Reviewed by Chris Wright, MoreHorror.com
Directed By: Tom Shankland
Written By: Tom Shankland & Paul Andrew Williams
Starring: Hannah Tointon (Casey), Eva Birthistle (Elaine), Stephen Campbell Moore (Jonah) , Eva Sayer (Miranda), William Howes( Paulie), Rachel Shelley (Chloe), Jeremy Sheffield (Robbie), Jake Hathaway (Nicky), Raffiella Brooks (Leah)
Nothing says Christmas horror like spreading Yule tide cheer with some murderous children! I have to admit, there have been a good number of “killer kids” done in horror so I didn’t expect much with this movie seeing as I hadn’t even heard of it until recently. Thankfully, I was proven wrong and loved this movie quite a bit. This British horror film was only given a straight to video release in America despite being given a theatrical release in the UK.
The plot is a small group of family and friends travel to a country home in an isolated snowy region for their Christmas get together. The seemingly harmless situation turns to bad when one kid develops sickness symptoms, and the symptoms pass on to the other kids in the group. The kids develop an evil nature and lash out on the adults. Since the plot was fairy “basic” in nature and predictable when I read about it, shockingly the movie kept my attention from start to finish. The scenery here was brilliant for this type of movie. There is something about the snowing and cold that brings about a chilling atmosphere.
The acting is well done from all of them, even the child actors. About half of the child actors in horror movies I have seen can’t act at all. Thankfully they don’t speak too much in these but focus more on atmosphere and their attitude changes, which worked out brilliantly. I didn’t feel any of their reactions to their kid’s radical changes in personality was too over the top. Sometimes movies can have certain characters act like blithering idiots and the viewer is sitting there wondering “Why would anybody do that in that situation?” Thankfully, this movie at least made the situations believable.
The gore is not outrageous in the least but the scenes that required graphic content had shock value with no visible CGI. One of my pet peeves is to let CGI enhance practical effects but not the other way around. One of the two most graphic scenes was where one of the adults got the top of their scalp sliced off by a pitch fork, which I cringed at since it looked so real! The sheer shock value of killing kids off in horrific ways was frightening yet realistic in the same vein. The makers of this movie went to another level but it works!
I am sad I didn’t find out about this movie earlier! It was solid from start to finish with a surreal conclusion that could imply a sequel but I am happy with this movie. I highly recommend this movie. The winter setting is what sells this movie. I give it 5 out of 5 stars. “The Children” has a 6.0/10 on IMDB.