Undescribable Perfection

i must have seen a different film!!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The first bit of the film was fine... but when the kids look normal, family hugs them and the black fingernails kills them - that was rather lame... so I was bored with this one.Apparently, the radioactive smoke they drove through didn't effect the woman in the red car nor the bus driver that drove through it with the kids... only the kids kill and must have gotten the bus driver from the looks of things. Of course the woman in the red car had to have a black fingernailed baby in the end.If this one would have been exciting or something sinister about the children other than those black nails then I would have like this one a little bit better - but as it is, it's just boring.2/10

Here's a VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED variant which successfully manages to evoke the odd chill or two with its unusual storyline - a story so unusual that this often pops up as the solution to "name that movie" questions. It's a slow-paced film which won't appeal to all audiences, but with that slow pacing comes a creepy atmosphere heightened by lots of dark and shadowy sets from which anything may pounce. While THE CHILDREN OF RAVENSBACK is nothing new - it shares the same setting and type of plot as many other low budget American productions of the time, for example MUTANT - it is however an efficient horror yarn with a unique twist.Things begin in a TWILIGHT ZONE fashion with a leak at a nuclear plant. Shortly afterwards a school bus drives through the yellow cloud, and is discovered empty by the town's sheriff (who bears a remarkable resemblance to Craig T. Nelson from POLTERGEIST as it happens). Initially, it's all very weird and unsettling, with things becoming more disturbing with the discovery of a mutilated corpse - that of the bus-driver - at a nearby cemetery. The killer, it turns out, is a schoolboy who has now become a killer zombie thanks to the radiation (quite how is never explained, which is fine with me) who can burn people through touch alone. The child zombies are distinguishable through their black fingernails and pale complexion.From then on, the Sheriff teams up with the father of one of the children as more of the townsfolk begin to die after being embraced by the kiddies. A roadblock is set up to no avail, and its discovered that bullets can have no effect on the zombies either. As night falls, the sheriff and a family hole up inside a house as the children gather outside, in a scene obviously influenced by NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and with much the same atmosphere.As you can see, the plot is pretty light and action-focused (the story takes place over the course of a single day and night), which is no bad thing if done right. There are a number of shocking scenes of violence, especially against children, which are pretty unexpected. Scenes of the kids getting their body parts chopped off are pretty graphic and not what you would expect. A kid hovers outside of a bedroom window in a sequence lifted from SALEM'S LOT. The downbeat ending contains a supposed "shock" scene which can be spotted a mile off.The music copies Herrman's PSYCHO score, and the acting is all pretty amateurish, with the exception of Gil Rogers who is pretty good as the (very) human hero, the sheriff. The special effects are done on a very low budget, with scenes of people burning fading in and out (a technique perfected back in the '30s). However shots of the disgusting burnt corpses are well done, as are the various gore scenes at the end. I enjoyed this film for its portrayal of small town life plunged into an inescapable nightmare, and quirky situations like when the sheriff stumbles upon a nude sunbather and her bodybuilder boyfriend. The action scenes are both exciting and scary. Interestingly this feels like a '50s film, what with the radiated monsters and investigating civilians and police, except with a harder edge. While not a masterpiece, this is an agreeably old-fashioned monster movie with some good scares and atmosphere to recommend it.

Well I liked the concept of kids turning into some kind of zombies by some mysterious cloud. But that happens without any build-up and they go on to kill the annoying adults. And yes since all performers in the movie go without character development I couldn't really be bothered if they lived or died in the end. I'm trying to think if this movie has any redeeming qualities. Well yeah the kids were threatening and instead of actually biting their victims like zombies do, they burn them by touching them. It would have been nice there was some actual cure for it, rather than going for the easy way by chopping their limbs of. It was an original idea but the execution was done in such a cheap way hoping to cash in quickly on the zombie craze.

This movie "The Children" is a very good, scary early 1980s movie about innocent kids who get exposed to yellowish smoke from a nuclear power plant and they end up as black finger-nailed zombies who burn people to death when they hug them. It really isn't the fault of the kids what happened! Two nuclear power workers who make Homer Simpson look like a Mensa member release the fumes into the air and it changes these kids into bloodless monsters. The parents seem strangely indifferent about the disappearance of the children. The worst offender is 9-year-old Janet Shore's mother, Dee-Dee who is smoking pot, topless by her swimming pool. Her muscle-bound boyfriend seems as indifferent as Dee-Dee is. Dee-Dee seems excited by her daughter's apparent abduction and never acts like a frantic mother. The young officer who is searching for the children is no better. He wants to make out with young, missing Paul's sister, Susie rather than looking for Paul! Jenny's parents were more sympathetic, though. The stress of having a killer, zombie preteen daughter is getting to them and Cathy, the mother who is very pregnant smokes a cigarette when her nerves are on edge. She is reluctant to kill her daughter and the other children even though she knows her husband and the other, older police officer know they have to do that to defend themselves! This movie has very little blood, but the microwaving of human flesh and screams from the parents are quite jarring!