Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again host a fundraiser for Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.
Today’s theme: Killer Kids
Imagine seeing the dusty, sun-bleached back shelves of your local video store again. Past the glossy new Hollywood releases, action films and perhaps even the door to the adult movies, you know where the center of the store is. Yes, the horror section. Go way deep, maybe even sit on the floor, and you’ll find this, ready to corrupt you.
Troma has released some weird stuff over the decades, but writer/director Mik Cribben (who also plays the shotgun-happy farmer Isaac Braun) managed to craft a piece of micro-budget greatness here. That takes a lot for me to say, as you may know my stance on Troma.
The movie kicks off with a dad getting his foot caught in a bear trap while out in the woods with his young son, Glenn. Does he tell the boy to run to town and get help? Of course not! He tells him to sit tight, wait for him to die and then eat his corpse. You know, standard father-son bonding.
Fast forward ten years. A family—John (Michael Robertson), Julia (Lori Romero) and their daughter Kara—drives into small-town New Jersey to visit their old pal Sheriff Ross Carr. Along the way, a local Bible salesman named Franklin Ludwig warns them about mysterious disappearances. Naturally, five seconds after they drive off, poor Franklin gets literally bisected with a scythe by a stealthy killer.
Local kids are disappearing into the forest, forming a feral, cannibalistic cult led by a now-grown Glenn, who now goes by Grendel. The kids are chanting ancient Anglo-Saxon verses from Beowulf. Obviously, New Jersey students score very high on standardized tests. Then, a psychic gets brought in to track down missing kids, only to be lured into the brush by a creepy little girl and have her throat slit with a razor so the children can feast, followed by a news reporter impaled on a spiked plank of wood.
By the time John realizes the Sheriff’s missing daughter, Amy, considers herself Grendel’s wife, things get bad.
When the local angry mob discovers the children’s forest compound—right after Grendel literally rips a woman’s heart out—all diplomacy goes out the window. John tries to reason with the mob, gets shot point-blank in the forehead with a shotgun by Isaac Braun for his troubles, and then… the adults open fire. What follows is an absolute slaughterhouse sequence where grown men and women execute feral children using shotguns, handguns, pitchforks and whatever farm tools happen to be lying around. By hook, by pitchfork, by shotgun, bye bye.
It’s relentless, utterly absurd, and deeply uncomfortable. When Lloyd Kaufman brought the trailer to the Cannes Film Festival to promote Tromeo and Juliet, nearly half the audience reportedly walked out in total disgust. No standing ovation for you!
And then little Kara crawls out from under her dad’s corpse, fully brainwashed, ready to murder a rabbit with a demonic growl.
This theme was very important because it has both evil kids and kids dying. Erica, I hope I made you proud.
You can watch this on Tubi.
