Beware: Children at Play

BEWARE: CHILDREN AT PLAY opens with a father and his young son on a camping trip in the wilds of New Jersey. Tragically, their bonding is interrupted by cannibalism.

Ten years later, a family is visiting a friend whose daughter has vanished, unaware that a dozen children have recently gone missing. This is all happening near the very woods where a feral teenager resides. Where have all the children gone, and who is committing the blood-splashing murders in the area? Is a local religious cult involved?

Cheap, and clumsier than a three-legged hippopotamus, B:CAP plods along, trying to be terrifying, betrayed at every turn by static filming, robotic "acting", and dismal dialogue. The "grandpa's-playing-with-the-synthesizer-again" musical score doesn't help. At all.

As for the "creepy" kids, they're hysterical! It's as though they were gathered together moments before filming, told what their lines and actions were to be, then told to "act". The result is a glorious mess! Watching them kill someone, is like watching ants crawling on a discarded candy wrapper. Of course, these tots are no worse than their adult counterparts, who recite lines that appear foreign to them!

Alas, this could have been an uber-schlock masterwork, if not for the terminal dullness factor. This is basically a nap, interrupted by a few gore scenes.

Beware, indeed!...

OK, I love horror, I live horror, I write horror and make money at it too, and I'm easy to please . . . but, *Beware! Children at Play* is laughable and downright ridiculous. And, maybe, just maybe, that's what makes it so fun to watch, if anything else.

Talk about wooden acting, this has it twofold. But heck, would you buy a film titled *Beware! Children at Play*, by TROMA INC. nonetheless, and honestly trust to see Academy Award winning performances? I hope not. However, these are REALLY bad.

The main character has the voice of Terry `Hollywood Hulk' Hogan, as well as his acting capacity. And the whole plot premise is totally unbelievable. The police protocol, as it is portrayed in this movie, is bogus . . . not real life by any stretch of the imagination. The scene where the little girl is taken from her back yard and the way in which it is handled made me feel stupid just sitting there watching. So silly that it gives fiction a whole new meaning. Some of the dialogue is up to par, though. The ending isn't all that great as some of the reviewers would have you believe-typical TROMA gore-splatter effects. I think with a camcorder, friends, neighbors, and a few thousand dollars, I could make *Beware! Children at Play: Part 2*. Actually, I know I could.

I'm sure it goes without saying, that this film is good if you know what kind of B-movie trash is to be found here before you give 90 MIN. of your life to it, and were intentionally seeking this type of entertainment. In fact, I'm sure this would be killer kewl to watch if I was a fifth or sixth grader, or possibly still a junior high schooler. If I were fourteen again, I'd probably be watching it with friends on the weekend, playing PlayStation or XBOX, eating pizza, and having a great time. Actually at thirty I still do this, but that's beside the point.

Bottom line I guess is: *Beware! Children at Play* sucks, sucks, sucks . . . and I bought it on VHS.

I had never seen a Troma film before this. I had no idea what to expect. My best friend recommended it, so the two of us and another friend rented it one night and watched it. The results were as follows: My best friend and I laughed the entire time. My other friend became violent. Don't worry, he didn't hurt anyone. The bottom line is, this is NOT a horror movie! The creators may have attempted to make a horror movie, but what they made was a hilarious comedy! The actors in this movie are absolutely horrible! Click on any of their bios, very few of them have been in over three or four movies! THERE'S A REASON FOR THIS!!!!!!! But you know what? They're all trying really hard to do a good job, and I'm certain that they thought that they were making Hollywood gold. Now let's look at other aspects of production. I have a feeling that this is what Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom were looking for when they found "Springtime for Hitler" in "The Producers"! There is no aspect of this movie that is particularly good, which makes everything GREAT! Especially if you are a theatre student, like me. I refer to such cinematic techniques as introducing a character (A psychic medium in this instance) and NEVER closing up on her face! I refer to a man who is getting a crowd incensed, but they never respond with more than a dull "EERRRRR". I refer to a monologue by a Bible salesman (And won't most people in a religious community ALREADY own a Bible?) where in the middle of the monologue the shot changes to a Speed Limit sign for no apparent reason. Then there's the end of the film. I won't give it away, but you have GOT to stomach this movie to see the ending! It's worth it! Trust me!!!!!!

This movie is a total bait and switch. I went into it having some positive expectations, namely, that I'd see a lot of grade school kids murdering their parents in a series of bloodsoaked rituals. However, this kind of stuff never really happens and it isn't until the FINAL 90-SECONDS that the director pulls out the stops, providing us with a hilariously bad "massacre" scene that had my brother and I rolling. The rest of this movie, however, is entirely forgettable and I can't recommend it. That final 90-seconds is awesome, yes, but you have to sit through a lot of boring crap and listen to a lot of bad writing to get there. If you just have to see the funny clip at the end where the kids all get killed, I'd search the web versus wasting a rental slot. Trust me, this movie sucks. A lot. ---|--- Reviews by Flak Magnet

When I was still in high school, my friend called me up and told me to rent this movie. I believe his exact words were, "You will want to kill yourself this movie is so bad... but the last five minutes make up for the suckiness of the entire movie up to that point." And he was right.

The Movie is TERRIBLE. You know those kinds of movies that are so bad that they're good, in a funny kind of way? Well, this one is like that, except it's so bad that it passes right by funny and is almost impossible to get through.

But then there's the last five minutes. I've never been so happy to see a lot of people die, and I was laughing my ass off the entire time. It should be noted, however, that I had been drinking as a way of coping with the movie thus far, and therefore, it is possible that my impressions of the ending were slightly skewed. But that did not stop me from recommending the movie to all my friends, if only to make them sit through what I had to sit through.

If you liked "In the woods" or the 1st version of "The hitchhiker's guide" then you should have a ball with this one. However, seeing as how I've never met anyone who actually DID like the 1st version of "the hitchhiker's guide"...