I’m a sucker for killer kids movies, even if they’re derivative…as long as they’re good. These two from 2012 give us the good and the bad.
CITADEL (2012)
This is a dark and sinister slow burn horror that owes a lot to killer kiddie classic The Brood.
Smart, effective style is apparent from the start. A guy leaves his pregnant wife upstairs in the hall of their apartment building while he goes to put stuff in the car, and if you pay attention, you’ll notice three hooded kids shuffling by in the reflection in the car door. It only gets worse when he gets back up to his wife…
The baby is born, the man becomes agoraphobic, and then the hooded kids start terrorizing his home.
His nurse does her best to help him get outside, leading to one of the scariest scenes in the film…in a tunnel.
Eventually, he teams up with a bullish priest who asks for his help in killing the kids, leading to a suspenseful and creepy journey through the killer kids’ lair.
COME OUT AND PLAY (2012)
A great title is wasted on Children of the Corn on an island. For starters, it begins with literally ten minutes of a man (Marnie’s musician man on Girls) asking where he can rent a boat.
During their trip to an exotic location, he and his pregnant wife take another trip to an exotic small island. All they see are children. They can’t find any adults. This goes on for 20 minutes.
I was horrified next when they see a little girl beating something around a corner because I thought it was going to be a stray dog the husband saw earlier. I was so relieved it was just an old man. The other kids then drag him, stab him, and stone him. So glad it wasn’t the dog.
Now that the couple knows what they are up against, the husband still leaves his pregnant wife alone while he goes exploring, which he’s been doing all along. And as the children continue to heinously kill any stray adults they find on the island, the couple finally decides to head back to their boat. Naturally, it’s too late.
Then the couple gets in a jeep and continuously avoids plowing down blockades of children, even crying for them to move out of the way.
Maybe it’s some sort of hetero parent mental illness, but I would plow down a row of psycho brats without hesitation…even if it was just an old man and not a dog I’d seen them murder.
The generic predictability continues from there, until the husband finally finds his balls in the last 5 minutes.
I’m sorry, but **SPOILER** they didn’t reshoot the scene in which the dead husband is floating in the water and BLINKS???
