Rich Wright
A very moderate film for all intents and purposes. A pregnant woman and her husband take a little trip to an isolated city... only to find no-one is about. This should be their cue to get the fudge outta there, but nope... they help themselves to some free groceries, drinks and hotel rooms. Then, the children arrive. A whole pack of them. And tear an old man limb by limb, right in front of the disturbed couple.It's they who're responsive for the deaths of all the adults in town... because they just woke up that way. Hmph. And the grown-ups didn't fight back because... they're kids. Double Hmph. Regardless, our central pair must find a way out of this creche from hell, but they face even more danger from a being they could never have guessed...And there I must stop, as that scene constitutes the only real shock moment. It's kinda demented in retrospect, but I'll take what I can. It's not a chore to sit through... who could possibly not find hordes of little 'uns, running amok with hammers and knives at least a bit diverting? But the turgid way it's directed and plotted sap a lot of life out of the can't-miss scenario, making it passable at best.And if the ending is anything to go by, maybe it's time we beefed up our borders against asylum seekers even more... 5/10
DigitalRitual
Writer, Director, Producer, Cinematographer, and even Sound department, are the many hats worn by this Mononymous film-maker - Makinov, who prominently features his/her name in the title and at the end of the film so boldly as if their fame had already exceeded their talent (think Cher, Beck, Bono, Prince, or even Sting). That was the first laughable moment in this (first) film from the artist known as Makinov. But the (unintentional) laughs didn't stop there.The film begins with Ebon Moss-Bacharach's character searching, somewhat desperately, late at night for a boat to rent. He and his pregnant wife, played by Vinessa Shaw, are trying to get to a nearby island, for who knows why. After a long and tedious search, he finds a drunk fisherman reluctantly willing to part with his 15 foot row boat with an outboard motor, which, by the way, he uses daily for his work. After some less than shrewd negotiation, our hero offers the guy four thousand dollars (what?!?) for the use of his dinghy for a day.As an aside, it's worth mentioning that while the two leading actors are clearly not A-list performers, they do bring face recognition, if not name recognition to the film. They are recognizable and have faces you know, but can't quite place. They're decent enough actors, and typically play supporting roles quite well.In "Makinov's Come Out and Play," however, they stumble around woodenly upon arriving to this island, which appears to be all but deserted, minus the odd child or two they run into, as they search for food and lodging. They deliver their lines well enough, but the direction is terrible, as there are long awkward pauses, and odd reactions that seem inappropriate for the scene.It takes some 35 minutes for our clueless couple to realize that there is something amiss, and come to realize the children have all gone bad (again for who knows how and why... which is never explained) and are wantonly slaughtering any adult in their paths, using chopped up body parts as footballs, necklaces, and other assorted toys. Mind you, there is not a child to be seen over the age of 13, most averaging 7-10 years old. We're talking tiny, wee kids, who somehow have the strength to bash down doors, chop through flesh and bone, and cart off struggling fully grown adults.After 40 minutes or so of our unlikely heroes running around aimlessly, painfully, and without any urgency to get off this Lord of the Flies island, Makinov provides us with an ending with a "twist," if you can call it that. It's obviously meant to be shocking, but instead evokes laughter once again. Throughout this entire disaster though, there is somehow a fleeting twinge of anxiety and suspense. At first I couldn't put my finger on what could cause this tension. It surely was not the dialogue, nor the story-line, or the uninspired, single-shot camera work. I finally pinned it down to the music. Makinov did, actually, get one thing right it would seem. The delicate use of crescendos and diminuendos, notes that would as easily have accompanied Hitchcock's Psycho, created this dramatic tension throughout his film, albeit with a retro, 70's style sound, but well done none-the-less.As the final credits rolled, the screen filled with our Mononymous (A Film By) Makinov, I was dumbstruck that I could only muster a single word to describe what I had just saw, the lonely adjective looming as large in my mind as Makinov's moniker hung on the screen before my eyes, and I muttered aloud..... Awful!--One star for the clever music, but otherwise, this film was nothing more than a big fat zero in my book. It is definitely one to be avoided, as an hour and a half spent chewing your own toenails would be more productive and thought provoking.
mdnobles19
Come Out and Play is basically a carbon copy of the original 1976 film Who Can Kill A Child? It was a lazy remake that didn't even try to attempt something different with the concept or reinterpret it. The film is a retread and a missed opportunity to breath new life into the killer kids subgenre. The film still manages to capture the unsettling dread, suspense, mysterious and creepy atmosphere and terrifying helplessness that made the original effective. The musical score was intense and heart pounding and made you feel like you were watching a living nightmare captured on celluloid. The elements that made it watch able is that the premise is still creepy and disturbing and the story is still effective and shocking. Come Out and Play is in the end though just another pointless remake with nothing remotely new to show or say.The performances were solid for the most part but I thought the script was pretty weak with underdeveloped characters. The two leads were likable and did their best with little that they were given, but they just played the typical, token stranded tourists that waited too long to get the hell out of there. Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Vinessa Shaw play parents to be Francis and Beth, who take one last vacation before Beth is due to give birth to their child. They make a trip to a secluded island and realize too late that all of the adults are missing and the children left behind. The doomed couple soon discovers that the children are homicidal maniacs, with no explanation of how they got that way. We as viewers are just as baffled as the couple and there wasn't even a hint to how the children got that way. I think the main stars are talented performers, but are wasted here as the lackluster script raises more questions than answers.Director, Makinov pretty much cut and paste here with no inspiration behind the proceeding. He knows the basics of a horror movie but weren't inventive with the elements; as a result there wasn't any moments of surprise because if you've seen the original you know the outcome. The director brought nothing new to the story.Overall, it's an uninspired remake that's too faithful to the original and you might as well just rent the original because it's exactly the same right down to the ending. Both give effective chills, but there is no good reason for this remake to exist. Still there are far worse out there.
