The Children

I wasn't expecting that much from this movie, because it all just seemed very familiar. Evil children turning on their parents who are too dumb to notice anything's wrong until it's too late, there are at least a dozen movies like that. Combine that with an incredibly uninspired title and you get a movie that just sits on my shelf for years.

Unjustly, because as unoriginal and predictable this movie is...it's also really freightening! The scary atmosphere is done really well, and it helps that you don't actually see the children kill for the first two acts. It's all in the power of suggestion, and in the feeling of dread you get from every scene. The child actors are also great, their blank, unemotional stares send shivers down my spine. The plot follows the creepy kid formula beat by beat, but it's not a problem. Just take the obligatory first kill, the one that always looks like it's an accident. That scene is executed perfectly, really unnerving. The movie never really drops the ball from then on.

There's nothing ground-breaking about "The Children", there's not even anything interesting to the plot. It's very much style over substance, but the style is great and that's enough for me to recommend it.

Two families gather at a remote house for a Christmas and new year holiday. However, the young children affected by something in the woods, begin to turn on the adults.

I have to say, this movie was a welcome surprise. Written and directed by Tom Shankland (who made WAZ), and based on a story from Paul Andrew Williams (who made the recent horror The Cottage), The Children is a very well made movie.

One of the main reasons I enjoyed it was that it never explains why the children are doing what they are doing. It's suggested there is something in the woods to blame, but it is never fully explained. In a way this is similar to The Ruins, or even Rec and I liked that. Too many movies try to explain what is going on, but the better horror movies leave it open and I think this approach works better, as it does here.

The cast are all pretty good, with special mention given to Eva Sayer as one of the children, and Hannah Tointon as Casey the only teen in the group.

One of the clever things about this movie, and there are many things to like about it,is how the adults react as events get out of control. To begin with they are nice and friendly couples (the two women being sisters), but as the movie progresses, they turn on themselves as they refuse to accept what is happening. Of course by the time they do realise what is going on, it's much too late!

The movie is rated 15 in the UK, and does keep most of the violence off-screen, but it is creepy through-out, and Shankland keeps the tension and unease high, even when nothing has happened yet. And he stages some some impressive scenes, especially the first adult attack, involving a sledge, a trolley, with sharp items on it. It could almost come from a Final Destination movie!

And to top of everything, there is the ending. While not a truly bleak ending (although some may see it that way), it's a very, very creepy ending, and one I really didn't expect.

As horror movies go for this year, this is one of the best I've seen.

The premise of this movie is indeed real, primal horror. During the holidays, a family reunion turns into a madness when children become increasingly disturbed, due to what looks like a mysterious illness.

"Creepy kids" have been done a number of times in cinema but what separates this latest entry from many that came before it is the feeling that these kids are still kids. Certainly disturbed and not totally themselves but not entirely evil. Cruel but not zombies, mind controlled or aliens. There is still fear and fragility, which makes them a lot scarier for viewers, especially parents.

Adding to the horror is that when the parents stand up for themselves against the kids, these acts of resistance are "unsatisfying" to us, unlike other movies of the genre. That is, you do remain conflicted as a viewer instead of the typical Hollywood trash. And *that* is what horror is about.

The story is good, well-paced with a suitably tensed escalation of the menace the children represent. The characters coping with this threat (a group of adults and a teenager) are believable instead of walking clichés.

On the downside, the movie has a definite low-budget feel to it. I was surprised that Tom Shankland would direct something like this after his previous work, the polished horror/thriller Waz. A low budget plus a lot of kid actors mean that corners were cut. The film would certainly have benefited from more takes. A lot more takes, in fact. The adult actors are underwhelming and the script could have used another pass or two to make it more compelling from start to end. There are still two or three very memorable sequences in the movie, such as the one following the first body's disappearance. But overall I think Shankland will cringe at a lot of scenes here. For instance, one character spends some great deal of time with a serious injury but the result on camera is completely unbelievable.

So what we are left with is an indie movie with a lot of heart and that does a lot of things well. It is extremely courageous in its treatment. It offers something good and refreshing. And it could have been a masterpiece with slightly more budget. I'm giving this a well-deserved 6.

As a complement to this film and to see the "other side of the coin", I strongly suggest watching Lars E. Jacobson's "Baby Blues" immediately before or after "The Children".

The Children is directed by Tom Shankland who adapts the screenplay from a Paul Andrew Williams story. It stars Eva Birthistle, Stephen Campbell, Hannah Tointon, Eva Sayer, William Howes, Rachel Shelley and Jeremy Sheffield. Music is by Stephen Hilton and cinematography by Nanu Segal.

A Christmas holiday at a remote country home turns into a fight for survival when the children suddenly start to turn on the adults.....

Could you kill your own kid? There's a nasty edge to Shankland's little shocker, and we are not just talking about creepy kids offing adults here. Although lifting freely from classic evil-children horrors from the past, The Children manages to remain fresh by playing on the aspect of the parents' refusal to accept that their cherubic offspring could do evil. Even when faced with blatant malevolence, the adults struggle to fight back. I mean, could you drop-kick your own child down the stairs? Added kicker in the writing is that the only character in the set-up who grasps what is going on is the troubled teenager (Tointon excellent), a nice twist for it is so often the case in horror movies that we bemoan dumb teens doing even dumber things.

With the makers unfolding the drama amongst a virginal snowy setting, there's much thought gone into crafting more than just a standard gory shocker. Shankland shows a good sense of mood and pacing, drip-feeding the unease and never getting carried away with the premise. His closeup camera-work has an unsettling quality to it, while the deaths are inventive and mercifully not over done, the editing neatly giving us the viewers the chance to fill in the blanks. Some of the adult actors irritate rather than gain our belief, and the odd "dumb" reaction to a situation rears its ugly head. But mostly this is a thoughtful and spicy Brit horror that's worth seeking out by those after more than your rank and file slasher movie. 7/10

Being a Horror Film person I have seen them all and was not expecting much from the trash that is flushed out to us. But I'm pleased to tell you that this movie was a nice surprise. The plot was basic, the characters were believable, and the movie had a nice pace. To most the premise itself seems to have been done before but No it has not the way that this film does it. All is revealed in this film and the cause is actually believable. I would highly recommend this film to anyone that enjoys horror films. The people that got on to give this one a low score obviously know nothing about the genre and need to go rate movies like High school musical or Paul Blart the Mall Cop. Official Chickencow post unaffiliated with any Film Company