun but the C.H.U.D. grabs it, giving another one the opportunity to jump the farmer from behind. He's overwhelmed and is chomped, while Bud and the other C.H.U.D.s move in on the kids, trapping them in a stable. Bud raises his arm back to attack, accidentally knocking another C.H.U.D.'s head off, when Kevin grabs a pitchfork and sticks him in the gut. While the one C.H.U.D. chases his head out of the barn, ultimately collapsing in a ditch when he can't get it, Bud grabs the fork's handle and flings Kevin up into the hayloft with it. Bud then pulls the pitchfork out of him and tosses it aside. He smiles at Katie again, but she stops on the head of a rake at her feet, the handle flying up and hitting Bud between the legs, which, despite his undead nature, causes enough pain to make him whimper. Kevin shoves a bale of hay on top of him from above, knocking him to the ground. He rejoins his friends and the three of them try to beat it, only to run into Masters and his big group of heavily armed men when they open the door. The teens get out of their way and the soldiers rush in, threatening the C.H.U.D.s with flamethrowers. All of them, including Bud, duck out of the barn, just as the farmer resurrects as one himself. Standing up and looking at Masters, he groans, "Chow," (a cow in a nearby stable moos at this, I'm guessing because chow and cow sound alike), and rushes towards the colonel. The soldiers promptly freeze him solid and Masters sends them to take care of the remaining C.H.U.D.s.
The kids begin to wonder if Bud might have been carrying some sort of horrible disease, Masters tells them to move out, as he's taking them in. He marches them out the front door, Steve trying to tell him something and finally having to point to make him look. He sees that the farmer is already starting to thaw and Masters realizes that he's actually raising his body temperature in order to melt himself out. Amazed at this, Masters proclaims, "This guy is fucking fantastic!" Once he's thawed enough to where he can move, the farmer runs for the barn's back door. Masters chases after him but slips on the melted ice and falls (a very forced gag), as his men come back in to report that they managed to get a couple of more C.H.U.D.s. Masters giddily tells Graves what he saw and that they're becoming stronger and harder to kill, before composing himself and informing his men, "These are C.H.U.D.s: very hungry people, with bad complexions, and a brain that doesn't know when to stop." He goes on to tell them that freezing them is the only way to stop them and, being attracted to large gatherings, they'll soon be all over the town. He then moves them all out, including the teens, putting them in one of the vehicles, and blows up the pickup truck to make sure they don't drive it again (he shoots one shot with a handgun and the thing explodes like a missile hit it). They leave, as Katie and Steve demand that they be allowed to make a phone-call. Nearby, Bud and the other C.H.U.D.s regroup, Bud finding the one's head, picking it up, and giving it to him. Once the guy has his head back, Bud points in the direction of town, saying, "Meat," and they all follow him in that direction.
At the coroner's office, a very drunk coroner is about to perform a postmortem on the body of the mailman, but before he starts, he can't help but mock the guy and his profession, commenting, "Hate-mail finally got you, didn't it?", and, examining his teeth, says that the bites that cover his body were probably self-inflicted. He then starts opening the chest up, only for the mailman to resurrect, snarl, and raise up and attack. With that, the coroner and the mailman, now both C.H.U.D.s, stagger out of the city hall and head down the street (the coroner is still drunk, even though he's undead). They wander over to Buddy's Bar, the same place where the drunk from the night before stumbled out of, and after exchanging these groans, "Tastes great," "Less filling," and laughing in a wheezy manner, the head inside. The sounds of chomping and people screaming can be heard once they walk through the door. Come nightfall, the kids have been taken to the Disease Control Center and are left in a room with Graves, who Masters charges with interrogating them. Outside, Sam, who's standing by the car, smoking, hears some barking nearby and sees Jasper hiding in a nearby bush. Getting all mushy and talking baby-talk, Sam approaches the poodle, trying to talk coax him out. He gets frustrated when Jasper doesn't do what he says and Jasper, in turn, lets out a monstrous snarl that should scare him off but doesn't. Sam gets to where he's standing in front of the bush and asks Jasper if he wants something to eat. Jasper gives him the biggest yes he possibly could, when he grabs Sam's foot and yanks him into the bush, attacking him mercilessly. By this point, the C.H.U.D.s are all assembling together and following Bud to the edges of town. Atop a hill, Bud stops them all, as they look down and sees that the town is full of trick-or-treating kids and their parents. He then has them line up, like they're in the army, and he inspects them, straightening one's tie (as he lets out a belch), deciding that the farmer looks okay, ensures that the one's head is on well enough, decides not to bother with Don the barber, and takes something from the hand of the C.H.U.D. who used to be the cook at Bossy Burger. Down on the streets below, Sally is trick-or-treating with her mom and dad, when a line of chudified kids show up and roar at them.
Once they reach the streets, the C.H.U.D.s walk up to a little boy who's standing in a yard by himself. Bud grabs him, picks him up, and is about to bite him, when he sees some teenagers standing nearby. He decides that the kid is "small fry" and tosses him aside, heading towards the teenagers, with the other C.H.U.D.s following him. Rather than being terrified, the kid says, "Bitchin' costumes!", albeit in a voice that's very obviously not his. The teenagers have gone on by the time the C.H.U.D.s reach the spot, but Bud then sees what they were looking at: a flier for the Halloween party that's going on at the high school. Glancing at the picture of Katie he stall has with him, he seems conflicted, appearing to understand that if she's there, she'll be in danger, but he decides to lead them to the school, starting the chant, "Eat 'em up! Eat 'em up!", "Yum, yum, yum!" As Masters learns that it is Halloween, meaning more potential victims, the group of chudified kids show up at an old couple's house, ringing the doorbell and saying, "Trick or treat?" The old couple open the door and, while the kids roar at them, they think they're simply attempting to be scary and let them into their house. That proves to be a mistake, as some of the kids, instead of going for the bowl of candy the woman offers them, head straight for their birdcage, with one grabbing their bird and biting it in the head. Their horror turns to terror when the kids move in on them, trapping them on the couch, which they stand up on a futile attempt to avoid them. They get pushed behind the couch and the kids immediately cover them, chomping them loudly. At the Disease Control Center, Masters tells Graves that he's off to town to try to keep the trick-or-treaters from becoming treats for the C.H.U.D.s. He heads outside and gets into the back of the car, unaware that Sam, who's sitting in the driver's seat, is now a C.H.U.D. himself. He drives Masters on towards town, while back at the old couple's house, they've now become chudified and head out the door to join the others. At the center, Kevin tells Graves about the Halloween party and they realize what a disaster it would be if the C.H.U.D.s went there.
Graves tries to get Masters on the phone and tell him of the situation but is unable to reach him. Bud then smashes through the window behind Katie, grabs her by the shoulders, and tries to pull her out, but Kevin smashes a chair over him, making him let go. Graves tells them that they need to get to the high school and evacuate the kids. He then tells them to take the lead car and that he'll get the men... only to open the door and see the C.H.U.D.s behind it. He closes the door and says, "Maybe not." While he straps on a flamethrower to hold the C.H.U.D.s off, as they start pounding on the other side of the door, the kids climb through the smashed window in order to get to the lead car. They run for the car, as a big blast of flame blows through the window they just climbed through. Getting into the car, they head for the school as fast as they can, wondering how they're going to even be able to fight the C.H.U.D.s when they get there. Kevin then finds that the back is loaded with the freezing weapons the men used on the C.H.U.D.s at the barn. Elsewhere, the C.H.U.D.s come over a rise and, seeing the school ahead, sounds of the dance in full swing emanating from it, Bud points and says, "Buffet," leading them all down the hill towards it. The teens continue driving through town, creeped out by how there's no one on the streets at all, when Kevin tells Katie to drive to the school's loading dock (they drive by a theater whose marque reads, JOHN HUSTON'S THE DEAD). The C.H.U.D.s are now converging on the school, moving up into formation and doing occasional dance moves as they walk, Bud leading them in that chant from before. The kids then arrive but see that they're too late; again, Kevin insists that they drive to the loading dock. Right inside the front door, after two people dressed as clowns hand over their tricks, the C.H.U.D.s march up to the woman taking them. She demands they show their tickets, which only confuses them. She then says she doesn't want any trouble and says it'll be three bucks a piece. Bud briefly counts up the tickets but then, they snarl at the girl, who then tells them to keep Jasper, who's also growling, outside. They all let out angry yells over this and she acquiesces, saying they can keep the dog in. With that, the C.H.U.D.s crack their knuckles and lunge at her, forcing her to the floor. At the loading dock, the kids park and disembark, Kevin saying that they need to get the freezing equipment to the gym and isolate the C.H.U.D.s so they can use it on them. By this time, the C.H.U.D.s have entered the large room where the party is being held and, smiling at all the potential meals, march in. Some kids mention how great their costumes are.
In the biology lab, the chudified Mr. Proctor is munching on laboratory frogs, when the teenagers walk in on him. Hearing them, he turns around and advances on them. They back away, Kevin struggling to figure out how to work the freezing weapon, and with no means of defending themselves, Steve turns on an electric box and shoves them into Proctor's hand. He recoils a bit from the voltage but, as he stands there, shaking, he begins laughing maniacally, before tossing the electrodes away and lunging at them. She corners and grabs Katie by the neck, trying to choke her, but Steve jumps him and shoves him off her to the floor. Steve gets tossed onto the counter behind him, and when Proctor goes for him, Kevin hits him with the weapon's barrel. Proctor grabs it and Kevin and Steve struggling with him, forcing him down onto a table behind him. (At the party, the C.H.U.D.s are shown trying to get some victims, but the dancing and the fact that everyone thinks they're wearing costumes makes it harder than it would seem.) Katie lights a fire bar sticking out of the table and Steve and Kevin force Proctor's head down on it, shoving it right through the center. This doesn't stop him either, as he smiles evilly and rises up, laughing crazily again. He shambles towards them but now, Kevin has finally figured out how to work the weapon and blasts him with the extremely cold mist, managing to freeze him solid. With that, the three of them about to leave, when Kevin decides to try something. Proctor begins to thaw, when Kevin takes the electrodes and attaches them to his frozen right hand, which is on the counter next to him. He then runs back to his friends and tells them to take cover. In second, beams of light burst out of Proctor's frozen form and he then explodes into thousands of tiny pieces. Now knowing how to kill the C.H.U.D.s, they rush out of the lab.
While the C.H.U.D.s still struggle to get their hands on the energetic teenagers (even trying to eat the members of the band is difficult), the teens wheel a cart of tanks filled with liquid nitrogen to the school's pool. Once there, Katie, knowing that the need a way to bait the C.H.U.D.s into the pool, starts taking off her shoes, signifying that she intends to be the lure, as the locker with her swimsuit is there. Kevin tries to talk her out of it, saying he should be the bait, but Katie convinces him that she will be much more appealing to them and goes to the changing room. The other two get to work, barricading one of the pool's right corners with a nearby dumpster and a steel net, to ensure no C.H.U.D.s slip into that spot. At the party, the C.H.U.D.s are getting knocked around and caught up in the teens' crazy dancing, when the doors open and Katie, wearing her swimsuit (the design of which no school would ever allow), steps out and whistles. Everyone, including the C.H.U.D.s, turns around and she proclaims, "Hey, zombies! Who wants a bite? Come and get it." Bud is quite pleased by this sight, yelling, "Ka-Tie!", and he and the other C.H.U.D.s, after saying, "Yum, yum, yum!", chase her back down the hall. In the pool, Kevin and Steve turn out the lights and wait for them to arrive, but then, Katie, in her haste to escape, runs into a locked door, the C.H.U.D.s right behind her. The guys let her in and she jumps into the pool, as they close the door on the C.H.U.D.s. But, they break through, only for Bud, who's leading them, to slip and fall into the pool. The others follow suit, Kevin and Steve pushing and knocking any that don't slip into it. From under the water, Bud sees Katie, who's trying to get to the other side of the pool so she can climb out. It seems like all of the C.H.U.D.s are in, when Graves shows up, now one too, and they push him in as well. They rush to the tanks, when it turns out that Steve, in his stupidity, didn't unscrew them. Kevin has to knock the handles loose, while Steve knocks and pushes C.H.U.D.s that are climbing out of the pool back into it. While he's doing this, one grabs his ankle and bites the front of his foot. Kevin finally manages to knock loose one of the can's screw and, after using it to push another C.H.U.D. back into the pool, throws it into the water. They throw the other tanks into the water as well, and it slowly but surely fills up with liquid nitrogen. The C.H.U.D.s struggle and try to escape, forcing Steve to use a skimmer to keep some of them in, but the water soon freezes solid, along with the ladder leading out of it and a part of the floor, with a big crack splitting near Katie, who got out during the chaos. The C.H.U.D.s are now completely frozen solid in the icy, misty pool and it seems like everything's okay.
But, Bud breaks out of the ice and starts climbing out of the frozen pool using the ladder; worse, the other C.H.U.D.s are already beginning to thaw. Steve and Kevin try to find a way to introduce electricity into the ice, deciding to use the juice cables running to the clock on the wall, while Katie finds she can't get around the blockade the guys made earlier, as a C.H.U.D. is defrosting next to it. Steve and Kevin take an axe to the cables, while Katie is forced to climb up to the diving board to escape from Bud. The C.H.U.D. starts climbing up after her, unbeknownst to the guys, as Kevin as trying to figure exactly which charge he should introduce into the ice: the positive or negative. It's not until they hear her scream that they see the trouble she's in and Kevin hands Steve the cables, while he grabs his freezing weapon and rushes to help Katie. Bud traps her on the diving board, while Kevin, again, struggles to get the weapon to work. Bud approaches her, while one C.H.U.D. frees himself to where he starts approaching the distracted Kevin. Katie tells Bud "no," and he responds by ripping into his own chest, tearing out his heart, and presenting it to her, saying, "Please." Kevin finally gets the weapon to work and freezes the C.H.U.D. that approaches him, before turning it up onto Bud, freezing him in front of Katie. Steve then puts one of the cables into the ice and it starts to work, as the electricity spreads throughout it and begins to shatter the C.H.U.D.s. Katie works her way around the frozen Bud and climbs down, Kevin clearing a way for her down below. Bud's body topples off the diving board and hits the ice, shattering, his severed head bouncing across it. The C.H.U.D.s start exploding all around, much to their elation. Once it's all done, Katie runs to Kevin and jumps in his arms, only to recoil when she looks down and sees Bud's still functioning head nearby; like he did before, he tells her, "Hi." Steve, having had enough, picks up the axe, walks over to the head, and brings it down on him, finally killing Bud. Outside, the police and military have the school surrounded, but the three teenagers come walking out, with Kevin and Katie having to help Steve. His family pulls up in their car and his parents are relieved to see he's alright. That's when the gurney carrying the lost body that started the whole thing rolls in and bumps the back hard enough to momentarily raise up. Seeing this, Sally goes, "Uh-oh!", and ducks down.
The next day, Kevin, now no longer wearing glasses and looking and sounding less nerdy, is picked up by Katie for a lift to school. He tells her that Steve's gone and shows her a note that he left, explaining that, in order to change his life around to where he won't be such a screw-up, he's left to go see the world. Elsewhere, Steve, along with Jasper, thumbs down a red pickup truck and the two of them climb into the front. Jasper hops through the window and into the backseat, snarling at a figure underneath a blanket. It's revealed to Col. Masters, now a C.H.U.D., who shushes the dog, telling him, "I'm undercover," and holds him close. They start driving and both Steve and the woman take off their sunglasses, revealing that they're both C.H.U.D.s too. She says, "Suppose we drive until dark and stop somewhere... for a bite to eat." Steve just smiles at this and the movie ends with them driving off (after the credits, there's one last shot of Bud's severed head, saying, "Good night,").
The music score, composed by Nicholas Pike (who, before this, had done the music for Critters 2 and episodes of the 80's revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Freddy's Nightmares), is okay but nothing special. There are some interesting pieces, such as the one for the opening, which low-key enough but has a loud, tapping noise added to it, a rocking piece for when Steve and Kevin chase the gurney with the cadaver down to the street, a soft, kind of eerie-sounding theme for the C.H.U.D.s themselves, which is sometimes sped up a bit to suit certain scenes, a light-hearted but fairly energetic piece for certain scenes involving the teens, instances of silly music (like when Bud admires his haircut), and a whistling bit you sometimes hear when Col. Masters is onscreen. The most memorable musical aspect of the movie, however, is not the actual score but the soundtrack, which has a ridiculous, bouncing theme song called Bud the C.H.U.D. Performed by Kipp Lennon and with lyrics written by Cynthia Garris (Mick Garris' wife, at the time), you first hear it when Bud is out roaming the streets and it pops up time and again during the movie, often with an opening bit that's accompanied by some voices going, "Ha-ru!" You first hear the actual lyrics when Bud kills the drunk and puts on his suit jacket, and they're very catchy: "I'm a walkin', I'm a talkin', I'm a stalkin', Comin' to your room tonight! I will find you, Shadows blind you, Close behind you, Comin' over for a bite!" Following that, actually says, "Bud, the C.H.U.D.," and I have to admit, this song, which you hear in its entirety over the ending credits, is so catchy that it's about the only thing relating to this movie that I truly, genuinely like. There's another song called I Am A Hungry Man, performed by Andrew Prieboy, which you hear when the C.H.U.D.s break their way into where the party is. However, that title is the only real lyric; after Prieboy makes the proclamation, the "song" just becomes a fast-paced, electronic beat. There are some other songs on the soundtrack but none are as memorable.
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