George Pavlou is a peculiar filmmaker. He only made three movies. His debut - "Underworld" aka "Transmutations" (1985) - was somewhat interesting, as it was based on a Clive Barker short story. His second film is a true guilty pleasure amongst many horror fans and yet another adaptation of a Clive Barker story, the creature feature "Rawhead Rex" (1986). To put it bluntly, "Little Devils: The Birth" (1993) is a worse movie than the aforementioned two titles and was accomplished on a much smaller budget, which shows. But somehow Pavlou's third effort didn't turn out a complete failure as well. It's along the (budgetary) lines of independent horror pulp like, let's say, Michael Krueger's "Mindkiller" (1987) and Frank Henenlotter's "Brain Damage" (1988). Though Pavlou's film is mixed with a pretty dumb form of comedy and is more along the vein of movies like Tina Hirsch's "Munchies" (1987) and John Carl Buechler's "Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College" (1991).
A wacky scientist discovers some puddle of red mud from hell in some tomb on some graveyard. Nevermind what it is exactly or how it got there in the first place. Fact is, the dude collects samples of the demon mud, takes it home to his apartment, becomes under the influence of it and starts sculpting little red demonic critters. Soon they run amok, armed with miniature flamethrowers, machine guns or arrow projectiles; first in the building, then in the neighbourhood. The first half of this heap of low budget nonsense is pretty horrible. The attempts at comedy in the screenplay don't work at all and the acting is below par. Not to mention that the whole thing looks cheaply shot, obviously. But still you can sense the filmmakers tried to make this peculiar mix of elements work and the characters that are introduced are rather likable as opposed to annoying. Nevermind that the script features plot holes the size of Tokyo and doesn't bother to explain anything.
I expected this flick to be a 3/10 affair all the way through, but the third act picks up on silly miniature demonoid fun. There's about seven of those little red rubber animatronic devils running around, and they all get melted or blown up in one way or another. And the climax features a humanoid demon with even more silly make-up effects. In the end, you've been watching a nonsensical horror comedy, a full-blooded B-movie for sure. By far not a good film, of course, but it manages to have a certain charm at some moments. If you dig Charles Band's more recent 'killer dolls' movies or if you're about 8 years old, you'll probably have some fun with "Little Devils: The Birth".
