C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud

C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud is critic-proof.  It's a sequel, yes, but you can't draw parallels to other sequels.  It doesn't act like any sequel I know, and I'm widening my net to accommodate in-name-only consecutions.  Something keeps getting in the way.  Tone!  1984's C.H.U.D. was a leaden, grim-faced horror film that seemed to look down on entertainment.  It was about as much fun as a lecture on the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary.  Seriously, all I remember is Daniel Stern stressing out over the sewer.  Nothing else.  Just 90 minutes of the cracker from Bushwhacked lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency and occasionally clobbering a cannibalistic humanoid underground fuckwad.

To Bud's credit, it dares to be different.  Well, different-ish.  It plants a comedic camber and assigns the creatures with fresh garb.  Well, fresh-ish.  These dwellers are a little more human.  They are inherently zombies, which makes sense when you realize that this project was originally Return of the Living Dead 2.  Bud is strikingly similar to the ROTLD2 that we did receive.  If I'm being honest, this is the lesser zom-com.  Before our relationship gets serious, you should know I'm not big on zom-coms.  The fact that I managed to finish Bud without execrating myself and bearing a grudge against God is a small victory ("it shouldn't bother me/but it does").

Gerrit Graham plays the titular goon, a chipper cadaver inadvertently stolen from campus grounds.  The, shall we say, precarious plot sees the three leads (Sensitive Nerd, Party Jock, and Babe Girl) try to maneuver around town and return Bud to his morgue slab.  Are you thinking what I'm thinking?  You don't need to see C.H.U.D. II to conclude that it doesn't contain enough storyline for a feature.  It's barely enough for an episode of Moesha, although I admit...I wouldn't mind seeing that episode of Moesha.  When you consider the advantages, ol' Bud works as a rainy day rental.  The pacing is pert.  I didn't get the chance to become bored.

Unfortunately, those are the most glowing accolades I can throw at C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud.  At the end of the day, this is a comedy, and I didn't laugh.  Maybe it would have panned out with exaggerated gore and childish levels of nudity, but I'm not even certain that this thing was slapped with an R rating.  Okay, I checked, and it was!  But it could have been PG-13.  Yawn.  Keep an eye peeled for Norman Fell (yep, Mr. Roper's in the fucking house) and a creepy Robert Englund cameo.  Robert Z'Dar says, "The pick-up truck on the poster?  That's me peering over the tailgate.  I'm banging your mom."