All the Kind Strangers

This is a surprisingly good made-for-TV thriller and it wins props for originality points. Stacey Keach plays a photojournalist, on the road for an assignment, which takes him into the woods of the rural south. A chance encounter with a young boy, who Keach sees carrying groceries down a desolate dirt road, leads him to the boy's home, nestled very deep in the backwoods. Once he is thoroughly "in the hollar," Keach's car breaks down, and he has no choice but to spend the night in the house of the young boy, whose three brothers and two sisters respond with eerie approval. What follows next is a strange and pretty cool story about a family of dangerous orphans, who entrap Keach and a woman in a perverse plan to reaquire surrogate parents. Despite his efforts to escape, Keach is unsuccesful, and he quickly discovers how clever and intelligent the kids' plan really is. (He also discovers that he isn't the first to be taken in by the group). Can Keach escape before it is too late? This is a story that, despite its perverse absurdity, could actually happen, I suppose, and the picture's scenarios are consistently interesting and unpredicatble. It is a good script and the cast all fit their roles well. Particularly good is John Savage (e.g. "The Deer Hunter"), who plays the group's oldest brother and de facto father figure. All in all, this is a pretty obscure, minor little film, but I'd recommend it to fans of 70's cinema, as well as anyone who enjoys a thriller involving kuntry folk. This one surprised me. (PS: In this same vein, I'd recommend the highly underrated "Hunter's Blood." It is OOP, but worth seeking).

This is just a made-for-TV movie, but it is creepy fun. It is also the rare scary movie that you can safely watch with your kids, without traumatizing them. In fact the movie carries quite a strong family values message. There is no explicit gory violence, so those who watch movies looking for that would be disappointed. The thrills here are mostly of the anticipatory kind. I think kids from about 8 to 14 will find much in this movie that they can identify with and that will make them uneasy about how they would react in the situation. There is very good work from Stacy Keach and John Savage and a young Robbie Benson is as good as he ever gets.

The story here is about backwoods children who lure unsuspecting adults to their house in the deep forest where they imprison them and force them to be their parents. Those who do not shape up are killed. It's an interesting idea and its played out pretty well. It has an effective off-kilter atmosphere, even if it never really gets very tense. The acting was decent enough with some good players like Stacey 'The Long Riders' Keach, Samantha 'The Brood' Eggar and a young John 'Salvador' Savage.

I do have a fondness for 70's TV movies to be fair and I did see this one when I was very young on UK daytime television sometime around 1980. I couldn't actually remember it though so it was interesting to see it again all these years later. I might be in the minority possibly but I also liked the title song. It was a very early 70's idea to include these types of breezy folk-pop songs in movies and I am always a bit of a sucker for this kind of thing and it does add a certain cozy charm here.

The film does get a bit interesting - it hits a couple of lulls but that doesn't last long then it picks right back up again. There is a creepiness to these kids -- not like Children of the Corn creepy but more of a subtle creepiness to them.

Fun little trivia: The $60 shoes in 1974 would cost about $316 in 2019 according to the inflation calculator.

5/10

"A family of seven children are living without parents is (sic) a swampy backwoods area all by themselves. Some of the children get the idea that it would be good to have parents or guardians to look over them so, they take in two strangers and make them the parents they so desperately want. The couple finds that getting away from these children will be more difficult than they imagined," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Creepy TV movie featuring game performances from: Stacy Keach (as Jimmy Wheeler), Samantha Eggar (as Caroline Henderson), John Savage (as Peter), and Robby Benson (as John). Mr. Keach sets the tone, with a perfectly balanced characterization of a strong and steady man, who must focus on sanely escaping from the trap he drove into. Keach is as good as the role gets. Ms. Eggar and Mr. Savage respond in kind. And, Mr. Benson wisely plays his character as endearingly dimwitted, which is exactly how to handle the scripted part; his singing of the title song "All the Kind Strangers" hits a sour note, however. The lower credited kids are good.

Burt Kennedy's direction and Clyde Ware's script set a good pace. Indeed, the events on-screen seem to add up to more than what actually happens; which is not much, actually. Mr. Ware writes quite tightly; for example: note how smoothly the biscuit argument between Savage and Tim Parkison (as Gilbert) fits into a later event. And, Savage's digressions about life off the farm fit, also. Moreover, Arlene Farber (as Martha) is directed to show some attraction to Keach; this, and the pick-up of young Parkison, helps multiply the underlying uneasiness.

****** All the Kind Strangers (11/12/74) Burt Kennedy ~ Stacy Keach, Samantha Eggar, John Savage, Robby Benson