Attention! Enfants

This movie is a total bait and switch. I went into it having some positive expectations, namely, that I'd see a lot of grade school kids murdering their parents in a series of bloodsoaked rituals. However, this kind of stuff never really happens and it isn't until the FINAL 90-SECONDS that the director pulls out the stops, providing us with a hilariously bad "massacre" scene that had my brother and I rolling. The rest of this movie, however, is entirely forgettable and I can't recommend it. That final 90-seconds is awesome, yes, but you have to sit through a lot of boring crap and listen to a lot of bad writing to get there. If you just have to see the funny clip at the end where the kids all get killed, I'd search the web versus wasting a rental slot. Trust me, this movie sucks. A lot. ---|--- Reviews by Flak Magnet

The movie starts out with a boy and his father camping in the woods. The father gets caught in a trap, they cannot get help, and the boy ends up showing his cannibalistic tastes by attacking his father. As the boy grows he kidnaps children and they form a type-of cannibal cult. And then... well just watch. The film has some great (cheesy) special effects. And the end will definitely make you love this movie. Trust me, if you think the beginning is boring, just sit in till the end.

Oh my goodness! This movie puts any ending to any other movie to shame. It was slow at first, I admit it. But that ending just made everything worth it. What beats a bunch of rednecks killing a bunch of young children. "Beware Children At Play"? More like "Beware Rednecks With Deadly Weapons At Play"! Rock on! I love this movie.

Mike Cribben's cult favourite Beware: Children at Play is one of the most demented films ever to be picked up by Troma. The film deserves praise for fearlessly breaking one of the last taboos in horror and most impressively, doing so in an entertaining manner. Beware: Children at Play really is a taste free zone. For that achievement alone, the film is an absolute must see.

Lloyd Kaufman's introduction to the film begins with an anecdote recounting how a preview for Beware: Children at Play successfully emptied a theatre at the Cannes film festival. I'm sure the reaction would have been one of rapturous applause if the audience had seen the film in its entirety, because within the context of the "plot", the slaughtering of the demon children really does provide great entertainment. I know that sounds abominable but when a film's plot revolves around wild cannibalistic children who believe they are characters from Beowulf, I would say that just about anything goes.

The film begins slowly and somewhat painfully due to the extended dialogues about "cleavages" (I didn't even know there was a plural form of the word) and supernatural phenomenon. Before too long, John has joined Ross in his search for a group of missing children. These children really need a visit from Super Nanny because they spend their time cutting people in half with sickles and impaling trespassers on wooden stakes. The fact that children are depicted eating body organs would be tasteless enough for most directors, but to Cribben's credit he raises the bar by throwing a rape scene and a handful of religious fanatics into the mix. The film momentarily goes astray while our incredibly stupid heroes go to the library and read Beowulf, in order to get into the mind of the ringleader, who believes he is the cannibalistic monster, Grendel.

Thankfully, Beware: Children at Play gets back on track for the infamous child killing marathon. This sequence is remarkable in its complete and utter shamelessness. Kiddies get decapitated, stabbed, shot and killed with pitchforks. It is all so very wrong but when presented in this context, with the campy production values and incredibly unrealistic effects, the scene comes across as a stroke of genius. However, I think the picture gallery of slaughtered children on the Troma DVD is a bit foul even by my degenerate standards. That said, I'm glad that Troma once again has the balls to put this kind of material out on the market.

Beware: Children at Play is definitely not for everyone. However, fans of Troma and tastelessness in general will have a grand old time watching this shocker. I give this film full marks for having the backbone to completely smash one of cinema's biggest taboos and for being entertaining while doing so.

BEWARE: CHILDREN AT PLAY opens with a father and his young son on a camping trip in the wilds of New Jersey. Tragically, their bonding is interrupted by cannibalism.

Ten years later, a family is visiting a friend whose daughter has vanished, unaware that a dozen children have recently gone missing. This is all happening near the very woods where a feral teenager resides. Where have all the children gone, and who is committing the blood-splashing murders in the area? Is a local religious cult involved?

Cheap, and clumsier than a three-legged hippopotamus, B:CAP plods along, trying to be terrifying, betrayed at every turn by static filming, robotic "acting", and dismal dialogue. The "grandpa's-playing-with-the-synthesizer-again" musical score doesn't help. At all.

As for the "creepy" kids, they're hysterical! It's as though they were gathered together moments before filming, told what their lines and actions were to be, then told to "act". The result is a glorious mess! Watching them kill someone, is like watching ants crawling on a discarded candy wrapper. Of course, these tots are no worse than their adult counterparts, who recite lines that appear foreign to them!

Alas, this could have been an uber-schlock masterwork, if not for the terminal dullness factor. This is basically a nap, interrupted by a few gore scenes.

Beware, indeed!...