SHOCKtober 2012 – Day 22: Who Can Kill a Child? (1976)

Who Can Kill a Child? Our gut tells us that we should protect children. But then, most children aren’t actually trying to murder you.

Tom and Evelyn go on one last holiday before the birth of their child, and arrive on an island populated almost entirely by children. The kids they encounter don’t speak to them. And soon it becomes apparent that something isn’t quite right.

Then it become REALLY apparent when the kids start to attack them.

Children as killers is actually a fairly well tread ground at this point, but I suspect back in 1976 is was much more rare. I mean, at this point we’ve had 9 Children of the Corn movies. But even before this particular movie we had things like Village of the Damned. And still, children as murderers is really creepy. I find this stuff more disturbing than monsters or zombies or regular plain old psychopaths.

There was a lot to like in this movie as a horror film. Especially that nothing really stood out as a giant glaring plot driven idiotic decision. “Hey, let’s split up and enter these dark tunnels without weapons but waving flashlights around and yelling the name of our missing friend… that won’t be dangerous at all!” Didn’t happen here.

By far the most disturbing part of this movie is the opening, which uses documentary footage to show the atrocities committed against children all around the world beginning with the concentration camps in World War II. I like horror films, mostly because they don’t happen. I’m a huge fan of zombie films because the likelihood of a real zombie apocalypse is so near zero as to be zero. In fact, it probably is zero. But when I see real footage of real stuff that really happened… I almost turned the movie off a couple of times. If you can muscle through it, though, or skip past it, then Who Can Kill a Child? is a good horror movie to watch.

Be sure to keep an eye on Final Girl and the rest of SHOCKtober.

UPDATE: Check out other participants - Blog @ Rotten Cotton, Life Between Frames

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