The Children

Dir: Tom Shankland

2008

***

Tom Shankland’s 2008 Christmas horror The Children is probably the most middle class horror film I have ever seen. It doesn’t take much to convince audiences that Sharks, Spiders, Zombies and axe-wielding axe murderers etc are things to be frightened of, but it is only the most self-loving, self-preoccupied of the cappuccino generation that could be scared of children in this way. Don’t get me wrong, impending fatherhood scares the living poop out of me and some of my friends kids are a bit odd, but children aren’t horror movie scary. Until now anyway. Sure children have a long history in horror films, from The Midwich Cuckoos to The Omen, kids have been creepy and the kid in Pet Cemetery gave me nightmares for a week – but they weren’t normal kids - The Midwich Cuckoos were aliens; Damien in the omen was the son of the devil and the Pet Cemetery kid was a zombie. The Children in Children are just normal kids who, for whatever reason, turn bad and kill. Our protagonist in the story is Casey, a rebellious teenage girl, who is travelling with her mother Elaine, her stepfather Jonah, and her two younger half-siblings, Miranda and Paulie, to spend the New Year holiday at the secluded home of Elaine's sister, Chloe. Chloe, her husband Robbie, and their two young children, Nicky and Leah, welcome their visitors, everyone is full of enthusiasm and Christmas cheer apart from Casey who clearly doesn’t want to be there. Shortly after arriving, Paulie steps near some bushes and begins vomiting, which the adults believe is due to travel sickness or just some random bug as is usual for kids to catch. As the night progresses, Nicky and Leah also begin to show symptoms of an illness. Leah's vomit is shown magnified, where strange bacteria seems to be proliferating exponentially but this is never explained. The family’s cat clearly suspects an evil presence – as pets do in horror films – and we watch the kids playing with some of their play clearly foreshadowing violence. By the next day, all of the children have become seemingly pale and infected but the adults pretty much ignore it while they drink cheap wine. The kids are clearly mollycoddled but also largely ignored most of the time. Casey has made contact with her friend who is to come pick her up at 2 p.m. The children and the two fathers go outside to play in the snow, and we see one of the children has the cat’s collar in the play tent dripping with blood. There is suddenly a feeling of impending doom and the film retains a remarkable level of intensity from here on. Miranda is whining because she feels poorly and she clearly doesn’t like or trust the other children. She appears to be fighting something that the others aren’t. Paulie shoves a sled downhill that hits Chloe and Jonah is angry enough to spank him. Casey then joins Robbie in the greenhouse to smoke weed with him. There is awkward flirtation between them it seems and when he sees her tattoo she explains that it is a fetus, the umbilical cord connected to her bellybutton, and it represents "the abortion that got away". Casey’s resentment and inability to fit in with the rest of the family now makes sense. At dinner, Chloe mentions the tattoo and Elaine becomes upset. Just as she does, Miranda suddenly has a violent burst, and scratches Chloe in the face and ruins the food on the table. While Jonah tries to comfort Miranda upstairs, Robbie takes the rest of the children outside to play in the snow. As Robbie is sledding downhill, Nicky places a garden rake in the sled's path, which slices open Robbie's head on impact. The children scream, drawing the attention of Casey, Jonah, Elaine, and Chloe, as Robbie bleeds out in the snow. Elaine phones an ambulance, but Robbie quickly dies from his injuries. Paulie attacks Jonah with a knife, slicing his arm, then runs off before luring Elaine to a climbing frame and breaking her leg. Casey rescues her and they seek refuge in the greenhouse which is attacked by the kids with rocks, the resulting glass shards raining down dangerously upon them. Paulie crawls inside and attempts to stab them but is fended off by Casey who convinces Elaine something is wrong with the kids. Meanwhile, Chloe finds Robbie’s body has been dragged into the children’s play tent where it has been mutilated, a baby doll shoved within his cut-open stomach; she is then attacked by Leah and is saved by Casey. Chloe panics, blaming Casey for what is happening before fleeing into the house while Casey returns to the greenhouse and saves Elaine who in turn saves Casey by shoving off an attacking Paulie, who falls backward onto a protruding shard of glass, killing him. Jonah finds Paulie dead and attempts to hide him from Chloe. The group enter the house where Chloe accuses Casey and Elaine of going insane when Casey says Elaine killed Paulie only in order to save her. Jonah and Chloe abandon them in anger and leave to find Chloe’s missing kids. Casey starts barricading the house and Jonah and Chloe are separated in the woods, where Chloe is soon attacked by her kids and stabbed in the eye with a crayon, killing her. Casey finds Miranda beating the dead cat in the bedroom and attacks her; Jonah is tricked by Miranda into believing that Casey attacked them, so he slams Casey into a wall and hits her in the head with a toy, locking Casey in the bedroom before dragging Elaine back to the couch and telling her she deserved it, then going to another room calling for Miranda. Miranda removes the splint Casey had put on Elaine's broken leg, before running to Jonah. In the house, as Elaine attempts to drag herself upstairs to free Casey, Leah and Nicky seemingly enter through the cat flap. Elaine is at the bedroom where Casey is locked in as the children come up the stairs, Nicky holding his mother's earring that he pulled free from her ear. Elaine is attacked by Leah and Nicky but is unable to hurt them due to them being just kids, so relents to them as they pounce upon her with a knife. Casey, fearing for her mother, breaks a panel of the bedroom door and kills Nicky, saving Elaine while Leah flees into the woods. Casey and Elaine flee the house and down the road find Jonah dead by Chloe's crashed car, Miranda mysteriously absent. As Casey investigates Jonah's body, Miranda suddenly attacks her. Elaine rams her with the car, killing Miranda and saving Casey. As they compose themselves, they suddenly notice various infected kids, including Leah, emerge from the woods all around. As Elaine had just noticed Casey vomiting in the woods, she's unsure whether to let Casey back in the car. Ultimately, as the children encroach upon them, she's unable to leave Casey behind and they drive off. As Elaine panics, Casey's demeanor changes and starts staring into space like the infected children did and the film ends leaving the audience wondering if the now wry smiling Casey has too become infected. There may well be a mysterious infection at the heart of the story but essentially the film makers are playing with the taboo of what children are actually capable of. It picks at our primal fears and works as a contemporary fairy tale of sorts. There is a lot more to the film than first meets the eye, the acting is strong and the editing is fantastic. It is full of suspense, intrigue and terror and it asks that most taboo question of all ‘Could you kill a child?’. If this film was made in the 1970s it would be a classic by now.