The Children (1980)
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This is in reference to the 1980 film. For the 2006 release see Wicked Little Things
The Children (a.k.a The Children of Ravensback) is a 1980 low budget horror film. It was written and produced by Carlton J. Albright. The movie is about five children in a small town who, thanks to a yellow toxic cloud, end up being turned into bloodless zombies with black fingernails who microwave every living thing they put their hands on. The surviving adults of the town have to try to put a stop to them. The film is rated R for language, nudity, drug use, and gory violence.
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[edit] Taglines
- Thank God they're somebody else's!
- Something terrifying has happened to the children of Ravensback. Pray you never meet them!
- It only takes five to hold a town in TERROR!
[edit] Plot
The movie takes place in the fictional New England town of Ravensback (the state it's in is never mentioned). After a couple of workers at a local chemical plant named Jim and Slim decide to call it a day and head for the bar, a leak in one of the areas causes a yellow toxic cloud to form.
Meanwhile, a school bus is shown taking kids home. After dropping one kid off, there are only five kids left on the bus; Paul MacKenzie, Jenny Freemont, Ellen Chandler, Tommy Button, and Janet Shore. As the kids are singing songs and such, the bus ends up passing through the toxic cloud.
After Billy Hart, the local sheriff, finds the bus, now abandoned but with the engine still running and all of the kids' items still there, he radios to his deputy, Harry Timmons (who is busy flirting with Susie MacKenzie, Paul's older, but possibly underage, sister), and Molly, a older woman who runs the local general store and acts as part time dispatcher for the cops. Reluctantly, deputy Timmons goes and sets up a roadblock at the intersection of the main highway and the one road leading into town, recruiting a couple of locals with shotguns to help.
Meanwhile, Leslie Button, Tommy's mother, goes looking for him, and winds up at the cemetery near where the bus was abandoned. She finds the bus driver dead and burned up, and soon after Tommy comes up to her to hug her. When they embrace, Leslie suddenly starts screaming while yellow steam comes from Tommy's hands, then Leslie starts to look charbroiled and eventually ends up a similar corpse to the bus driver. Meanwhile, Tommy just lets go of her and moves on.
Later, Ellen Chandler is seen sneaking through the woods near a road where John Freemont, the main character and the father of Jenny, is working on his car. Sheriff Hart stops to give him a lift home. Ellen, after watching them unnoticed from the woods, decides to move along and ends up going home, where she meets her mother, Rita, at the door. She runs out to Ellen's outstretched arms and embraces her...and ends up paying for it. Then her dad, Bob, comes to the door and is shocked at what he finds. Ellen just turns around and holds out her arms again for him, but he backs away from her into the house while she follows.
Paul MacKenzie comes home and scares his sister. Then he starts walking towards her with his arms out, but she keeps backing away and smaking him in the face, trying to snap him out of whatever he was in. They wind up in the workroom part of the house where, off-camera, she gets it from him, then Paul's father, Cyrus, gets it too after discovering him and her body.
As John and Billy are driving, they stop when they find Janet Shore in the road just standing there, apparently pale-faced and stunned. They are able to get her into the car and start to get her home. Janet had not yet turned into the zombie the rest of the kids are when they find her, but does so sometime during the ride (her fingernails are shown turning black), and after they stop, she goes after Sheriff Hart. He is able to dodge her, and she simply gets out of the car and gets away.
Eventually Ellen, Tommy, and Paul wind up meeting up and continue walking around together. They are discovered by deputy Timmons, who radios in the discovery, but is soon after roasted to death by one or all of them. Then the three converge on the general store where Molly, in sheer bliss, runs out to hug them...and you know the rest.
Meanwhile, John and Billy are checking out other homes in the town, finding the occupants dead in much the same way. Upon enough of these discoveries, they head to John's home where his pregnant wife, Cathy, and his younger son, Clarkie, are. They arrive and are relieved to see they're alright, but John doesn't want to tell her much; just orders her around.
As they're in the house, all five kids come around and are simply wandering around, converging on the adults once they're in sight. Jenny tries to hug Cathy, but John pulls her away in time. Paul gets on top of the house, and is let in through the window by Clarkie (who doesn't know what happened to him, and in fact, would've been just like them had he not stayed home from school sick that day). Once in, they both play a quiet game of tag, and after Clarkie hides in his closet, Paul goes in for him and the inevitable happens.
From outside and inside, Billy tries shooting the kids one by one with his pistol, but they would just fall down from the impact of the bullet, then get right back up and continue. Cathy, still not knowing what has happened to the kids, knocks Billy out for shooting at them. She also discovers Clarkie's roasted remains, and tells John, who goes upstairs and puts Clarkie's body in his bed, tearfully.
Suddenly Paul tries to come after them all, and by instinct, Billy picks up a replica samurai sword and, like going through butter, chops off both of Paul's hands at the same time, and he simply falls to the ground dead, while the fingernails on his severed hands turn back to normal. Ellen also tries to break into the house through one of their windows, and gets the hand she used to break the window cut off, causing her to fall to her apparent death. Then Billy and John go out, sword in tow, to find the rest of them. The other three, Tommy, Janet, and Jenny, converge in the upper level of the barn on the property, where they are found by John and Billy and, despite Jenny's pleas to John, are promptly dismembered and killed. After that, they both walk out tired and beat. While John collapses to the ground outsode the barn, Billy goes to his car to radio for somebody...anybody. While he's doing that, we learn that cutting off only one of Ellen's hands didn't kill her, as she rises up from the back seat, grabs Billy by the neck, and roasts him to death. John hears Billy's screaming and runs over with the sword to finish the job on Ellen. Then he flings the sword in the bushes in disgust, and collapses next to Billy's corpse, tired and upset, and ends up falling asleep there.
The next morning, Cathy yells out to John that "it's time", and he wakes up and runs frantically into the house to help her deliver what would've been their third child. While we hear them both trying to deliver the baby, the camera pans over all of the dead bodies (except Clarkie's) showing Sheriff Hart's corpse, and all five of the unfortunate children laying there peacefully. After the baby is delivered, and John and Cathy finish talking, John goes wide eyed as he discovers his newborn child has black fingernails.
[edit] Cast
- Martin Shakar John Freemont
- Gil Rogers Sheriff Billy Hart
- Gale Garnett Cathy Freemont
- Shannon Bolin Molly
- Tracy Griswold Deputy Harry Timmons
- Joy Glaccum Suzie MacKenzie
- Jeptha Evans Paul MacKenzie
- Clara Evans Jenny Freemont
- Sarah Albright Ellen Chandler
- Nathanael Albright Tommy Button
- Julie Carrier Janet Shore
- Michelle Le Mothe Dr. Joyce Gould
- Edward Terry Hank
- Peter Maloney Frank
- Jessie Abrams Clarkie Freemont
- Rita Montone Dee Dee Shore
- John P. Codiglia Jackson Lane
- Martin Brennan Sanford Butler-Jones
- J.D. Clarke Jim (hardhat)
- James Klawin Slim (hardhat)
- Arthur Chase Cyrus MacKenzie
- Suzanne Barnes Leslie Button
- Diane Deckard Rita Chandler
- David Platt Chauffeur
- Ray Delmolino Bus driver
- Michael Carrier Bob Chandler
- X. Ben Fakackt Newscaster voice
[edit] Trivia
- This movie, surprisingly, was one of the highest grossing movies of 1980.
- One drive-in theater in Tucson, Arizona had a 6-mile traffic backup on the film's opening weekend.
- The sound made when the zombified children are killed is made from the sound of cats in heat.
- Most of the actors and actresses in this movie are unknowns. In fact, this movie was the first and last role of four of the five children who acted in it.
- This movie is one of only a few movies with no music whatsoever playing over the end credits. Another is the 1979 film The China Syndrome.
[edit] Plot holes and goofs
- It is not explained why the bus driver, who is just as human as the kids were, was not zombified as well.
- None of the landline telephones work, but it is never explained why.
- When Paul kills Clarkie, we don't hear him scream, despite the fact the adults were all in the house when it happened.
- None of the victims' clothing show any signs of burning despite the childrens' hands often being on a piece of clothing and the victims eventually becoming charbroiled.
