BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki Let me see if I have this correct: there is a group of kids, and the bus they are riding in drives though a cloud caused by a radioactive leak in a chemical plant in a small town, which causes them to incinerate people ... by hugging them? Are you serious? Film never explains why they feel this uncontrollable desire to hug/ burn people, nor how they are able to burn people alive by hugging them. They should have hugged (and incinerated) the makers of this film. Slow pacing, disgusting effects, and a mean streak are all on tap in this low budget time waster. It repeatedly puts little kids in harm's way with its ridiculous setpieces, as we see the kids getting shot and having their hands hacked off with a swords. And, in the end, we realise that all they have to do to kill these small kids is to chop off their hands with an ax. Ugh. The musical cues are so derivative of Friday the 13th, that composer Harry Manfredini should sue himself for that. The movie comes complete with the required shock twist ending, which is 100% predictable.

lost-in-limbo If there was a horror film that had certain nostalgia, you could say "The Children" was one of those cult films you would hear horror fans talking about and explaining how it was a childhood favourite. For me that wasn't the case, as I just watched for the first time, but I found it to be a surprisingly effective little low-budget feature which saw some of the film crew (lead by music composer Harry Manfredini) to go on to be apart of Sean S. Cunningham's 1980 iconic "Friday the 13th". When a school bus drives through a yellow mist of nuclear waste, a group of children of a rural town go missing, unknowingly to the town's folk they find out they have been transformed into zombies that are aching for a hug. But the results are toxic for whoever encounters them. It's up to the town sheriff to these lurking menaces. Everything about it is low-grade schlock and it plays out generic, from the acting to its direction, slight story (with a "Night of the Living Dead" vibe), adds ghastly make-up FX, dreary photography and even parts of the writing. But simply put its fun; in a daft, but also deranged and kooky manner. Sometimes humorous and at times unintentional, but still there are moments of gusty exploitation (that's zombie kids being mutilated by swords and axes!), suspense (those kiddie cuddle build-ups) and a constant eeriness (the appearances of the kids). Even the narrative throws a sudden shock twist here and there. The cast do feature some names with a likable Gil Rogers, Martin Shaker in a wooden turn, the very flirtatious Joy Glaccum and an amusing Peter Maloney. The forlorn woodland locations help alienate the horror, while Manfredini's music score is overstated, but not without its moments. Crazy, offbeat, ultra-cheap, but it's hard to resist these killer kids. "They'll turn up."

gavin6942 The Yankee Power Company nuclear power facility near Ravensback has a weird gas leak, and the area children (annoying little singers) are exposed to it when the bus drives down the wrong road. The kids become horrible mutants who melt anything they touch with the power of toxic waste.This one was directed by Max Kalmanowicz, who did little else of note. However, others involved with this movie went on to collaborate on "Luther the Geek", which is much more well-known.The bodybuilder Jack is pretty awesome when he tells the sheriff whether or not he saw his daughter Janet "lurking around".Complaint: the film needs more exposed breasts... the hot chick, Suzie (Joy Glaccum), not only stays clothed, but dies too soon.One musical selection sounds like somewhere between Bernard Hermann and Richard Band's "Re-Animator" score. The composer? Harry Manfredini! Overlooked horror film, easily worth a look if you enjoy horror films of its era. I have seen many, many worse films that are more well known. If this film had a decent DVD release, and not just a cheap transfer, I think it could actually be a decent seller.

Milo-Jeeder Silly movies like this always cheer me up for some reason. I've read some of the other reviews and I can't believe some people would actually take a movie like this so seriously. The premise is laughable to begin with and Troma is well known for producing these kinds of delirious flicks. 'The Children' is neither scary nor atmospheric, but there's something about it that makes it worthy somehow. I don't know about the others, but I refuse to dislike a cheap horror movie from the early 80s about a group of zombie children with black fingernails who kill their victims by giving them a deadly hug. The "special effects" are just as laughable as the plot and this film is one of those cases in which I actually feel a strange admiration towards the director for making an effort with insufficient resources. A different director would have probably desisted or maybe even step out of the project, but Mr. Max Kalmanowicz took the risk and in the end, the results were good enough to release a future 'guilty pleasure'. Whatever the case may be, guilty pleasure or not, the director deserves credit for creating this stupidly fun little flick.There's something oddly compelling about evil children in horror films, isn't there? I've seen my decent share of this kind and I realized that even if sometimes the film itself is not very good, there's still something morbidly fascinating about a child murdering a grown up. In this case, however, I think we could say that 'The Children' is more of a zombie flick instead. I know the killers are a group of five children who wander around a small town killing grown-ups, but they never actually act like human beings to begin with. We never see them talking to each other, planning their atrocities or expressing any emotions at all. They're just empty creatures with no personality or feelings whatsoever and the only reason why they kill, it's because at the very beginning of the film, they are all zombified by some kind of toxic cloud (?) These children are not exactly evil and they have no personalities because they're not human. So anyone who is in the mood to see a movie about mischievous children instead of zombies... skip this one because this is not what you're looking for.What actually struck me about this film however, is that it seems to have a morally upright message. 'The Children' is mostly an unpretentious horror film, but there's still something strange about the grown characters if you analyze them. Most of the children's parents are portrayed as liberal people who don't play by the rules and guess what happens to all of them... exactly what you're thinking, yes! All right, first we have a lesbian couple (one of them is also very much into taking sedative pills), then we have an uncaring mother who smokes weed and shows her boobs and then we have a seemingly homosexual man who goes to town for no reason whatsoever. I wonder if these characters were unusual just to add a little 'something' or if there was some kind of hidden conservative propaganda behind the story.Either way, this movie is fine and if you're in the mood for some modest entertainment, give 'The Children' a chance... but don't let them hug you, for crying out loud!