The Children (2008)

When you make a horror movie, the thing that usually helps make it so scary is having characters that you can relate to or sympathize with. The Children apparently didn't get the memo.

A family Christmas holiday gone wrong as a series of unfortunate incidents lead to an escalating series of tragic events that may or may not have been perpetrated by the young children.

The premise is interesting, but not entirely original. What would happen if your children suddenly took ill and decided that your time on Earth was at their discretion? The film reminded me a little of Zombies (a.k.a Wicked Little Things) albeit a daylight version. There are certainly some disturbing and genuinely creepy moments, but on the whole the parents reactions to the occurring events got more and more annoying to the point where I just wished they would hurry up and be killed. There is also something to be said about making children appear creepy, this film uses make-up and the obvious director's cue of "Make a scary face".

All is not entirely lost, the film has some great cinematography and the eerie music helps the little hair stand on end as required. The film is quite graphically violent too so if you are a bit squeamish you may find yourself covering your eyes at times.

It is a shame that the film makes no attempt to explain the continuing decline in mental state of its lead characters, or the useless actions and reactions of the adults, even the teenage daughter was a little more intelligent than them and that really is saying something! All I can hope is that if this series of events occurs to me, that I act far more mature and intelligently than the adults in this film.