Scary movies! The Children

Remember a couple of weeks back when I was talking about creepy horror movie kids? Well, here is an entire nest of the little spooksters. The Children is an English horror film from 2008, and it's an effective little movie. The plot goes like this. Two sisters and their families get together for the holidays in an isolated house in a magical, snow drifted, fairy tale forest. Between them, they have four small kids and a teenaged daughter. There is much talk of homeschooling, domesticity and the difficulty of child rearing. The teenager is an English Avril Lavigne look-alike with a secret tattoo who gets high with her rebel uncle. Sleds, gifts and garlands abound.

Then the youngest kid starts to projectile vomit. There's some discussion of viruses and Chinese herbal medicine. Babies start getting bitey, and everything goes to hell. Yep, killer kids for Christmas, doesn't it just figure? Last year, it was the stomach flu. This year, it's infectious murderous rampage fever.

This movie is super creepy, seriously. I don't have kids, but most of us have that parental instinct to protect small children from danger. What if the children ARE the danger? When does the instinct for self-preservation trump the need to protect the kids? The director usually pulls up just short of outright violence, but the editing is gorgeous, building tension beautifully. Plus, there are lovely shots of blood soaking the pure white snow.

You'll never look at that squinty eyed kid in the cart in Wal-Mart the same way again.