User reviews

A pretty lady is hired as the nanny of a spooky little girl called Rosalie. The girl is a bit of a loner, mostly hanging out in the woods that surround her house and grieving over her dead mother. Thing totally go awry when Rosalie starts to act more and more like a little psychopath, drawing morbid pictures of her family and hiring her "friends" from the woods to kill people that get in her way. There's some eerie atmosphere in "The Child" as well as some ominous guiding music and macabre scenery. The pacing is slow, though, and there's much too much weirdness going on that remains unexplained. The kid is okay, I guess, but not half as creepy as the juvenile murderers in "The Children", "Bloody Birthday" or "Village of the Damned". The budget obviously was very limited, resulting in poor editing and cheesy make-up effects. Not a bad little movie, but you'll forget about it pretty soon.

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).

Of course not much was to be expected of this movie but that doesn't make the viewing experience of it any better. It's an obviously cheap movie, that got poorly put together by an also very obviously inexperienced cast and crew.

I'm taking into consideration the budget and time that went into this movie and in that regard it really isn't an horrible picture and on some levels actually quite an achievement but the overall end result isn't exactly anything that I would recommend to anybody.

Thing with this movie is that it's storytelling never really flows pleasantly. The movie has an hard time finding the right pace and its story and writing isn't helping very much. It often is all over the place and is heading in all kinds of different directions. The one moment it's more of a psychological horror, the other a gory slasher and then the other suddenly a weird sort of zombie flick. Not a very consistent movie with its horror, nor with its story. It does not only confuse me, it also annoys, which is arguable even worse.

But something that annoyed me way more (next to its acting) was the absolutely horrible soundtrack this movie had. It was so incredibly noisy and without rhythm or tone that it almost caused my head to explode at several points throughout the movie.

But these cheap sort of '70's genre movies are not without its charm really. It actually only adds to the movie its atmosphere that this isn't a perfect looking movie and features some shaky camera-work and cheap effects in it. If you can enjoy these sort of movies, this one is still worth giving a go.

For everybody else; just skip it!

4/10

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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.

The first ten minutes or so can intrigue you enough to watch it once through perhaps, probably not twice though. This could've been a crazy mix of Sixth Sense, the Others, Omen, and Zombi Flesheaters. But no. Run of the mill 70's genre horror treatment and trying to please the audience expectations doesn't really do any good to this film in particular.

The low budget shows in a lot of things and the acting and presentation is uneven throughout the film. Sometimes the shift in atmosphere and directing is noticeable between lines in one scene. You can easily get the distinct feeling the crew is learning their trade by making their first movie here.

But when the cinematography and soundtrack play well together, and the uncanny suspense builds, it's pretty good actually! I was tempted to give this film a better rating just because of the occasionally super eerie atmosphere, but alas the moments at cemetery etc can't quite carry the whole movie.

And though the idea has refreshingly original flavor to it and it mixes well the otherwise old horror tropes (a creepy child, undead, cursed cemetery or such, remote houses & countryside helplessness) into something of its own, the plot runs still so predictable it's hard to not press fast forward and you kind of come up with all the possible directions the movie scenes could have gone and find a more interesting flow. The weird and creepy elements are wasted in boring direction and script.

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.

I haven't seen a movie where the acting is bad as the job done in "The Child." This is truly an amateur production.

Overpoweringly bad music, scratchy sound, and horrible lighting. This feels like a college production movie. Any horror fan could guess what's about to happen and even what the characters are about to say.

It's unfortunate that the movie is really that bad - I was hoping it would at least be cheesy in a good way but with the script and these actors there's just no way for this one to be enjoyable.

Here's hoping people don't waste their time on this one. It's available for free on youtube - thankfully, I didn't have to even waste a netflix choice on it.

This was a really boring and stupid movie. It really didn't have anything going for it at all.

The acting was bad. The story was bad.

I would not recommend this movie. I was falling asleep watching it.

This overdubed, somewhat disjointed horror film is probably more of a late to scene "Omen" rip-off than a zombie film; but if you are in the right mood you may find it creepily effective. There is an excellent scene about a half hour into the film where the old creep grandfather starts laughing at a horrible accident and the kid joins in. The other two don't know what to do, haven't we all been there? The disjointed sound actually may work in the film's favor, though you wonder if you are listening to the same people you are seeing on the screen. So it's hard to fault the performers too much. It's the kind of thing you might have seen at a faraway drive-in or late one night on cable and never quite shook. The Something Weird DVD gives you a chance to live it all again.

This is one of those 70s independent horror films like "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" and "Let's Scare Jessica To Death" that are odd, crude, dated, but interesting in their dreamlike approach to the genre. It's not as good as the aforementioned, but it has its points.

A very beautiful young woman shows up to be nanny for a bratty young girl living in an isolated farmhouse with her crusty old father and hunky grownup brother. We figure out pretty soon that the brat is a malevolent force around here, though just how she manages to (apparently) raise the dead in order to off anyone who ticks her off is one of many logical details you're better off not pondering. (The movie doesn't bother explaining, anyway.)

The plot is very thin, yet the film feels atmospheric and eventful enough. It's not "good" by any standards, but it has personality and its own oddball sense of conviction. The most laughable and incongruous element is a musical score overwhelmed by florid piano arpeggios (I'm not the first person who thought of Liberace), though after a while you can somewhat tune it out. If the movie had a more effectively disturbing score, a la "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," it might now be considered a minor classic-- which would be overrating it, but it's certainly no piece of camp trash, either. (Which is not to say I don't enjoy camp trash at times.)

Most of the participants seem to have never made another movie, and "The Child" has that compelling curiosity of a one-shot genre movie made by people whose arty inclinations probably doomed their futures in commercial cinema, but which also make this sole effort more interesting than most of what it would have shared drive-in and grindhouse screens with in the mid/late 70s.

First saw this in the 80s. Revisited it recently. The isolated house atop a hill surrounded by woods n a misty cemetery is the only good stuff about this lazy film.

It has irritating music throughout. Lingering scene of a curtain n then suddenly an old lady screams as if somebody grabbed her n the next scene she is seen dialing a phone. It has one of the most lousy dream sequence. Ther r two offscreen eye-gouging scenes n two offscreen scenes of faces getting ripped off. Zombies turn up only in the end with lousy make-up who doesn't require beheadings but only loud honking to ward them off. Wait, were they really zombies? In the end credits they r referred as creatures. While a guy fights off the creatures with hammer, axe, gun, kicks, wall nail, wooden planks, metal tin, etc., a gal (with her hair kept open the entire film) keeps on screaming irritatingly. Another annoying aspect is the sudden change of daylight n nite time.

The most dreadful and horrifying thing about this movie is it's score. And I don't mean that in a good way either. It's ridiculously clumsy and annoying and instead of helping to set an eerie mood; it works in contrast with the atmosphere which would have created that mood organically. It's so sloppily done it abruptly takes you out of the movie and while overpowering the actual dialouge of the cast. That may be only bright spot because I've seen better acting in elementary school plays. The only believable and likeable character was Miss Elizabeth.

I found it difficult to focus without being aggravated with the nonsensical background music. It was so herky jerky that I had to adjust the volume on my television due to it being uneven and certain parts painfully loud. It didn't match the movie. Very poor production. But with all that being said. I found the plot to be interesting and I tried to tough it out to get to the climax. Needless to say I didn't complete that mission. Shudder has way better to offer than this crap.

Not great, but not bad, either, The Child is a lot like Dawn of the Dead or Night of the Living Dead set in the late 1930s. The cars and sets look like the era they are set in (the 1930s) but the sitter Aliceanne wears a dress that looks like it is more from the 1890s and both she and the adult son of the farmer have 1970s hair styles - not much consistency in this period drama! The film is also inconsistent in its lighting, as one scene will have daylight, the next scene will be night, then go back to day, etc. While it does have some technical flaws and takes a while to get exciting, it does turn into a good zombie movie in the final twenty minutes. The two heroes (unknown performers who look a lot like a young Susan Dey and Michael Cole from the Mod Squad) have to try to fight off a group of zombies in a remote shack, in the film's exciting climax. The zombies themselves amble along like the creatures in the films of George Romero, but have excellent makeup and look quite demonic. It is not completely like Romero's films, in that zombies are not rampaging throughout all of the setting of 1930s America in this movie, but you do get the same sense of desperation and hopelessness in this production by Harry Novak. The script does plod along and you really never get to know any of the characters well (even Aliceanne acts a bit strange at times), but it is worth a look if you can find it. Reminded me of what would happen if a bunch of zombies attacked the Waltons!

Alicianne (Laurel Barnett) becomes a live in babysitter for young Rosalie Nordon (Rosalione Cole) who has recently lost her mother. But Rosalie misses her dead mother a lot and continuously visits her grave (conveniently located in a cemetery right behind the house) late at night...where she also meets her "friends"...

This starts off good with a truly eerie sequence in the cemetery...then falls apart. The story is thin and there is TONS of padding to make the film 85 minutes long. The acting is terrible across the board (with Cole easily being the worst). Badly directed with some of the WORST editing I've ever seen in a motion picture. Scenes (and sound) are just cut off with no rhyme or reason. Also the film has terrible (and obvious) post-production sound.

As for blood and violence--forget it! There's very little and what there is looks incredibly fake. I've NEVER seen such fake-looking blood--looks like ketchup! Boring, pointless--a rightfully forgotten drive-in movie. You can skip this one.

The filmmakers were not aiming to win major awards, and they succeeded. What they intended to make was a fun and sometimes genuinely frightening drive-in horror movie, and they succeeded in that, as well.

Legitimately terrifying monsters, beautiful actresses, a tween villainess, cheesy special effects and some eerie on-location settings make this a true classic of its genre.

The filmmakers admirably sought to set the film in the 1930s yet sprinkled with familiar items from the 1970s: clothing, a spiral phone cord, eye shadow, power lines, a plastic chair. Still, you appreciate the effort to take you to another time. This film is low-budget in all the right ways. The gender stereotypes are dated, but the female villain does help balance that relic of its time.

And that comes from someone that will withstand almost ANY viewing. The acting and sound is awful. This might qualify for a "so bad it's good" point of merit,,,for some. However I take my horror movies seriously and this is just crap-it's just soooo cheap, I think that's my major complaint. The dialogue is often hilarious-attention to how many times "you startled me" is used. The "child" actress is seriously god awful-I pray her acting career ended here..her line "DONUTS! I HATE DONUTS" is worth repeated viewing however.

the first fifty minutes of this harry novak distributed pic are pretty dull. there are flashes of promise, as parts of the story are revealed. but finally, the action starts, the zombies begin to attack the main characters (one male, one female of course). and then, it is the climax of night of the living dead revisited.

overall, i enjoyed this. but it had more potential than it delivered.

and the music was too overpowering. i would like to see a remake of this.