By 
The Children (1980) is a low-budget horror movie that looks like its film stock was rubbed against Pedro Pascal’s armpit. It’s about creepy kids with black fingernails who hug people to death.
I tried watching it as a kid and never finished it. It disturbed me too much. I went outside and threw passes to myself with a Nerf football. Catch by catch, I left those freaky children behind.
Yet…they haunted me, and every now and then, as I slid into dementia, those children come to mind in mental burps. It is time to exorcise the demons by watching The Children…
Stop hugging my sunburn!
The Children
Two men meander about a chemical plant. They wear flannel. They talk about getting a beer. One carries a pipe wrench on his shoulder. This portrayal of manliness is similar to Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Asian in Breakfast At Tiffany’s — eerily exact!
Rather than fix a “pressure drop,” they note it’s “quitting time” and knock off for the day. Employees of the Month material here, folks. The two working class heroes hop into their car and pull away to reveal a sign that reads:
Yankee Power Company Tier One Nuclear Generating Facility.
From this I gather George Steinbrenner owned the chemical plant?
They also leave behind a pipe with prostate problems. Each drop of chemical emits puke-yellow smoke. Puke yellow is inherently disgusting. It wasn’t good when it gurgled out of the androids in Halloween III, and it isn’t good here. Not even Kate Beckinsdale could wear puke-yellow and make it look appealing. The only people on earth who can tolerate puke-yellow are people from Wisconsin because they are 18 percent yellow cheese, and years of watching the Green Bay Packers has fried their retinas to the point where they don’t even see puke-yellow anymore.
Bam! We get a stylized title card of The Children. The lettering looks like it should be on the side of a carpeted van that belongs to a band that is a cross between Fleetwood Mac and Marilyn Manson. The lettering is red, and the words are made from intestines and claws.
I hate the logo and want to burn it with fire.
The Children of Men
We are on a school bus, and the kids sing Here’s To The Bus Driver. They all look like refugees from a 1979 J.C. Penny photoshoot. A VW Beetle passes the bus. The lady driving the Beetle waves. The bus driver waves. The kids play paddy-cake. Everyone is happy. Surely nothing bad can happen here.
Oh no! A puke-yellow fog bank! The bus drives right into it, and the music gets weird!
Cut to a redhead waitress displaying her brassier-ponies. She coerces the Sheriff into going on a date. This would be sexual harassment if it went the other way. The Sheriff escapes the clutches of Ginger Siren and goes out to his car. His car looks like it belongs in a 1970s James Bond movie as one of the vehicles chasing Bond that crashes into a windmill and gets stuck in a rotating blade.
“He got the run-around,” Bond quips to the girl in the passenger seat.
The Sheriff drives past a sign that reads Ravensback: 3 Miles.
Ravensback…that sounds Ipwich-y, but pretty much every evil-children movie harkens back to Village of the Damned, so we won’t hold that against the filmmakers.
The Sheriff passes his Deputy, who is getting sexually harassed by a girl at a fruit stand. All of the women of Ravensback appear to make the first move.
(Cut to every man in the world looking up Ravensback on Google Maps)
The Children Aren’t All Right
The Sheriff comes upon the deserted school bus. He investigates and sees that all of the book bags and schoolbooks have been left behind. The bus driver also left his hat behind. Things now get a bit…odd. The Sheriff picks up the driver’s hat and gives a brief, wistful smile, like a woman might give when she goes through a box of old things and discovers a forgotten gift from an old flame.
What happens in Ravensback stays in Ravensback…
As the Sheriff leaves the bus behind and stops at a house where a woman in a bikini sits outside with a Doberman.
Okay…The Children has gone Lynchian on us. But it gets weirder. The Sheriff asks Bikini Woman if her boy came home. Bikini Woman appears annoyed by the question and goes inside to change. Inside the house a wispy girl plays piano. Bikini Woman asks the girl how she is doing and then says…
“Here, have some codeine.”
Meanwhile, the Sheriff stares into the window for an interminable amount of time, to the point where you can see the gears begin to turn in the actor’s brain as the director leaves them hanging.
Should I be doing some acting here or just stare? How about I smirk and shrug? Why am I receiving no direction? He’s going to yell “cut” sooner or later, right?
I WILL find out who killed Laura Palmer…
Won’t Someone Think Of The Children?
Bikini Woman and the Sheriff return to the bus. The filmmakers got a lot of production value out of that bus. It probably cost them all of $20 to rent, probably less if they filmed in the summer. The bus is like 50 percent of the movie so far.
Bikini Woman gets on the bus and finds her son’s lunchbox and frisbee. Kids leaving lunchboxes and frisbees behind will not stand. The Sheriff decides it’s time to set up a roadblock and CBs his deputy. Everyone had CB back then. It was the BJ & Bear era.
Cut to the Deputy, who tears himself away from the amorous clutches of Fruit Stand Girl to carry out his duties. Obviously, whoever wrote this movie is a man who was accustomed to constantly being hit on by women…
Or the exact opposite…
The Children Of The Corn
Bikini Woman decides to walk home through a cemetery. Should be fine…or not.
We get a POV of her from the cemetery, and a hand comes into frame with black fingernails. Nothing unusual there. Just another Goth kid hanging out in a cemetery…or not.
Bikini Woman spots her son flitting among the gravestones and runs after him. She trips over the body of the bus driver. The camera angle says she could not help but trip over him. The real-world placement of his corpse says Mr. Magoo could have avoided him.
No wonder the movie freaked me out as a kid. The bus driver’s face looks like pizza put in a blender, charred with a blowtorch and smeared with vanilla pudding.
As Bikini Woman takes in this disgusting sight, her and her son are reunited. The boy gives her a hug with his black-fingernail hands, which is apparently what happens when the kids are exposed to the puke-yellow fog produced by the leaking nuclear plant. Puke-yellow smoke pours out of the embrace. Bikini Woman’s skin turns into blended, charred pizza smeared with vanilla pudding, as well.
Thanks, movie. I hate it.
The Bald and the Beautiful
The Children in King Arthur’s Court
The Sheriff stops at a convenience store where two bald guys fondle dead birds. Molly, the proprietor, looks on. What happens in Ravensback stays in Ravensback…
One of those bald guys looks familiar. Hey, it’s Bennings from The Thing! He is the only recognizable face in this movie. You know that moment in The Thing when Bennings is shot by the Norwegian, handed the bottle of booze and takes a comedic swig?
That is basically the tone of his character throughout The Children.
Apparently, this Molly character is the wife of the pizza’ed bus driver. The Sheriff informs her that a busload of kids, plus her husband, is missing. Molly’s response:
“Fred is just a kid himself. He probably took them kids to the stone quarry!”
Sounds totally reasonable, Molly. A bus driver goes rogue to take a load of kids to a stone quarry. Happens all the time. Plus, it’s not like the sole purpose of stone quarries in movies is to hide vehicles involved with a murder at the bottom of them. This is fine. Everything is fine.
Children of the Night
The Sheriff gets back on the case. Next stop is, again, Lynchian World.
Instead of a Bikini Girl, the Sheriff comes upon a topless woman sunbathing beside a pool. Topless Girl does not care the Sheriff sees her topless. Topless Girl also has a Boy Toy…or maybe Middle-Aged Man Toy is a better way to put it. A genuinely ripped dude with graying hair, a moustache, gold chain and speedos pumps out arm curls off to the side.
But wait, it gets weirder.
Sheriff: Is your daughter home?
Topless Girl: Isn’t she a little young for you? She’s only nine.
(Somewhere a Hollywood person thinks, Topless Girl is wrong; nine is actually a bit old…)
The Sheriff relates the take of the deserted bus for what feels like the tenth time. Topless Girl reasons the bus driver probably went senile and took the kids on a picnic.
None of these people seem to worry too much about putting their kids in the hands of a bus driver, who is known for unscheduled trips to stone quarries and senility.
Finally, Topless Girl lights up a joint. The Sheriff picks up an apple-shaped ash tray. Topless Girl points out she got the ash tray in Rome. The Sheriff dumps the ash into the pool and leaves.
This scene gets weirder the more I think about it…
The power of sand weights.
The Karate Children
A little girl walks down the middle of the road in a plaid skirt and red sweater. She has the black fingernails of death. She hides in the woods as a man drives into the scene and has his car conk out. He exits the vehicle, opens the hood and sprays ether into the carburetor.
Little Girl menacingly gazes upon the unsuspecting man. She has a look on her face that reminds me of the evil boy in Dark City right before he bites Rufus Sewell’s hand.
Thanks, movie. I hate it.
The Sheriff shows up and gives the man with the broken-down car a lift.
Little Girl gives up on turning the man with a broken-down car into pizza and switches to plan B. She returns home, where her mom is on the couch with a towel on her forehead. She must have had a long day watching the Young and the Restless. Little Girl enters the scene and declares:
“Mommy, I want a hug!”
And the mother becomes pizza…
The actress playing Little Girl accidentally looks at the camera as her mother writhes and screams in her grip and puke-yellow smoke pours out. The smile on that girl’s face during this moment makes me want to throw her down a well and build a cabin over it.
Stop Treating Me Like The Children
We visit a roadblock. The Deputy mans it. Is Fruit Stand Girl also there sexually-assaulting him? Of course she is… Meanwhile, the Bald Duo watches from the background. They want the Deputy to kiss Fruit Stand Girl and also mention that they like her pretty hair. Stay classy, Bald Duo.
We re-enter Lynchian World. A big 1970s car shows up. You could play Twister in the back seat of that car. Fill the trunk with water and you could host an Olympic swim meet. If Daniel-san tried waxing that car, he’d say, “Wax on and wax…on and on and on…”
This titanic car parks, the back window rolls down. Jazz music pours out.
Deputy: You can’t go through here.
Car Guy: Do you know who I am?
(Car window goes up. Car window comes back down.)
Car Guy: I’m Sanford Butler-Jones. I know Didi Shore. Ring her up. Everything will be cool.
(Car window goes up. Car window comes back down.)
Sanford Butler-Jones then hands the Deputy a car phone. The Deputy calls Didi Shore. She says let Sanford Butler-Jones through.
The giant car then takes 84 minutes to pass its length through the road block. The car ends up following Fruit Stand Girl as she rides her bike down the road.
“She acts like she wants to die,” Sanford Butler-Jones says, which is odd, you see, because that comment implies the actress has acting ability to begin with.
Children’s Play
Fruit Stand Girl rides her bike up to a house. She has brought Mrs. Peterson apples. Who is Mrs. Peterson? I have no idea, but we know she wanted apples. Fruit Stand Girl wanders around the house. Mrs. Peterson is not home. Fruit Stand Girl comes upon a jump scare in the form of a depressed looking dog. Perhaps the dog thought he was going to be in Children of a Lesser God and ended up being in The Children instead.
Eventually, a boy with black fingernails pops out and wants to hug Fruit Stand Girl.
“What’s the matter with you?” Fruit Stand Girl asks, obviously not used to males being the aggressors.
No answer from the creepy boy, only an insatiable desire to embrace.
Fruit Stand Girl flees into a tool shed. The boy follows.
And Fruit Stand Girl becomes pizza…
Give me my The Cure albums back…
Sweet Children O’ Mine
The Sheriff drives the man with the broken-down car home. Let’s just call him Ether Guy. Ether Guy invites the Sheriff into his house, as it will make his wife feel better about the fact that they are missing a child. Ether Guy’s wife turns out to be pregnant.
I wonder if that will come into play later…
Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife tells their little boy (who wasn’t on the school bus) to get ready for bed. Judging by the light outside, it is roughly 5 p.m. I don’t think I’d want to be that kid. His mom seems the type that washes his face with a Kleenex soaked with her own spittle, and then he has to walk around all day smelling saliva on his cheeks. Ether Guys’s Pregnant Wife also wants the Sheriff to stay for dinner. She has cooked a pot roast.
They will all be pot roasts if they don’t stop The Children!
As for me…I want to stop The Children. It seems like I’ve been watching this movie long enough to go from a child to a father, who hates his own children.
Children’s Play 2
Molly contacts the Deputy on her CB. Molly tells the Deputy that he needs to check out a farm where everyone is hysterical because people got turned into pizza.
The Bald Duo agrees to guard the roadblock while the Deputy is gone. One of the Bald Duo says they should send Fruit Stand Girl back in the meantime. The other member of the Bald Duo does a spit-take at this witty comment. The Bald Duo should have their own Hee-Haw style variety show. I can see one of the skits now…
Bald Duo #1: Why do frogs like bananas?
Bald Duo #2: I don’t know.
Bald Duo #1: Because they are a’peelin!
Bald Duo #2: A frog? A banana? That joke makes no sense.
Bald Duo #1: You don’t make no sense!
Bald Duo #2: We are all just beings lost in an existential dream…
Meanwhile, the Deputy eventually finds three of the missing children. They stand in the middle of a dark road, smiling. Thanks, movie. I hate it. He gets out to greet them in a manner that calls for a group hug.
And the Deputy becomes pizza…
I don’t care anymore. Here are some pictures of Tanya Roberts…
The Childrenhood
Molly breaks out some whiskey and gets back on the CB with the Sheriff. She tells the Sheriff to go to yet another place. I can’t keep track of all of these locations anymore. The whole movie is driving between locations and doing the same thing at each location. To wax metaphorical, the movie is as back-and-forth as a pair of metronomes playing tennis.
Ether Guy goes with the Sheriff. They eventually find the Deputy, who is now a Deep-Dish Deputy.
There is only one thing to do after a development like this!
Get back in the car and drive between locations some more…
They return to Bikini Woman’s house. The house is very 1970s. The color scheme of the place looks like Mello Yello married Orange Crush. The Sheriff and Ether Guy discover Codeine Girl is now Pizza Girl. Do they tell us why she was on codeine? No, that is a plot thread left hanging, probably for the prequel.
A sound emits from the closet. The Sheriff and Ether Guy open it with much trepidation. The Doberman falls out. He is pizza, too.
The Sheriff shoots the dog anyway.
Spy Children
Back at the convenience store, Molly has gone from breaking out the whiskey to breaking out a shotgun. The Sheriff and Ether Guy report that lots of people are pizza. The Sheriff also wants a box of Double O.
I momentarily perk up, thinking James Bond will get involved. But, no, the Sheriff wants slugs for his shotgun. Ether Guy also helps himself to one of Molly’s shotguns. A regular shotgun maven is Molly. The Sheriff and Ether Guy get back in the car.
I bet they will go back to a location they’ve already visited multiple times. On the way, they spot a kid meandering in the middle of the road. They get out to corral her, but she does NOT turn them into pizza. They put her in the back of the car while she stares blankly. Her eyes are darkly shadowed, true, but her fingernails are normal.
This means she has not gone Ghoul Child…yet.
The Sheriff and Ether Guy return to Topless Girl’s house. Candles burn. Food cooks in the kitchen. They were preparing lobster. It was going to be quite a party by all appearances.
The Sheriff remains in the car with the kid. Her fingernails now turn black. Soon she will start mocking the Sheriff for his conformity and recite maudlin poetry about death. It is the goth way.
Ether Guy discovers Middle-Aged Man Toy. He is pizza. Ether Guy finds Sanford Butler-Jones. He is pizza, as well. That means Topless Girl was the aforementioned Didi, and she hosted the party for Butler-Jones, with lots of candles and so on and so forth. I wonder what kind of party it was, judging from Topless Girl’s lackadaisical attitude toward nudity and pedophilia.
What happens in Ravensback stays in Ravensback…
The Sheriff is then attacked by the girl in the car. She reaches for him with her black-fingernail hands. He freaks out and escapes by exiting the vehicle.
The Sheriff and Ether Guy hightail it out of there to travel between locations again.
Fly me out of here on the wings of your mighty falcon, Tanya…
I’m So Tired
A teenage girl has the goth infection and wanders around outside the home of Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife. Maybe she is the daughter of Ether Guy and Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife. It is hard to figure out which kid belongs to which people in this movie. Ravensback is the kind of place where everyone marries their cousin, so all of the kids are interchangeable anyway.
Teenage Ghoul Girl stalks Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife. She then continues to stalk Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife, followed by some stalking of Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife and finally stalks Ether Guy’s Pregnant wife to add a little variety to things.
The runtime of The Children could be 37 seconds if they removed all of the padding.
Outside the convenience store, child voices call, “Molly! Molly! Molly!”
I don’t like where this is headed. Three kids stand on the sidewalk. They are smiling and holding out their black-fingernail hands for a hug. It is a genuinely creepy image, and it is made creepier still by showing the children as a reflection on the window as Molly gets on the CB to tell the Sheriff the good news — she has found the children!
Thanks, movie. I hate it.
The Sheriff tries to warn Molly during the movie’s 729th CB conversation, but it is too late. Molly goes outside to get her group hug.
And Molly becomes pizza…
I Just Want It To Stop
Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife watches Groucho Marx on TV. She gets up to go to the liquor cabinet. Pregnant women sometimes need the smooth, fetus-soothing taste of bourbon.
Wait, my mistake. She isn’t getting a drink. She is getting a pack of cigarettes hidden behind the booze. Whew! Alcohol might have been bad for the baby.
Meanwhile, Teenage Ghoul Girl continues her interminable stalking. It gets to the point where even Teenage Ghoul Girl realizes her stalking is interminable and walks faster as she wanders aimlessly about outside.
The Sheriff and Ether Guy arrive.
Teenage Ghoul Girl does an abrupt about-face and disappears. She stalked Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife for roughly 933 minutes, and she is going to give up that easy? That’s no way to make the Olympic Stalking Team. Oh well, it would be tough to win the gold medal from the Japanese anyway since they would send a team of ninjas.
(Note: that isn’t a racist comment. A Japanese person has done the math to prove it.)
Only in the depths of your warm, understanding gaze, do I find succor, Tanya…
No More…
Sheriff and Ether Guy go into the house…again. Ether Guy goes upstairs to check on Little Boy. Remember him? I sort of do, but it is hard.
My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feeeeeeeel it…
“Make the damn coffee!”
That is what Ether Guy said to Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife after she asks to know what is going on. It seems a reasonable question given the circumstances, but it’s a stressful time for everyone.
Teenage Ghoul Girl gets back on the stalking horse. She wonders aimlessly around outside and goes to open the door she decided not to open a few minutes earlier.
Psych! Teenage Ghoul Girl decides not to open the door and looks in the window to spy on Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife instead. Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife sees her and goes outside. Yep, we have confirmation. Teenage Ghoul Girl is their daughter.
The Sheriff and Ether Guy thwart the hug. Teenage Ghoul Girl flees into the barn so the movie can film more people walking through locations. Ether Guy reaches out for his Teenage Ghoul Child. She grabs his hand and turns it into pizza.
The Sheriff and Ether Guy flee, only to get attacked by another Ghoul Kid. The Sheriff pulls his gun and blasts that kid right in her red 1970s sweater. Bullets have no effect, perhaps because sweaters in the 1970s were knit from steel wool.
Please…Kill Me…
The Sheriff and Ether Guy end up back in the house while Ghoul Kids congregate outside Night-Of-The-Living-Dead style. Ether Guy soaks his pizza hand in ice water. The Sheriff randomly shotguns Ghoul Kids from the window.
Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife will have none of that. They are only children, after all. She hits the Sheriff over the head with a vase. She must be a liberal.
Uh-oh, these Ghoul Children are also Monkey Children. One Ghoul Boy climbed the house to get to Little Boy’s bedroom window. The Ghoul Boy claws at the window screen, Salem’s-Lot style.
Thanks, movie. I hate it.
Little Boy opens the window for Ghoul Boy and thinks Ghoul Boy wants to play hide-and-seek. The scene is decently creepy as Little Boy gleefully avoids Ghoul Boy’s outstretched black-fingernail hands. Ghoul Boy is also sporting a nice 70s haircut. He is only a couple of snips away from asking someone what’s the most they ever lost on a coin toss.
And…oh my word…NOOOOOO! They actually let Ghoul Boy turn Little Boy into pizza!
The Children is not playing nice right now.
But into this downer moment comes a ray of awesome. The Sheriff pulls a katana off the wall to deal with Ghoul Boy, but not before Ether Guy gives Ghoul Boy a full shotgun blast to the chest, which lifts the kid off the staircase and over the banister John Woo-style.
The shotgun has no effect, of course, but the Sheriff chops Ghoul Boy’s hands off with the sword. This is the weakness of Ghoul Children. Cut their black-fingernail hands off, and they die, wailing and moaning like when those Stormtrooper guys died in Krull.
Weeping
Ether Guy and Ether Guy’s Pregnant Person debate the merits of whether or not their daughter is still human. I’m personally going with not human, you know, because of her tendency to turn people into pizza with her black-fingernail hands. But that’s just me.
The Sheriff decides to sit with his back to an open window and casually reload his shotgun. I don’t see anything bad happening here — nope, not at all. The guy should be totally fine doing that. It seems like a good idea, in fact: get that gun ready…next to an open window…with your back turned. That’s the best way to do it: get some rest while sitting and turn away from the window to get your mind off the Ghoul Kids lurking outside to reduce stress. The Sheriff is making a great tactical decision. He should teach a community-ed class on situational awareness.
Oh…wait…nope…a Ghoul Kid reaches through the window and almost snags the Sheriff. The reaching conveniently leaves the Ghoul Kid’s hand exposed, however.
Feel the cut of the blade, Ghoul Brat!
The Sheriff and Ether Guy march outside with sword, ax and flashlight to do battle with the Ghoul Kids. This surprises me. I figured they’d get in the car and drive to another location.
The two of them walk around for 1,039 minutes before surmising the children went into the home’s basement through the outside bulkhead. They then enter the basement themselves.
Aaaaaaaand, absolutely NOTHING happens in the basement. I should have expected this. Since the Sheriff and Ether Guy could not drive to another location, they went with their second-best, go-to move, which is to wander through empty structures.
Yeesh, Tanya…you looked stoned in more ways that one here…
It Hurts So Bad
Our intrepid duo zeroes in on the chicken coop, and…a chicken leaps out!
Regardless, it looks like three Ghoul Kids remain. The Sheriff and Ether Guy corner them in the barn. Ether Guy’s daughter says, “No, daddy!” and wants a hug. Ether Guy has a dramatic internal struggle that makes me check to see if he was nominated for an Academy Award in 1980.
He was not…
The Sheriff leaps into the fray and axes the remaining Ghoul Kids to death while the camera pulls away, and the haunted wailings of the Ghoul Kids, along with their moans of dissipation, echo in the air.
Eventually, the Sheriff and Ether Guy stagger out of the barn, weary heroes. The music becomes hopeful. The sword is cast to the ground. The Sheriff staggers to his car, probably to get back to driving between locations. It is what he was born to do, after all.
And the Sheriff becomes pizza…
One remaining Ghoul Kid hid in the backseat.
Ether Guy comes running as the Sheriff screams. Ether Guy dispatches the last Ghoul Kid with five sword chops. He then hurls the sword away in disgust and kneels over his fallen pizza comrade. We get an especially good look at the pizza makeup in this scene.
Thanks, movie. I hate it.
Ether Guy weeps for all that is lost and, I kid you not, spends the night with the Sheriff’s body.
Is It Over?
Morning comes. Ether Guy finally gets the Sheriff’s pizza head out of his lap because it dawns on him that, perhaps, he should check on his pregnant wife, who is still in the house.
Good thing he does. Ether Guy’s Pregnant Wife is giving birth. The movie takes approximately 1,928 minutes to show the birth happening while fade-panning over all of the dead bodies that have accumulated throughout the movie
When the bundle of joy finally arrives, we get what we all saw coming:
The baby has black fingernails.
Welcome to tomorrow, folks, where Ghoul Kids hold sway over all.
That’s still better than the millennials, I guess…
I’m Out
The credits roll. It turns out that Harry Manfredini did the score. This is interesting because throughout The Children, I did notice the music. It seemed a cut above the rest of the film.
After all these years, I have finally watched The Children. Was it worth it? I guess so. It wasn’t a great movie, but it accomplished pretty much exactly what a movie of its ilk is supposed to accomplish, with enough oddities for flavor.
Really, this whole movie could be a promotional tie in for a pizza franchise. I can see the commercial now…
A family sits around a kitchen table. A ghoul child leads a person into the room. Then the ghoul child turns that person into pizza. The ghoul child smiles at the camera and gives a black-fingernail thumbs up as the while family digs in.
The Children Pizza: it’s not delivery, it’s deadly. Now with more vanilla pudding!
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