Refresher: part one ended with the sister making out with the nanny then being mad that Nica got trapped in the lift.
Nica, Barb, and Alice converge in the hall. The niece asks Nica if she’ll read her a bed time story, and Nica tries to respond with a yes. However, the sister cuts in, “Aunty Nica’s tired, sweetie. We’ll let her rest now.” Nica responds with an annoyed, “I’m fine.” Naturally, Barb responds, “It’s important that you don’t overextend yourself” with a very condescending nod. After Alice walks away, Nica glares at her sister with confusion and anger, saying, “Don’t you think I’m the best judge of when I’m overextending myself?” Barb arrogantly says, “Frankly, no. I don’t think you understand the strain you’re under. There’s no shame in admitting that you need help.” She then goes on and on about how fragile Nica is, which Nica responds to with shock and disgust, “I’m disabled, Barb, I am not a child. And I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” At this point Alice comes back over and realises that Nica is bleeding from a mild cut. The sister freaks out and, naturally, insists that Nica cut herself during dinner.
Hours later at the peak of the movie, Nica’s chair has broken and she’s seriously injured. She’s laying on the ground while Chucky does the typical villain exposition dump. He admits that human-Chucky attacked Nica’s mom, resulting in Nica’s congenital spinal cord injury. The climax of his argument, the hardest hitting part is: “And the truth is, I killed you 25 years ago. Didn’t I, Nica? You haven’t been living. You can’t call this living. You’ve just been on life support.” Regardless of the typical movie structure meaning that this is when the protagonist loses all hope, Nica begins to hatefully glare at him. In fact, she starts getting as his insecurities—saying he’d never actually killed Andy, that he had completion anxiety, that he isn’t a real man, etc. He gets angry and says, “I’m gonna kill you slow.” Nica replies, laughing, “25 years. Must be the slowest murder in history.”
After defeating Chucky (and just like the mother in the original) Nica is institutionalised. Interestingly, she’s in her same chair—the one with no push handles—yet she’s handcuffed and not allowed to push it herself. Chucky is sitting on the evidence table, and as Nica passes him, she screams, “I’m still alive!” While this insults Chucky for failing to be a serious killer like antagonists in other slashers, it primarily serves to refute his claim that her life isn’t a life because she’s disabled.
This is genuinely the best anti-ableism movie I’ve ever seen. Yes, the protagonist isn’t a wheelchair user. That said, they clearly did a lot of work with disabled people in order to achieve this. Furthermore, the fact that such a social justice masterpiece is a horror movie—the genre known for bigotry above all others—makes it even more astounding. I also really appreciate the way that they balance “silent inclusion makes bigots feel less attacked” with “not identifying specific forms of ableism makes it harder to stop them.” They somehow made the anti-ableism a bigger part of the movie than Chucky, while still managing to hide it as disgusting behaviour from the sister. This means that people will focus more on empathising with Nica and detesting the sister’s behaviour rather than feeling called out for their own actions. The first time I watched it, I spent every minute just waiting for the… first shoe to drop. I was never disappointed with how they handled an aspect of disability, and I will genuinely be shocked if this ever happens to me again.
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