Zombies

This is definitely the biggest surprise of the festival so far and without a doubt the best the festival has had to offer. I went into this film with little to no expectations after learning that the director was responsible for the awful vampire flick The Forsaken. and I left pleasantly surprised. The film stars Lori heuring of In Crowd fame as a young mother whose husband has just passed. She moves into an old family home in the mountains with her two daughters next to a mine that is a gravesite to overworked children back in the day. Unlucky for them the children return with a vengeance killing and eating everyone in their path. The film works on many levels. It's well done, suspenseful, it has spots of good cinematography and capable performances by Compton especially. The atmosphere is spooky yet slightly underwhelming, the score is decent and the makeup effects are gruesome and simplistic. The film keeps up a creepy and unsettling tone and the kids themselves with pale skin, torn up lips and hollow eyes are pretty scary and unrelenting. The film is original and inventive without being to artsy or complicated. I can't see this film making it into a wide release without some trimming and slight fine tuning. But they definitely have a good product on there hands and should pursue some type of theatrical distribution. However the theatre in which i saw it in was horrible. The sound was dreadfully messed up which i felt took away from the film majorly and it stopped in the middle because they couldn't center it on the screen which killed the mood a bit. All in all though it was the most satisfying of horrorfests entries maybe because it had the least expectations but nonetheless was a welcome addition to genre films.

In 1913, in Carlton Mine, Addytown, Pennsylvania, the cruel owner of a mine uses poor children in the exploration and after an explosion, a group of children is buried alive. On the present days, Karen Tunny (Lori Heuring) has just lost her husband after a long period of terminal disease when the family savings have been spent in the treatment. Without any money, she moves with her daughters Sarah (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Emma (Chloe Moretz) to an old house in the mountains that belonged to her husband. Karen is advised by her neighbors to stay at home in the night, and Sarah hears that there are zombies in the area. When Emma becomes friend of Mary, he mother believes she is an imaginary friend. However, when Sarah's friends are attacked and eaten alive by zombie children and Emma vanishes, Karen and Sarah chase her nearby the mine.

"Wicked Little Things" is not a totally bad movie: the acting is good; the make-up is creepy; and the cinematography and the music score are excellent. However, the story, and consequently the screenplay, are very weak, indeed a bad collection of clichés. The beginning is reasonable, with a widow moving to a house in a remote location because the family spent all their resources with the illness of the patriarch. But when she arrives, coincidently the little zombies attack people without any consequences, for example, families do not search the missing persons. Then the wicked Mr. Carlton comes to the place with the most disgusting attitudes, a typical clichés that he will die in the end. There is no explanation why the children attacked innocent people and why they should stop after killing Mr. Carlton. When Sarah is running away with her mother and says that she is tired and cannot run anymore, it is one the most stupid lines that I have ever seen in a horror movie. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Zombies"

A young widow and her two daughters move to a new house in a Pennsylvanian mountain town. Soon, her daughter's imaginary friend starts to let the family know she's just a little too real.

This movie was enjoyable. I liked the characters (especially the older daughter and the neighbor Hanks) and the situations. The atmosphere was perfect and dark, as one would expect from a movie about zombies roaming through the woods. And the pacing was decent, revealing the story in a good speed.

The gore was decent: not over-the-top, but not ignored. Entrails are eaten and heads are smashed in. Sure, it's not as cool as "Necromantic" or "Anthropophagus", but it's alright. (Actually, since most of the film was so blah and standard fare, this Goldilocks level of gore should be no surprise.) Some blood scenes were welcome and I could have used more.

But this film is also riddled with countless clichés. An imaginary friend who might be real. Single mom with daughters moves to new town. Vehicles that won't start. Tripping in the middle of a running scene. I could probably go on.

Some good can be said. Chloe Moretz is really blossoming into a supreme actress, and this early work deserves to be seen. Scout Taylor-Compton is another genre favorite. And the DVD has audio commentary with director J. S. Cardone and actress Lori Heuring (though I haven't listened to it yet), so that's an extra treat for those who do enjoy the film.

I found the movie too "polished": the target seemed to be Hollywood and teenage girls, rather than those who would go to see a film festival called "8 Films to Die For" (which is where I saw this). The dirty, gritty scenes were just too clean. Sure, the movie was dark... but dark in a very sanitary way. (There are better ways to word this, but I don't know what they are.) If you don't see this film, that's fine. More than likely it will fade into the background and within a few years won't even be found on video store shelves. You'll see it on Netflix and be like "what is this?", but don't bother ordering it... for all the film lacks, it will probably lack even more in a few years as it becomes stale (if it hasn't already).

If you described any of the scenes; nightmares of children murdering you in your sleep, your infant daughter talking to ghosts, searching for your lost child in an abandoned mine at night, so petrified with fear that you can't move even though the blood from a murder victim is dripping onto you from the floor above – then I'd say you had a horror movie. But some how 'Wicked Little Things' just wasn't scary. I am a horror fan and I loved the location, the plot in principal and I liked the three leading ladies. I didn't want to see them come to harm, I wanted the 'bad guy' to get his just desserts, the rest of the cast are always simply cannon fodder so I was indifferent either way with them and it played out every cliché in the book - even down to the torch battery running out in the pitch dark just as you start to here whispering voices closing in on you.

I would still recommend that you watch it, but unless you are new to horror movies or under 12 years, you will have seen it all before.

I really wanted to like this movie. A film with zombie children getting out of a mine to kill people at night really seemed like a great idea for a horror film. Unfortunately, the film was in the bottom 3 of films played at horror fest.

A mother and her two daughters attempt to move on after her husband/father had passed away from an illness that cost their family a lot of money. They have to adapt to their new environment. They end up struggling due to all the surroundings for different reasons.(Crazy Zombie kids go into this category) The film never gives any sentimental attachment for anyone that lives or dies, the film produces no scares or jump worthy moments, the film barely shows the children doing what they're supposed to do...Kill! With a bigger budget and a better cast this film could have hope. Until then, pass on it.

3.5/10 actually.