Blessed Are the Children

After a disastrous breakup with her fiancee, a young woman trying to move on with her life finds her dating life and other personnel problems are interrupted by learning she's pregnant, and after having an abortion finds her and her friends followed by religious protestors hoping to purify their souls.

This was a pretty underwhelming if still enjoyable effort. Among the film's biggest issues is the low-budget nature that creeps up throughout here in the form of obvious indie mistakes. That there's plenty of scenes here focusing on glaring and obvious technical mistakes entered mostly around a conversation in the ice-cream parlor that's hilariously overdubbed with barely anything matching up to their lip=movements or reactions which becomes distracting as it carries on. Some of the other scenes, from the lighting on the various killer lurking in the background which is completely out-of-touch to the flimsy props used for the gore scenes, look completely fake and obvious. As well, there's a decidedly noticeable and obvious misstep with film in how it treats the faceless killers. They have no real motive or backstory here to garget this group specifically since there's nothing about how they fall in line with this rationale of thinking if the entire purpose is o help ease the burden of perceived sinners. Not only that, but there's also no excuse for them borrowing tactics and tricks from numerous other films in the past trying to make it seem like homages instead of logical tactics employed for this fictional war they're enacting and their general sloppiness committing these crimes with no one noticing anything or that they've gone missing is all highly unlikely. The last flaw here is the terrible and off-putting pace that drags this out way too long for its good. That manages to come about through several matters, such as overlong conversations and even some of the stalking scenes on display to go overboard with having too much going on. Other scenes come off as unnecessary and come off as even more obvious padding to stretch it out. These are what hold this one down while there are some rather enjoyable elements here which is pretty easy to figure out. The film manages to get its best work out of the traditional stalking done by the killers, wearing some chilling infant-like masks that have quite an impression beyond their propensity to sneak out of the shadows with their victims unknowing. The main stalking setpiece comes about in the final half where a series of scenes intertwined throughout the girls' house manages to offer up both kinds of slasher fun where there's both unaware ambushes and prolonged stalking and chasing which gets fun and chilling in equal measures. Armed alongside the bloody kills, it has enough to like here to lift this one up somewhat over the negatives.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

This was a pretty enjoyable little film with characters that I found myself enjoying far more than I expected to initially. The lower budget actually gave the film a more personal feel at times which worked in its favor, I think. Overall, it is worth a rent if you are into independent or low-budget slashers. Fun characters, interesting kills, and at times, a killer that was actually pretty creepy. It also avoided being too overtly political in dealing with the topic of abortion. That was a nice change and one I didn't expect when I started watching.

Abortion is a pretty hot button issue these days and it's something a lot of people don't want to discuss, so I have to give major props to writer/director Chris Moore for ripping off the Band-Aid and having the guts to tackle it in such a frank way in Blessed Are the Children.

Moore eases us into his disturbing yarn in such an almost calming, every day way that it makes the horrors that unfold later all the more terrifying. We meet Traci, a 20-something who can't seem to get a break. Her drunken ex-fiancé is terrorizing her, her mother is a bit of a bitch who still seems upset that she broke off the wedding, she's madly in love with a sexy med student who doesn't seem interested in anything more than a weekly booty call, and she still doesn't seem sure of what she wants out of life. As if that weren't enough problems for an entire movie, she finds out that she's pregnant and makes the decision to have an abortion.

When she leaves the clinic, she's stalked by masked protesters who show up to the house she shares with best friends, Erin and Mandy, and start leaving strange crying baby dolls outside at all hours of the night, calling her and her friends (in scenes that call to mind the original Black Christmas in their horrifying schizo freakiness), and, ultimately, moving into their attic. Needless to say, things start getting super creepy.

Going in with an open mind, all I asked for was a fun diversion and what I got with Blessed Are the Children was an incredibly memorable and unpredictable scare-fest. I'm sure the basic concept will turn some people off right when they hear the word "abortion", but to tell you the truth, the film never really takes a side on the issue and it's free from the usual preachy junk you'd see in a less clever film.

The best thing about the film are the characters. The dialogue and interplay between the three leads is realistic, sassy, and so much fun that I could have gladly continued watching them go about their day to day lives with no horror involved at all. As Traci, Kaley Ball hits just the right notes of sarcasm and sadness. She's able to say so much with just one look. It's wonderfully subtle work. As Traci's loyal best friends, Erin and Mandy, actresses Arian Thigpen and Keni Bounds offer a ton of support. Thigpen is a charming hoot as Erin, the 26 year old virgin, and gets a ton of mileage out of her character's super awkward persona. As Mandy, Bounds is warm and motherly with a whole lot of delightful sass. It's also interesting to note that Mandy is an out and proud lesbian and, yet, Bounds and Moore treat her like an every day person with zero clichés. I thought that was pretty neat and I'm sure GLBT film fans will like that.

The film is a bit of slow burn, but when the creepiness really starts about 30 minutes in, it's REALLY creepy. There are a lot of homages to films such as Halloween, (just look at all those shots of a victim in the foreground with one of the killers out of focus, lurking in the shadows behind them), Psycho (the focus on characters and one terrifying shower scene), Alice Sweet Alice (the atmosphere, mood, and the killers' get ups), and Black Christmas (the killer's phone calls/young women with personalities being terrorized by a killer in their attic), but it's never goes into rip-off territory. In fact, most of the film is pretty unpredictable and you get the sense that anybody can die at moment. The final shot of the film is genuinely bone-chilling as well.

Suspenseful, well-acted, and spooky, Blessed Are the Children proves that Chris Moore might be on his way to join the pantheon of socially conscious horror auteurs like George A. Romero, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, and, most recently, Jordan Peele ("Get Out"). It's a must see for all serious horror fans!

My friends said I should check this one out and I have to be honest - I didn't know what to expect. The concept sounded potentially interesting, but the trailers didn't do too much for me. I'm grateful that I did, because Blessed Are the Children might be one of the more interesting low/no-budget slashers I've seen in at least a decade.

Granted, this won't be everyone's cup of tea, but there's a lot more to unpack here than most straight to video slasher flicks and I admire the filmmakers for trying something new and going to places most films wouldn't.

Let's start with the characters - they're terrific. It's been a long time since I've seen three leads this well developed and defined. There's Traci - the mopey one whose father just died right before her wedding to an abusive person named Ben who, apparently, threw her pets at a wall while drunk. Eager to get back into the dating scene, she's become a friend with benefits for John, a self-absorbed med student, who might just as bad as Ben. She then finds out that she's pregnant (by who, it's never said) and she decides to get an abortion. In her corner are friends Mandy - a sassy lesbian hairdresser and Erin - a shy, awkward virgin.

After Traci's abortion, she starts noticing creepy baby-masked people stalking her and her friends and the body count starts adding up. A lot of these murder scenes are staged with a god degree of panache and even a fair amount of suspense (something a lot of low budget filmmakers forget about). Some gore effects are better than others, but there should be enough to please the gore hounds among us. Thankfully, the kill order is super surprising and hard to expect. I did gasp a few times when some of my favorite characters were taken out abruptly. It certainly never feels safe and I love that.

As for the flaws...well, there are a few. I think it could have shaved a few minutes off here and there. There's a character from Traci's past who shows up and we're treated to an overlong scene in a restroom where we start to discover that this woman is lying about what a happy life she has as a young mother. The writing isn't bad and it could be argued that this scene helps inform Traci's choice to get the abortion, but it feels like it belongs in a different movie, especially thanks to an incredibly over the top performance by the girl playing Traci's friend. There's also a really bad instance of dubbing/ADR that feels like a weird Italian horror movie as well as several weird sound issues throughout. That stuff doesn't bother me as much as some people, because I could always understand everyone fine even if it wasn't always the cleanest or best sound.

Flaws aside, Blessed Are the Children has its heart in the right place and it's super entertaining and memorable addition to the slasher subgenre.

Traci, a young troubled woman lives in Mississippi with her two best friends, she's being terrorized by her drunken ex-boyfriend, has issues with her mother and has fallen in love with a med student who does not return her affection beyond casual hook-ups. When she finds out that she is pregnant she makes the difficult decision to have an abortion. Upon leaving the abortion clinic she starts being stalked by a masked killer. Blessed Are the Children is a well crafted low budget slasher that gets the 80's look and feel right while tackling a sensitive subject like abortion with an open mind and open heart.