Limbo

This low-budget horror film from Argentina got a beautiful heart & quite an interesting idea at the core of it which was, in my opinion, so promising that it even could be a decent follow up for the modern classic Let the Right One In (2008)! But unfortunately it suffers for its inconsistent pacing, tone and amateurish production values. It lacks on cinematic approach, at times even felt like a weekly TV movie. Though personally I'm very much fond of low budget miracles but sadly to say this is one of those cases where I think the story really could have been benefited from a better budget, director and a cleverly written tighter script. I'm not saying that it deserves a big budget American or European remake but its conceptual intention to breaking down the conventional vampire mythology & does something else as well as at the same time dealing with so many great ideas like what it means to be young forever, child abuse, coming of age issues (and of course the overall set up) were intriguing enough to made me think that how much awesome it would be if the whole thing or at least the concept was to get treated by Guillermo Del Toro (The Devil's Backbone) or J.A. Bayona (The Orphanage).

Despite its negative aspects I still loved it & like to recommend it here. It's a flawed but beautiful film.

The basic premise of this film is that a reporter is invited to write a report on a remote home for sick children. The sickness that these children have causes them to act older than they appear, be nocturnal, be photosensitive, have fangs, etc. You can see where this is going.

It is revealed pretty early on that they are vampires who were turned when they were children. Therefore I do nor class that as a spoiler or a twist. The film follows the reporter as she tries to get her head around this. While she does this she is also dealing with the fact that one of the boys knew her when she was a child as is repeatedly making moves on her. Which obviously makes her uncomfortable. (Again... revealed so early that I do not class this as a spoiler)

While she is dealing with that, there is also a group of men lurking in the woods and whittling the children's numbers down over time. So the true mystery of the film is whether the reporter will side with the vampire children or the ones trying to put an end to them.

It is certainly an interesting film. It would probably struggle to hold the interest of a lot of people these days who expect action every five seconds. This film certainly doesn't have that. It does have a very weird atmosphere and achieves a reasonable level of creepiness. It is weird at times, but never so weird that I was left thinking it was trying to be artsy.

It is a fairly niche film that I can see a lot of people not enjoying. But if slightly weird, creepy vampire films are your thing then this may just be for you.

This is by far the worst movie I have ever seen. The only reason I watched to the end was to see the reporter help stop the vampires. Instead she ends up laughing while they slaughter the humans and play soccer with a head. I swore she was going to become intimate with the little blond vampire. As I said, this was the worst movie ever, I'd rather have watched Plan 9 from Outer Space or Manos, hands of fate instead.

Children Of The Night: An Argentinian Vampire film. A journalist who is researching a story about missing children is lured to a sanatorium in a remote area. There she finds a refuge for Vampire children, one of twelve in Argentina alone. These children were turned by Vampires and then left to fend for themselves

This is very much an adult Horror film. The children can levitate and swoop down on victims, tending to hunt in packs. When faced with Vampire hunters no mercy is shown by either side Stakes driven into the fledglings who retaliate by playing ball with the heads of slain hunters and skipping with their entrails.

On the lighter side there is a cat who turns into a bat and one of the children sleep levitates.

Not for the faint-hearted or squeamish. 7/10

This one averages out as pretty mediocre, which is to say that it has really good points, really bad points, and some meh. Probably the only way to review it fairly is to break down three categories: the idea, the technical aspects, and the acting.

IDEA. I thought this aspect was pretty good, even very good. On top of the 'kiddie vampires' premise, the movie deals with hemophilia (in women), paedophilia of different kinds -- and not how you always expect -- and domestic violence, in ways that seemed to me to be nuanced and interesting. Vampires are a common vehicle for portraying sexuality, and the sexuality of children is fraught. The relationships were also quirky, in the beginning. Things went south a bit when a subplot involving Bram Stoker and Dracula came in -- yeah, yeah, big surprise there -- but still the ideas overall were good.

PRODUCTION / TECHNICAL. Mixed but OK, given the very low budget. They made an effort. The setting in the country, the beautiful big house, provincial locations all were good. Camera work was decent, as were most of the fight scenes and gore effects. Cheaper digital cam gives a flat, too-sharp image sometimes and this was an issue for me, especially in the opening. Some of the shot compositions were really nice: I liked when the children were floating messages folded as little paper boats down the stream.

ACTING. Ya know, we really don't have to put up with school-play-bad child acting. I can name a number of smaller movies -- From Time to Time (dir. Julian Fellowes), Comédie de l'innocence (dir. Raoul Ruiz), Barbe bleue (dir. Catherine Breillat) , Ricky (dir. François Ozon) -- that have super child performances. This one was painfully variable and talent did not correspond to screen time. I know it's not nice to say this, but it's also not nice to have to sit through a film where one of the main characters is outperformed by his cat. Sabrina Ramos, who plays the reporter, is good; Ana María Giunta is OK. The rest of the adults are amateur-to-OK.

Overall, 4/10. Potentially interesting if you like the genre but not up to mass market.