Todos Muito Estranhos

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).

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.

All the Kind Strangers is basically just your average made for TV seventies movie - in that it features an interesting base plot, and lets that fill the entire runtime without even attempting to do anything else with it. The result is adequate; though underwhelming. The film begins with a man driving through the woods alone. He encounters a young boy and offers to give him a lift home. Upon arriving at the boy's home, the man finds it inhabited by children; and because his car won't start, he decides to stay there for the night. However, it turns out that the kids have broken his car to make him stay with them as they want him to be their father. The film only runs for about seventy five minutes and doesn't provide a great deal of surprises along the way. Once the plot is laid out, we are left only with the task of getting to the end. The film does feature a good leading performance from Stacy Keach, who gets into his character well and receives good feedback from the likes of Samantha Eggar and John Savage. It all boils down to a rather strange, yet disappointing ending. Overall, this is a long way from being great; but it passes the time at least and I'd say it's just about worth a look.

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 couple traveling through a backwoods area are held by a a group of orphans who want them to become their parents.

Unfortunately, the kids have a habit of killing adults who refuse that particular honor.

TV movie from the 70s when harder, more adult film work was possible.

Stacy Keach at the height of his coke habit.

It's a pretty good movie.

TV doesn't make good anything any more so cherish this.

It's very well made and directed. The 70s were a good time for TV movies