Director Mark Millicent’s “A Date with an Angel” feels almost like a condensed episode of “The Twilight Zone” like “The Hitch-hiker ” or “Time Enough, At Least” where the audience gets a word of warning in the end and really is asked to heed the advice. The short film itself is a very compelling and often spooky short about a young man on the path to destruction and the mysterious little girl trying to keep him from becoming yet another lost individual.
It seems like there’s a Hollywood rule that every time there’s the impetus of a trend of films at the box office, there eventually has to be a satirical film made about it. After countless teen oriented garbage, 2001 saw the release of the hysterical “Not Another Teen Movie.” Granted, the movie on its own is hilarious if you were very familiar with the teen junk of the late nineties and early aughts, but “She’s All That” already accomplished such a feat of mocking this trend. The inexplicable box office hit of 1999 is perhaps one of the stupidest and most inane romantic dramas ever made.
From what I’ve read, Dimension has the right to Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser” property and wants to remake the film series. But the ever troubled production has reached the point where the rights have run out. To keep the rights, Dimension basically rushed out a cheap shoddy sequel to the original “Hellraiser” series. This is a movie so horribly made and poorly constructed that the iconic Doug Bradley opted out of his star making role as the horrific Pinhead, due to his salary being chopped down from the low budget film. In his place is Stephan Smith Collins a poor bastard who has to live up to Bradley’s gravitas as Pinhead in every conceivable way and wages a losing battle from the very beginning.
2012 saw the remake of “Who Can Kill a Child?” hit many movie festivals under the new title “Come Out and Play.” And while that movie has been, from what I’ve seen, met with mixed reviews on a mostly negative arena (one worst of 2012 list included the remake in its worst ten), there’s no denying that “Who Can Kill a Child?” will never actually be replaced.
When Tom and Evelyn seek to vacation in Spain, even in spite of reports of adult bodies washing ashore mutilated beyond repair, they go to a local tourist island for food, dance, and laughs only to discover the island has been taken over by children. And these almost infinite groups of prepubescent terrors are intent on viciously murdering anyone and everyone who isn’t a child. Can Tom and Evelyn survive long enough to make it off the island and back to shore to warn civilization?
While folks often cite “Village of the Damned” and or “Children of the Corn” as downright horrifying examples of children run amok and transformed in to monsters of terror, there’s often the omission of the 1976 Spanish horror film “Who Can Kill a Child?” An often shocking and absolutely disturbing film, director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s has been very misunderstood and gone through a lot of phases during its life. It’s been banned in certain countries and has been re-titled almost a dozen times.
It goes by its original moniker “¿Quién puede matar a un niño?” as well as “Island of the Damned,” “The Hex Massacre,” “Death is Child’s Play,” “Island of Death,” “The Killer’s Playground,” “Trapped,” and “Would You Kill a Child?” Not to mention it’s been edited down from its original form splicing out many of the murders in the film that revolve around children. In 2007, Dark Sky Films released a special edition unrated DVD of the film in its uncut glory, positing the film as something of an inexplicable turning of the tide in regards to man against nature, while Hitchcock’s “The Birds” showed what would happen if nature’s inexplicably turned man into its number one enemy.
“Who Can Kill a Child?” shows what would happen if children suddenly decided that they simply have had enough of the adult population and became murderous, merciless monsters. The dilemma posed by the film is could you really kill a child? More on point, if your sweet seven year old daughter suddenly started attacking you with a machete intent on murdering you and bathing in your blood, could you murder her in self defense? “Who Can Kill a Child?” is an unnerving and calculated horror film that shows what happens when children just flip a switch and decide that friend or foe, they’re massacring every adult in the general vicinity. In one very horrifying instance, a mother screams at her son and daughter to go outside and even smacks them on the behind to get them moving.
The brother and sister are greeted by the swarm of psychotic ankle biters who approach the siblings, softly whispering in their ears in an almost inaudible string of words. Suddenly the looks of innocence and smiles on the siblings inexplicably transform in to sheer gleams of blood lust. When their mother greets them outside demanding they get to work her offspring are unresponsive, and behind her groups of children trickle down from the rocks preparing to unleash ungodly acts of pain on her.
Director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador doesn’t really display much exposition behind the source of this evil; he just shows the audience that this turn of events was inevitable with footage of children being massacred during various wars, and young kids starving to death in villages. All of whom are casualties of the violent conflicts. When Tom and his pregnant wife Evelyn arrive at the local island prepared to relax during their vacation, they’re disturbed to discover that all of the adults on the island are nowhere to be found, and what civilization there are consists of children that run around seemingly innocent and committed to their own secret doings in the darkness.
When Tom and Evelyn discover that the children have not only slaughtered every adult on the island, but have made a game out of mutilating an old man in the village square, the fight for their lives become ever more harrowing, as the angelic monsters will stop at nothing to kill the duo. Narciso Ibáñez Serrador is never above tugging at the heart strings of audiences giving them some material to cringe at. Save for the ghastly prologue, there’s a moment where a male survivor is lured to his death by his bawling daughter who begs for her dad to bring her home after she’s injured herself, only for him to meet immediate death. And in one of the most creative death scenes I’ve ever witnessed in a horror film, wife Evelyn meets her fate in a manner you’ll never see coming.
“Who Can Kill a Child?” is a grueling and very harrowing horror masterpiece with a thick sense of urgency and an atmosphere that signals this sudden transformation is definitely in the favor of the cherubic moppets with the inability to show quarter toward their adult counterparts. It’s a gem that vastly outweighs “Village of the Damned” as an evil children feature.
Being a pure comic book geek I was most surprised to discover that not only did The Incredible Hulk steal one of the biggest movies of 2012, “The Avengers,” but that the man who played him, Mark Ruffalo, has been the best Bruce Banner so far. The Hulk has been in two movies prior to “The Avengers,” and the limited screen time of The Hulk has warranted renewed interest in the character.
The Hulk is now going to have yet another new movie series in the work and is set to debut on television once again as Hollywood misses the point. Once again. The Hulk is excellent. In limited doses. In either case, while the first two cinematic efforts to give the Hulk a series have failed, I do have to admit one thing about the prior films.
The crown jewel of the Film Craft Series is of course the volume entitled “Directing.” While every aspect of filmmaking takes work, time, and dedication, directing is essentially the most difficult aspect of making a film. Whenever a movie fails or succeeds the filmmaker is blamed. And whenever an acclaimed actor decides they want to direct it not only becomes a big deal, but it makes it impossible for other directors to step up and achieve acclaim. Which is not to say actors can’t direct, as the book “Film Craft” interviews many noted and incredible directors, all of whom have their own experiences in the field.
As with the previous books in the series, “Directing” is about the hard work and utter pressure it takes to be a director. Lensing a project and achieving some sense of success or artistic satisfaction is tough, and often times it requires massive sacrifice and stress for an artist to express themselves on film. Author Mike Goodridge is able to garner some truly excellent insight in to the directorial process from some very big name auteur. Engrossing and detailed, “Directing” lends readers an intelligent exploration in to movie making that all movie buffs will relish and aspiring filmmakers will treasure.
For movie fans looking for some dramatic features, Mill Creek is more than happy to provide an eight film boxed set of some varied dramas that will surely attract any audience in the mood for soapy, entertaining, or who just want to kill some time. The “Star Studded Dramas” are worthy of the watches, if only for their varying degrees of tone since neither title is very similar to the other.
2000’s Billy Bob Thorton directed “All the Pretty Horses” finds Matt Damon as a cowboy who falls in love with the local rancher’s daughter, who so happens to be Penelope Cruz. Filled with sudsy direction and a great cast, this is one of Matt Damon’s most unique films. 2004’s “A Love Song for Bobby Long” stars an interesting cast including John Travolta as an alcoholic and Scarlett Johannson as the woman who befriends him in the somewhat bleak drama about characters colliding in the middle of tragedy and soon they begin to learn about one another in ways they never imagined.