PopSyndicate.com

A great chilling movie, and maybe just the best birth control ad ever!

I love the somewhat misleading marketing on all of the Ghost House Underground releases.  Across the top of the DVD cover art it reads, “from the makers of the Evil Dead Trilogy.” Now does this mean they made these movies?  No.  Ghost House Underground is another part of Ghost House Pictures which is a company started by Sam Raimi and Robert G. Tapert (who made the Evil Dead Trilogy together).  Basically these films are indie horror that get a distribution deal through GHU and therefore can boast that line on the DVD box to get people to buy them.  For the most part a lot of the Ghost House stuff has been a total let down, but with Tom Shankland’s British killer kid flick The Children they finally have a spot on hit.

Two sisters bring their families together for a quiet and relaxing Christmas vacation in rural Britain.  The four young children all play together, the parents have grown-up time and the teen daughter Casey (Hannah Tointon) cannot wait to get away from the family.  Casey does not get along with her stepfather Jonah (Stephen Campbell Moore) and it seems that only her mother, Elaine (Eva Birthistle), is on her side.  One of the young boys seems ill and soon the other kids show signs of some sort of sickness.  What the parents don’t know is how this bug will really effect the kids and, ultimately, them.  Suddenly the children go from the fun playful ankle biters to vicious little beings with sharp things looking to do harm.

The killer kids subgenre can be a tricky one to pull off.  Films like The Omen and The Good Son have moments of greatness, but for every great on then there is something like Village of the Damned in existence.  Director Tom Shankland really knew how to build a great pint sized terror flick to traumatize the audience.  This film works so well for so many different reasons.  The pure white snowy exteriors at Christmas time give an innocent feeling to the audience.  Kids are so joyous at this time of year, and to see them turn ill to the point of diabolical murder it makes it all the more harsh.  One thing about all of the kids, including the teen girl Casey, is they all have very large, expressive eyes.  The adults do not have these traits and that really pulls you into their spell when you see a close-up of a doe eyed face staring blankly back at you. 

Since I don’t have children of my own I can only imagine what I think a parent might feel while watching this film.  Having this little one whom you love so put you in the place where it’s either you or them must spark a myriad of conflicting feelings.  On one hand how can you do intentional harm to your creation, but on the other hand how can you let them exterminate you and everyone else around?  This relationship between the parents and their children is the central story here.  Neither couple is perfect and has their own way of dealing with the kids, but they do still love them so it’s hard to have to believe your innocent babies could do such things.  The film deals with the trauma induced by these events in a very real manner.  I don’t think the illness is too realistic but with all of the intense events which transpire one after another, the families act rashly and in hysterics. 

All of the kids cast in this film did a great job in their terrorizing roles, but the best role goes to Tointon and her portrayal of the troubled teen.  She is the most alienated character in the film, and when the snowballs hit the fan she is still somehow to blame for everything.  Through all of this she soldiers on to help her family and try to knock some sense into them, all the while she has to stave off her cousins and step-siblings as they try their hardest to kill her.  It does not hurt that she is quite attractive (I would like to note that though she plays a teen she was at least 20 at the time of filming). 

A lot of people will have problems with the ambiguity in the film mainly surrounding the sudden change in temperament, but is it really a bad thing?  What’s wrong with watching a film that leaves certain things up to the audiences’ own interpretations?  That polarizing ambiguity is the same thing that, in part, makes the film even more terrifying.  A fear of the unknown is a powerful one. 

The DVD is filled with number of featurettes documenting all of the different aspects of shooting this feature from working with child actors to Shankland’s on-set lair to shooting on location to making the snow covered landscape.  This brief piece shows the guys in the snow business of how they transformed a large green lawn into winter wonderland with a faux snow.  It’s quite interesting though I can’t imagine they get too much business.  There is also a feature on the prosthetics used on the cast and a near twenty minute making-of doc. 

If you are pregnant you may want to steer clear of this one, this film may even curb your appetite for kids a bit.  The DVD should come with condoms.  Not everyone will like this movie, like a certain editor of this site - cough, Stefan, cough - but if you watch it you will realize they are wrong.  This is a great tension builder with a plenty of scares, and has to be the best thing Ghost House Underground has released.

5