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It's a rather cool theme in horror movies to play on a fear of children. I considered a selection of 'child phobia' movies at the end of my review of "The Omen" and there are two more reviewed below that I watched for the first time this year.
Who Can Kill A Child? (aka "Death is Child's Play") (1976)
The original audience must not have known what was about to hit them with this movie. We start off with an accounts of several different wars and atrocities across the 20th century. The holocaust being just one amongst them. And in each case we are told about how awful the situation was for children in particular. These accounts are accompanied with black and white footage and an official-sounding voice behind them. At the end of each one we hear children singing a short but annoying tune. This gets REALLY repetitive. But the message is clear. Children have had a tough time through history.
The opening bit looks like this. It's a Spanish movie (even if the leads are English actors speaking English) so we keep seeing Spanish writing in this red handwritten style on screen, with the black and white footage and photographs from real life wars and atrocities in the background and that official-sounding documentary-style voice over (also in English) explaining how bad children have had it. At the repeated singing bit we see children's hand prints on the screen.
So with the audience nicely softened to the plight of children, now to begin a story where children are actually going to be quickly revealed as the bad guys. But first we are introduced to a couple of English tourists who decide to get away from the crowds and spend some time on a quiet local island. On the island however, it becomes clear that things are actually a lot quieter than they ought to be.
The visuals of crowds of children are extremely eerie. The movie takes its time, but I don't think the pacing ever feels unneccessarily slow. And when we come towards the end there's a pretty shocking revelation which I did not see coming. (If you reach a point where you think the movie has wrapped up too easily then don't worry, it's not over yet.)
( Click here to read the rest of my review of "Who Can Kill A Child?"... )
Mama (2013)
Yet another Guillermo Del Toro produced horror movie. Have had a pretty mixed response to these. I hated "Julia's Eyes", finding it to be a complete misfire with some intriguing ideas at the beginning leading to what I viewed as a pretty cheesy finale. Meanwhile I found some plot details revealed about "Splice" completely put me off ever seeing that. (The creature design might be great, but I do NOT want to see that film.)
But strangely, contrary to most other people's opinions, I LOVED "Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark". I felt that it was well-made and while many had criticised the film for revealing the monsters so quickly, I found their Gremlins-esque behaviour really spoke to me.
I was a little unsure about the trailer for "Mama" but I was seriously intrigued by the premise. Children lost in the woods are recovered, but they've become somewhat wild after their experience. But when they come to live with a foster parents back in a civilised environment, it turns out that some kind of spirit from the woods was keeping them safe and it isn't prepared to give up its hold over them just yet.
I'll come right out and say it, I was disappointed by this one. Which is a real pity because in the first half there are some moments which I thought worked very well. Sure in the first half there are also some of the those now-cliched jump-scare "booms" to emphasise important moments, which are intended to make things creepier. But these were moments where I felt that more natural sounds would have been far more effective. A child scampering away timidly on all fours like a woodland creature is surely much more disturbing if you hear the actual scampering than if you hear a horror-movie "boom" noise?
( Click here to read the rest of my review of "Mama"... )
Who Can Kill A Child? (aka "Death is Child's Play") (1976)
The original audience must not have known what was about to hit them with this movie. We start off with an accounts of several different wars and atrocities across the 20th century. The holocaust being just one amongst them. And in each case we are told about how awful the situation was for children in particular. These accounts are accompanied with black and white footage and an official-sounding voice behind them. At the end of each one we hear children singing a short but annoying tune. This gets REALLY repetitive. But the message is clear. Children have had a tough time through history.
The opening bit looks like this. It's a Spanish movie (even if the leads are English actors speaking English) so we keep seeing Spanish writing in this red handwritten style on screen, with the black and white footage and photographs from real life wars and atrocities in the background and that official-sounding documentary-style voice over (also in English) explaining how bad children have had it. At the repeated singing bit we see children's hand prints on the screen.
So with the audience nicely softened to the plight of children, now to begin a story where children are actually going to be quickly revealed as the bad guys. But first we are introduced to a couple of English tourists who decide to get away from the crowds and spend some time on a quiet local island. On the island however, it becomes clear that things are actually a lot quieter than they ought to be.
The visuals of crowds of children are extremely eerie. The movie takes its time, but I don't think the pacing ever feels unneccessarily slow. And when we come towards the end there's a pretty shocking revelation which I did not see coming. (If you reach a point where you think the movie has wrapped up too easily then don't worry, it's not over yet.)
( Click here to read the rest of my review of "Who Can Kill A Child?"... )
Mama (2013)
Yet another Guillermo Del Toro produced horror movie. Have had a pretty mixed response to these. I hated "Julia's Eyes", finding it to be a complete misfire with some intriguing ideas at the beginning leading to what I viewed as a pretty cheesy finale. Meanwhile I found some plot details revealed about "Splice" completely put me off ever seeing that. (The creature design might be great, but I do NOT want to see that film.)
But strangely, contrary to most other people's opinions, I LOVED "Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark". I felt that it was well-made and while many had criticised the film for revealing the monsters so quickly, I found their Gremlins-esque behaviour really spoke to me.
I was a little unsure about the trailer for "Mama" but I was seriously intrigued by the premise. Children lost in the woods are recovered, but they've become somewhat wild after their experience. But when they come to live with a foster parents back in a civilised environment, it turns out that some kind of spirit from the woods was keeping them safe and it isn't prepared to give up its hold over them just yet.
I'll come right out and say it, I was disappointed by this one. Which is a real pity because in the first half there are some moments which I thought worked very well. Sure in the first half there are also some of the those now-cliched jump-scare "booms" to emphasise important moments, which are intended to make things creepier. But these were moments where I felt that more natural sounds would have been far more effective. A child scampering away timidly on all fours like a woodland creature is surely much more disturbing if you hear the actual scampering than if you hear a horror-movie "boom" noise?
( Click here to read the rest of my review of "Mama"... )
