The Children

The Children (2008)

Runtime: 85 minutes

Directed by: Tom Shankland

Starring: Eva Birthistle, Stephen Campbell Moore, Jeremy Sheffield, Rachel Shelley, Hannah Tointon

From: Protagonist Pictures

Here’s another movie released by Ghost House Underground in the United States, but this one was made in the good old United Kingdom. It is one of those “killer kids” film a la Orphan, the first movie I reviewed here and I really dug that.

Like with that aforementioned film, this is set in a snowy setting out in the woods. In this case, it’s a middle of nowhere place somewhere in England. One family joins up with another out at their house (the two moms are sisters) and there’s a whole menagerie of kids, including a teenage girl-Casey-who is made up to look like Amber Tamblyn (not a bad thing, I say) and dresses up like Avril Lavigne. She’s the moody teenager type. Both sets of parents are rich stuck-up types who don’t have much in the way of street sense. That causes problems when the young kids start getting sick and then… the fit hits the shan, so to speak. The children turn evil; no explanation is given for what’s going on, which makes it all the creepier. It turns out that Casey is the only sane one of the bunch, so not only does she have to deal with kids that are out of control, but also their panicked parents.

I managed to hear of Hannah Tointon before, despite being a dumb American. Some photos of her were posted on a messageboard I sometimes frequent. If you look her up, she’s rather attractive, to say the least. Even in this movie, made up to be Goth, she’s easy on the eyes, in my opinion. But, that has nothing to do with me saying that she delivered a quality performance here in a tough role as someone who gets yelled at and gets some emotional AND physical abuse. She did a nice job in carrying the film.

It is a movie that does a great job in the delicate balance between being very suspenseful and tense and also showing off some gore; what gore you see is pretty graphic and it’s effective. But, it’s mainly about the suspense and it’s tense for most of its runtime. I found it to be pretty creepy that the kids did what they did, and the parents couldn't deal with the situation. I think it's a horror movie worth tracking down.

I'll be back Thursday night with a review of a classic 70's movie that's playing on the big screen, and it's something people will likely be shocked that I haven't seen yet.