I've seen more than a few review sites teeing off on Bob Clark's 1972 low-budget zombie opus recently.But these people are wrong.I'm not a blind defender of the late director's work,especially when it comes to fare like "Superbabies 2:Baby Geniuses"(2004) or "The Karate Dog"(2004).I've never shied from calling a spade a spade.But Children doesn't deserve the negative e-press it's been getting,either.I happen to dig Alan Ormsby's over-the-top,hideously dressed,obnoxious dickhead director character pretty highly.He's such a fucking snot,you're begging the zombies to start climbing out of their graves and eating him within the first five minutes.And the outfit he's got the balls to rock here only intensifies this vibe.The striped bellbottomed action slacks he proudly rocks might just be the John Merrick of cinematic fashion history.His ascot is also pretty gay.The makeup work and sparse gore effects are relatively effective for the budget,more often than not,and the entire production reeks of old time creepy atmosphere that so many films simply haven't got.When I first saw this late night New York cable staple,I was probably five or six years old, alone in a spacious and dark parlour,and I thought about reinforcing the big picture window in there with a coffee table and hammer and nails once or twice that night.I have no qualms stating that this movie has a deserved place in the top twenty zombie flicks of all-time,not just the seventies.
Wake up,Orville,and eat him,before he says anything else...
Alan(Alan Ormsby),is a pompous directorial dick-in-the-mouth,heading a nocturnal boat ride to a desolate graveyard island with his small acting troupe full of stereotypes;the fat comedian(Jeff Gillen),the macho leading man(Paul Cronin),the ball-busting yenta(Valerie Mamches),the innocent female lead(Jane Daly,the only actress who didn't share first names with their respective character),and the cosmically-fried she-kook(Alan's wife at the time,Anya).Alan has a gruesome evening of murderous historic legend,grave-robbing,and dead resurrection spells planned for his actors,which he affectionately refers to as his "children".Unbeknownst to the group,two of Alan's stable,a pair of flamboyantly gay actors in horror costume and makeup have arrived on the island a few hours earlier,subdued the caretaker,dug up a fresh corpse,and personally replaced him in the earthen grave.Six hundred thousand hammy cliches,dry jokes,and catty replies from artsy egotist Alan later,after gay Roy pops out of the coffin,Paul bloodies his nose and Jeffrey pisses his pants,but the director saves the best for last.Out of a huge chest the actors have carried to the graveyard,Alan pulls a dusty old grimoire and sorcerer's robe.He gives the men the dried blood of an infant(where does he get this shit?)to sprinkle on all the graves,so that he may raise them from their eternal slumber to do his bidding with a spell from the book.That doesn't seem to work.Val hops into the open grave and gives a spirited performance of Jewish name-calling to the Devil,meriting applause from the other actors.Never to be one-upped by a subordinate,Alan demands that the actors bring the fresh corpse,a fellow named Orville(Seth Sklarey),back to the cabin with them,to the dismay of everyone involved.As Roy and Emerson clean up at the graves,slowly,the earth begins to spit out its horrible decaying contents,which proceed to eat Emerson and the poor bastard caretaker,still gagged and tied against a tree,and bite Roy fatally,before he breaks free and limps back to the cabin to warn the others.
You're never too old(or dead)for a good circle pit.Insert obligatory B-Dub age joke here.
At the cabin,Alan clowns with his rotting prize,mock-marrying it with a doily on its head,and sending the spacy Anya over the top,hysterically screaming about disrespecting the dead,causing the director to angrily take his corpse upstairs and lie with it....blech.At this point,a bloodied Roy arrives at the door just ahead of a sea of ravenous zombies,forcing the troupe to barricade themselves into the cabin.Frantically searching for a solution,Alan sends Paul out a side door,only to have him eaten seconds later by a fiesty female zombie.The corpses pull Terry out the door to her death shortly afterwards when Alan discovers a passage in the spellbook to send the dead back to their graves that unfortunately requires the original corpse to be returned to its final resting place(which isn't the cot upstairs).He recites the incantation anyway,and the flesheaters seem to dissipate back into the blackness of the night.When the remaining survivors go out to investigate,they're swarmed by ghouls around the corner,engulfing Jeffrey and Val.Alan and Anya retreat back to the cabin,but the zombies break in and corner the two on the stairs.In the ultimate dick move,Alan throws the frail girl to his rotting attackers as a flesh and blood sacrifice and locks himself in his upstairs room...where Orville's finally come around.The zombie embraces the screaming director as a mob of ghouls bursts through the door.A group of the reanimated corpses make their way onto the troupe's boat as the credits roll.
Paul plus Caro syrup mixture plus female ghoul equals midnight snack in the woods.
Most of the actors on board here also took part in other Clark vehicles.Gillen went on to play Santa Claus in A Christmas Story(1983),Anya Ormsby and Jane Daly had roles in Deathdream(1974),Seth Sklarey was uncredited in Porky's 2:The Next Day(1983),and Alan Ormsby,after co-writing this film with Clark(and doing the makeup effects), went on to write Deranged(1974) and Deathdream.VCI released a special edition dvd in 2007,but I've done just fine with their earlier,less-choice 1999 disc all this time,thanks.There was talk of a Children remake in 2007 with Clark supervising,but the project probably went with the director to his untimely grave the same year.Let the record show that I'm a huge fan of Clark's genre entries,especially those where Ormsby was involved,and this film is no exception,always holding a special place in a dark recess of my black little heart.Give it a chance,and you may end up saying the same thing about it.It comes highly recommended.
Receding,Orville? Really? You can barely notice,you being so dead,and all.
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