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Three children
are born during a solar eclipse
and ten years later on their 10th birthday they
snap and begin emotionlessly killing various
people while the neighbour teen girl gets
suspicious.
Children in horror films have often proven to
be effective, both in classics like The Bad
Seed and Village of the Damned, and in modern,
more gory flicks like Pet Sematary and Mikey.
Sometimes, like with this movie it fails
tremendously due to a crappy script. The three
murderous kids are creepy but neither
screenwriter or director seems to know what to
do with them except to give them some weapons
and sending them on a murder spree, in hope to
deliver a cool horror film. That is clearly
not the way to go.
The premise is admittedly great even though
the explanation for the children's murderous
behaviour is goofy and pretty needless. But
there is no development in the plot, the three
children are presented as evil (or really more
obnoxious with a deadly twist) and keeps on
going that way throughout the movie, just
killing random people like three ten-year-old
Jasons or something. Too much time is spent
on them talking and planning their crimes. The
screen time makes them leads for the film,
but they are actually just personality-free
villains.
When it comes to the rest of the cast, we have
some good supporting players shamelessly
wasted in one-or-two-scenes characters - and
some of them doesn't even die, just make small,
pointless appearances. Characterization shines
with its absence. The only so-called heroes is
a neighbour boy and his big sister who spend
their only screen time suspecting/fearing the
murderous children.
With a title like this, you might not expect
a great or even good movie but it sure sounds
like it should have some kind of massacre,
with plenty of killings and gore. Think again.
OK there's a body count and some violence,
but the murders are surprisingly dull and
unimaginative (a gun, the most lame horror
film weapon, is used mostly), and the amount
of gore is little or nothing. The victims are
no surprises either, as all of them (viscous
schoolteacher, horny teens, etc.) have VICTIM
practically written on their foreheads.
This still has some very few suspenseful
scenes, even tough most of them are
occasionally ruined by bad acting and corny
music score. The film is pointless, too talky
and never gets anywhere. The ending comes out
of nowhere and the climatic twist is both
predictable and stupid. The climax could have
been good if it wasn't for the fact that a
20-something woman runs for her life from
three little brats. And the film shamelessly
rips off Psycho (both in music and the
peephole subplot). No, this wasn't much of a
birthday party.
A man is beaten with a bat, several people
are shot, a girl gets an arrow in the eye.
Not much gore here.
Badly fitting and synched score, a bad
combination of the music from Halloween and
Psycho, sometimes interrupted by guitar-
oriented porno music.
Dull and gore-free slasher-wannabe which
could have been great but falls flat, much
due to some bad acting, no characterization,
lousy score and unimaginative murders.
Re-rent The Bad Seed instead - or at least Mikey!
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