Creepy Kids Month Quick Picks and Pans

The Godsend (1980) A strange pregnant woman (Angela Pleasence) shows up at a family’s farmhouse. Before they can get her home, she gives birth and subsequently disappears without a trace. Kate and Alan Marlowe (Cyd Hayman and Malcolm Stoddard) raise the baby, named “Bonnie,” as their own, but one tragedy after another befalls the unsuspecting family. As their other children die off one by one, Alan is convinced the deaths aren’t accidental, but a scheme to replace them with Bonnie (like a human version of a cuckoo). Director Gabrielle Beaumont doesn’t rely on cheap jump scares or pools of blood for this slow-burn horror, film. Instead, The Godsend preys on one of the very real fears parents face – we do our best to keep our children safe, but we can’t possibly watch them all the time. 

Rating: ****. Available on Blu-ray (double-feature disc with The Outing) and Tubi

Cooties (2014) In this horror/comedy from directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion, Elijah Wood plays Clint, a would-be horror author who moves back to his home town. He takes on a gig as a substitute teacher at the local elementary, but soon discovers that he picked the wrong day. A viral outbreak from tainted chicken nuggets turns kids into vicious, flesh-eating zombies. Clint teams up with childhood schoolmate Lucy (Alison Pill), her alpha male boyfriend Wade (Rainn Wilson), and other eccentrics to combat the grade-school menace. Although it’s more than a bit derivative of other zom-coms (especially Zombieland) Cooties has fun with its warped premise, featuring witty dialogue and gore galore. 

Rating: ***½. Available on Blu-ray and DVD

 

Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) Tragedy strikes an already fractured family when young Karen (Brooke Shields) is murdered as she’s just about to receive communion. Signs point to her troubled older sister Alice (Paula E. Sheppard) despite largely circumstantial evidence. Their estranged father Dom (Niles McMaster) decides to investigate, but the truth may not be what it seems. Dark, disturbing and perpetually suspenseful, Alice, Sweet Alice keeps you guessing throughout. Watch for a terrific, creepy performance by Alphonso DeNoble as a perverted landlord. 

Rating ***½. Available on Blu-ray, DVD and Tubi

The Space Children (1958) The title of this nifty little Cold War sci-fi film (directed by Jack Arnold) is a misnomer, since the titular children aren’t from space, but controlled by an extraterrestrial presence (in the form of a squishy glowing brain that resembles one of the eponymous “Gamesters of Triskelion” from the original Star Trek series). A team of scientists working on a top-secret military project (a multi-stage rocket designed to deliver an orbital nuclear warhead platform) are thwarted by their own children, who become the agent of the alien presence. Considering the paranoid era when this film was released, The Space Children is surprisingly critical about the proliferation of nuclear warheads, exposing the hypocrisy of using devastating weaponry as a deterrent for global war. Look for supporting roles by Jackie Coogan (wearing zebra-striped swim trunks) and Russell Johnson (as a hateful alcoholic stepfather). 

Rating: ***½. Available on Blu-ray and DVD

 

Devil Times Five (aka: Peopletoys) (1974) When a van carrying a group of psychiatric ward kids crashes, the adults perish, but the kids emerge unscathed. They find their way to a secluded ski lodge, where they meet a bunch of self-absorbed adults on a business retreat. The kids (including future teen idol Leif Garrett), soon wear out their welcome, with the grown-ups fearing for their lives. The stupid adults are picked off one by one by the obnoxious little twerps (who seem to have borrowed a page from Lord of the Flies), as they make one mistake after another (in one head-scratching scene, a woman goes to sleep while she and her husband are being stalked). The results are goofy and oddly entertaining, albeit improbable. 

Rating: **½. Available on Blu-ray and DVD 

 

Village of the Damned (1995) On paper, a John Carpenter-helmed retelling of the classic 1957 John Wyndham novel The Midwich Cuckoos sounds like a perfect combination. Unfortunately, the results are lackluster (despite the presence of Carpenter regulars Buck Flowers and Peter Jason), with little evidence of Carpenter’s signature touch. This version moves the action from rural England to rural New England. Christopher Reeve (in his final role before his tragic accident) stars as Dr. Alan Chaffee, a town doctor, who investigates the strange simultaneous births of white-haired children that possess special (and alarming) abilities. This remake takes several major missteps, losing the subtleties of the original film, and depicting the children as succumbing to a type of peer pressure, rather than a hive mind. 

Rating: **½. Available on Blu-ray and DVD

 

 

The Children

 

(1980) Directed by Max Kalmanowicz; Written by Carlton J. Albright and Edward Terry; Starring: Martin Shakar, Gil Rogers, Gale Garnett, Shannon Bolin, Tracy Griswold; Available on Blu-ray and DVD 

Rating: ***

“Ed (Terry) and I were friends. We were sitting in my living room one night, after my youngest son Will was born, and we were talking about children, and how they dominate and control, strangulate, your life, especially when they’re young… and you’ve got a bunch of them And we came up with this idea about children on a bus going through a nuclear fog, and they’re looking for their parents again, and when they come back and finally find them, the essence of it is they turn them into eggplant parmesan.” – Carlton. J. Albright (excerpt from 2005 interview)

Let’s face it, even at the best of times, kids are a handful. Sure, they represent our future, since long after we’ve gone, they’re destined to live one. After all, it’s the natural order of things. But at the same time, there’s a darker, almost primal fear about being replaced by them, reinforced by the feeling we’ve outlived our usefulness. It’s an insidiously pervasive thought – the older you get, the greater the realization it’s not your world anymore. Producer/director*/co-writer Carlton J. Albright’s The Children taps into this fear, with kids transformed into homicidal little monsters who target their parents. 

* Fun Fact: Co-writer Edward Terry (who also appears as local townsperson, Hank) was originally considered to direct the film, but was fired due to a falling out with co-writer/producer Albright. They seem to have patched things up several years later, when Terry appeared as the titular character in Albright’s film, Luther the Geek (1989).

Albright and crew filmed in various locations around southern Massachusetts, as well as New Jersey, for the fictional Ravensback* nuclear power plant (represented by a now-defunct conventional PSE&G plant). In a budget-saving measure, the eponymous children were played by the non-professional progeny of the filmmakers.** Many of the same crew subsequently worked on Friday the 13^th (1980), including its music composer, Harry Manfredini.*** While the latter movie became a pop culture phenomenon, spawning numerous sequels and a remake, The Children left a much smaller albeit profitable impact, as a minor hit. 

* Not-So-Fun-Fact: The film’s original title was The Children of Ravensback, but was shortened to The Children, because of “Ravensback’s” similarity to Ravensbruck, a World War II concentration camp. 

** Fun Fact #1: In another money-saving decision, Martin Brennan (in his only role), who appeared briefly as local celebrity Sanford Butler-Jones, was cast simply because he was the film crew’s coke dealer. 

*** Fun Fact #2: Even the most casual movie fans will likely notice Manfredini’s Psycho-influenced score from The Children shares many similarities to his composition for Friday the 13^th (minus the “chh, chh, chh, hah, hah, hah” chorus).

Radioactive steam leaking from a nearby nuclear power plant creates a toxic yellow cloud, which settles on the outskirts of the sleepy town of Ravensback. A school bus full of unsuspecting kids drives through the cloud, setting the plot in motion. When Sheriff Billy Hart (Gil Rogers)* discovers the bus on the side of the road, sans driver and kids, he’s tasked with the unenviable job of notifying the (mostly) incredulous parents. Meanwhile, the children roam the countryside in a transformed state, searching for their parents. With dark circles around their eyes and black fingernails, they look like they just had a goth makeover (but they’re not here to sing about happy houses or Bela Lugosi). Their embrace means death to any unfortunate adult who happens to get too close – faster than you can say, “Three Mile Island,” they’re burned alive. When his deputy succumbs to the children, Sheriff Hart teams up with concerned parent John Fremont (Marting Shakar) to locate the missing children and find a way to deal with the pint-sized terrors.    

* Fun Fact #3: According to Albright, Kevin McCarthy was originally considered for the role of Sheriff Hart, but discussions ultimately went nowhere.

After Hart and Fremont witness the trail of death caused by the kids, they’re faced with an unsavory dilemma – the children are arguably no longer their children, but by all appearances (minus the black fingernails, perhaps), they still are. Although the children are slow-moving and thus easy to evade, their greatest asset is that they appear deceptively innocuous and loving (Who could resist a hug from their kid?). Because the children are impervious to bullets, the sheriff and Fremont devise an impromptu solution to confront the kids with the deadly touch, involving an axe and a katana.*   

* I don’t want to give it away, but let’s just say it’s quite disarming (I’ll see myself out).

 

Albright seemed less than enamored with Shakar’s interpretation of the character John Fremont, claiming the actor somehow made a sympathetic role unsympathetic (“It wasn’t the John Fremont that Ed and I wrote, but it was what me made it into… which was fine.”). Based on Shakar’s performance, it’s easy to agree. He’s a hotheaded creep who barks orders at his pregnant wife (“Make the damn coffee!”) and treats the sheriff like his personal chauffeur. He really drops the ball when he neglects to keep an eye on his son Clarkie (played by director of photography Barry Abrams’ son, Jessie), who’s visited by one of the children (appearing at his bedroom window in a shot reminiscent of an iconic scene from Salem’s Lot). But the Parent of the Year award goes to a missing girl’s self-obsessed mother, Dee Dee (Rita Montone), for her conspicuous lack of concern when the sheriff informs her that her daughter is missing. Instead of reacting like most fearful parents, she appears to be tickled by the prospect of her daughter’s possible kidnapping, and how exciting it would be for their small town.  

The Children shares more than a few superficial similarities with Night of the Living Dead (1968). The first attack occurs in a graveyard, and the children roam the countryside like mindless zombies, searching for more victims. When faced with the prospect of destroying the children, the adults are confronted with the existential dilemma that the children, as they knew them, no longer exist. Also, in a budget-conscious choice that tells rather than shows, a TV news reports suggests the incidents are much more widespread. Unlike George Romero’s horror classic, The Children isn’t particularly suspenseful or scary. Attacks by the slow-moving kids with their outstretched arms elicit more chuckles than chills. Nevertheless, The Children, despite its deficits, manages to wind its way under your skin, thanks to the very real concerns about contamination from nuclear power plants, negligent parents, and fears about our future in the hands of our children. Ultimately, the film bites off more than it can chew, but if you don’t dive too deeply, it’s an enjoyable 90 minutes.

 

Sources for this article: Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray commentary by Carlton J. Albright, “Childhood Memories: Making the Children” (2018 short), Interview with Carlton J. Albright (2005)

 

 

The Pit

(1981) Directed by Lew Lehman; Written by Ian A. Stuart; Starring: Sammy Snyders, Jeannie Elias, Sonja Smits and Laura Hollingsworth; Available on Blu-ray and DVD 

Rating: ***

“I look back and I think to myself, there’s always things you can do better… Jamie’s character, even when you watch it today, is gonna freak you out. You can see the eyes on Jamie. There was something there, and I’m proud of that.” – Sammy Snyders

Everyone likely has a story about the weird kid at school other kids seemed to steer clear of, because of their appearance or behavior (Hey, no judgment here! I was probably that weird kid).  By necessity or choice, they become immersed in their own world – someplace they feel accepted. While we wonder what’s his or her deal, our imaginations take flight with idle (and often inaccurate) speculation. In most cases, they’re harmless but lack the social skills to navigate the nuances and pitfalls of social interactions, have interests that no one else cares about, or just behave a little differently from their peers. The Pit (1981)*/** is about a not-so-benign oddball kid, with the repercussions of his social estrangement taken to horrible extremes.    

Fun Fact #1: Although The Pit was another example of a Canadian tax shelter production, filming was predominately in the United States (with a combination of Canadian and American cast and crew), in the small town of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. 

Fun Fact #2: The film’s original title, Teddy, was also the title of the novelization.

Jamie Benjamin (Sammy Snyders)*/** is a smart but troubled 12-year-old boy that other kids avoid like a communicable disease. Everyone, including the adults in his life, sense something is “off” about him. Interactions with other kids often end in disaster (such as the opening scene, where he’s punched in the face by a schoolyard bully), so he mostly keeps to himself. His only friends are the critters he keeps in an overcrowded terrarium and his stuffed toy, Teddy, who “tells” him what to do. His frustrated parents (Laura Press and Richard Alden) have gone through several babysitters, but when they need to travel out of town, they hire a new sitter, perky college student Sandy O’Reilly (Jeannie Elias). Sandy views Jamie as an interesting challenge. With a major in psychology, she somehow considers herself qualified to conduct some dime-store analysis on him (which goes about as well as you would imagine). While she gradually earns Jamie’s confidence, she becomes the unwitting object of his infatuation. In an effort to gain her trust, he reveals his secret about a pit hidden in the woods (with some particularly nasty little residents), but things don’t quite end up as planned. 

* Fun Fact #3: Screenwriter Ian A. Stuart was less than enthused about the final results, claiming that his “story was destroyed,” turning it into a pure horror film rather than a psychological drama. The filmmakers omitted the ending as originally written, which suggested that everything was in Jamie’s mind (and depicted Jamie institutionalized). 

** Fun Fact #4: Stuart’s screenplay envisioned Jamie as a pre-pubescent boy, around 8 or 9. Instead, the filmmakers cast 14-year-old Sammy Snyders to play the now12-year-old lead character, significantly changing the dynamics of the movie.

We’re never sure how we should feel about Jamie. On the one hand, it’s easy to sympathize with his social and mental isolation as a result of the ostracism he endures. On the other hand, it’s not so easy to excuse his antisocial (not to mention wildly inappropriate) behavior. In one especially uncomfortable scene, when Sandy reluctantly agrees to wash his back, Jamie confesses that his mother still bathes him (“She really tried to make me clean.”), providing some insight into the family’s dysfunctional relationship. He follows up by asking Sandy, “Do you like washing me?”  which predicably sends her running out of the bathroom. In a later scene, he extorts the town librarian (who believes her niece has been kidnapped) into giving him an impromptu striptease (Yes, this scene is about as creepy as you would likely imagine).* In another scene, he professes his love to Sandy by writing on the bathroom mirror while she’s showering. In times of discomfort or indecision, he consults his teddy bear (whose voice sounds suspiciously like him), bringing to the surface his suppressed urges. In the case of Teddy, the conversations are strictly in Jamie’s head. It’s not so easy to explain away the existence of the pit and some troglodytic primordial humanoids (which he calls “Troliwogs”)**/*** that dwell at the bottom. He takes it upon himself to feed the creatures (buying meat with stolen money), but the food supply quickly diminishes, forcing him to take more drastic measures – anyone he deems to be a "bad” person is fair game for the pit. He once again faces a moral dilemma, however, when his supply of enemies runs out. 

* Fun Fact #5: According to Stuart, director Lew Lehman’s wife (who was frequently on the set) didn’t want her husband directing the brief nude scenes. Those sequences, shot later as inserts, were directed by Stuart instead. 

** Fun Fact #6: The troglodytes were initially played by young children, but when the kids started getting sick and passing out from the constrictive costumes, they were replaced by adult little people. 

*** Fun Fact #7: There were two types of costumes used to depict the troglodytes, with the initial crude, makeshift costumes created on location. The filmmakers weren’t impressed with the results, prompting them to fabricate new costumes for close-up shots in a Toronto-based studio.

 

Considering the scenes that preceded his homicidal conversion, it’s an odd choice of the filmmakers to play Jamie’s murder streak for laughs. The Pit lapses into dark comedy through a montage of scenes (accompanied by wacky musical cues), as he leads his enemies (real or perceived) to their doom. Following an argument with Sandy (who believes the pit creatures should be studied), Jamie allows them to escape to the surface, which in turn condemns them to a harsher fate. At this point, the film’s narrative loses its way, with our central character disappearing for the next few scenes. Left to their own devices, the little subterranean beasties create more murder and mayhem than they might have been capable of otherwise. The local police and townspeople combine forces to hunt down the malevolent troglodytes, but it’s never made clear whether Jamie learned about their eventual fate or if he felt any remorse about them. 

 

The distributors should have warned audiences about the risk of whiplash, considering the abrupt mid-film tonal shift, when Jamie starts luring his victims to the pit. In the context of the film, it’s a jarring choice (it’s a credit to composer Victor Davies that he does his best to keep up with the changes). By far, the best part of The Pit is Sammy Snyders’ convincing and creepy performance as the antiheroic main character. Despite the excesses of the rest of the movie, Snyders creates a believable character in Jamie, with a warped sense of justice but recognizable motivations. In Jamie’s defense, the adults he interacts with aren’t much better than his peers, ranging from dismissive to outright hostile, so it’s hard for Jamie to find a moral/ethical compass when no one else does the right thing around him. The Pit is a fascinating mess – a near-miss that almost works, despite its numerous inconsistencies and weird structure. Fans of offbeat low-budget horror may want to give this a try. All others might consider proceeding with caution. 

* Fun Fact #8: Some of The Pit’s disjointed nature could be attributed to the fact that director Lew Lehman was fired before the film’s completion, and wasn’t available to provide input for the subsequent editing. 

 

Sources for this article: Blu-ray commentary by Paul Corupe and Jason Pichonsky; Interview wish Sammy Snyders, “The Babysitter – An Interview with Jeannie Elias,” “Teddy Told Me To – An Interview with Ian A. Stuart.”