La casa degli zombi

Alicianne is hired to look after creepy 11-year-old Rosalie in her family's remote and gloomy house.It soon becomes clear that Rosalie has psychic powers and can make things move just by thinking about it-and she can also use those same powers to raise the dead,reanimating corpses in a nearby cemetery to take revenge after her mentally ill mother dies...A spooky and atmospheric opening scene gives way to a sluggish and wholly predictable zombie movie that has little new to add to an already over-crowded sub-genre.Technically,it's a mess and the acting is as dire as you'd expect,yet it does occasionally manage to display flashes of that creepiness that informed the opening scene."The Child" was released by exploitation king Harry Novak("Axe"),so fans of low-budget 70's horror should be pleased.This film has its share of flaws,but give it a chance.7 out of 10.

When I say the "bread and butter" of 70s drive-in horror, I mean movies like this one came and went, forgotten and/or never seen by the majority. But it was films like this that kept drive-ins and smaller movie houses in business. I am so

thankful for the age of the DVD. With the DVD era, companies such as Anchor

Bay, Something Weird Video (Image), Blue Underground, Shriek Show, and

many others have brought back lost cult classics (and not so cult classics) so that new generations can discover them, and the older generations can

rediscover them.

"The Child" has all the right ingredients for a b-horror movie. A little bit of homemade special effect gore, a soundtrack that gives you the creeps, zombies, and it set in the countryside. It may have it's slow parts, but the final 20 minutes or so deliver the goods in fine 70s b-grade fashion. You will be getting startled one minute, then laughing the next (unintentionally of course).

Despite an interesting premise, this film doesn't deliver. Attempted as a period piece(probably because someone was able to get a-hold of some vintage 1930's cars)set in the 30s/40s, this flick involves a young housekeeper hired by a farmer to care for his house and young daughter after his wife's death. The daughter, Rosalie, apparently shares a penchance for telekenesis with her departed mother, and uses her unusual mental powers to reanimate putrid corpses and use them to hack apart people she doesn't like. The naive young housekeeper gradually becomes aware of Rosalie's strange abilities and eventually runs afoul of the little girl's graveyard friends!

This film doesn't really succeed in the period detail department, primarily because the housekeeper spends nine-tenths of the movie in peasant dresses, not exactly the going fashion in 1939 or whenever this movie was supposed to be set. A quibble to be sure, but come on, the wardrobe people could have tried more. The flick does have some nice atmosphere, with dark woods, brooding sunsets, and lots of dark interior shots. And there is a half-baked attempt to establish a romance between the housekeeper and the farmer's adult son. Nothing in the way of camp or bad acting to recommend it, but probably not a bad way to kill ninety minutes

Rosilan (Rosalie Cole) is a girl with some problems-like her psychic abilities that allow her to talk to her dead mother, levitate objects, and raise the dead.

From producer Harry ("Axe","Rituals", "Hitch-Hike To Hell" and plenty of soft core flicks) Novak comes "The Child", an uneven but still watchable take on the Zombie movie. The movie itself takes a while to get going, and like many movies of this type, the acting is terrible (especially Rosalie Cole, whose character is too much of a brat to be interesting or threatening), and the electronic score by Rob Wallace is grating.

Still, when the final 20 minutes kick in, the movie kicks up. There's some nice moments, and the zombies themselves, while not Romero or Fulci levels, are still pretty creepy. The make up effects are also pretty good, especially considering the movie's budget.

"The Child" is an alright Bad Seed movie, only with the supernatural and the living dead instead of a killer kid. Don't go into it expecting much, and you might sort of enjoy it. It would make a nice double bill movie with "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things", I'll tell you that.

In spite of its ultra-low budget, clunky, overdubbed dialogue, and not-so convincing "acting", THE CHILD still manages to cultivate a cold atmosphere of constant dread. There are also some fairly gory set pieces.

As for the titular terror tot, Rosalie Nordon (Rosalie Cole), she's not a bad representative of the "killer kid" sub-genre. How can you go wrong with an eeevil girl who can create a murderous scarecrow AND raise the dead to form a mob of undead ghouls?

Add this to your horror roster...