Other movies in this series:
Village of the Damned

Rish's Reviews
A group of children, hyper-intelligent and without emotion, are all born in different places around the world. These children have oft-glowing eyes, telepathy, and mind-control powers, striking fascination and fear into their respective governments. Scientists unite the children in London to study them and watch how they interact, but the children escape, hiding in an abandoned church. The scientists and the military argue about how to go about recapturing and controlling these children . . . but they have other plans.
I have a friend who (also) wants to be a writer. He has submitted to several writing contests, but feels that they were always after what he calls "Hard Science Fiction," rather than what he writes, and what I usually prefer to read. Hard Science Fiction deals in the scientifically probable, the mathmatically correct, and the technologically feasable.
And to me, it's usually duller than the Home Shopping Channel.
Village of the Damned, though quite literate and based on a well-regarded novel, was still entertainingly soft-level Science Fiction/Horror. Its 1963 sequel, Children of the Damned, is markedly harder. And I enjoyed it quite a bit less.
Children is a duller film than the original, and less satisfying. There were lofty Ideas (with a capital I) being bandied about here. And while Ideas are good, and often important in dramatic fiction, they're often quite dull, and almost never scary.
Something that's frightening about these children (or should I call them Children?) is that they never speak. I've always found silent, still children unnatural and disturbing. Differing attitudes are held as to what to do with the Children. Much of the film is spent arguing for and against each solution. This story is much more political, but interesting in its depth and the questions it brings up. Unfortunately, it's even less a horror film than the original was, though we've still got alien children--there, I said it--forcing adults to kill themselves.
Only one Child talks. It's the Chinese one, oddly enough. Paul, the Child from England, is a truly frightening-looking boy. Not ugly, per se, but unusual and hate-able. Tyranist, I imagine, was just like Paul when he was a boy.
The film is very dry, very intellectual. I can't really see kids sitting still for this. But I'm not my father--not every film has to be appropriate for children. The film is also VERY British (with snide English wit and slow pacing), and to hear an "American" character speaking it is amusing.
It is the ending that most surprised me. We are shown a new side to the Children, and two new questions are asked. Then suddenly, the film is over. It's incredibly frustrating because we've just been presented with this new mystery, and how can we be satisfied with an ending that's neither happy nor unhappy, that never tells us what we need to know?
I actually know of people who prefer the sequel to the original, and though I could never-- ever, not in a million, zillion years--agree with them, I sort of see why that is. Still, I imagine those are the kind of people who prefer seeing "Thrillers" rather than horror films.
Line To Remember: "They're not kids. Have you ever seen them laugh, run, play? No, by God, but you've seen them kill. Violently and hideously."
Posted: August 28, 2006

Total Skulls: 6

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?