The Children (1980 film)
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| The Children | |
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| Directed by | Max Kalmanowicz |
| Produced by | Max Kalmanowicz, Carlton J. Albright |
| Written by | Carlton J. Albright, Edward Terry |
| Starring | Martin Shakar, Gil Rogers, Gale Garnett |
| Music by | Harry Manfredini |
| Cinematography | Barry Abrams |
| Distributed by | World Northal (USA, theatrical), Rhino Video (video) |
| Release date(s) | 1980 |
| Running time | 93 min |
| Country |  USA |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
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.
The film is currently being distributed by Troma Entertainment.
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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
Two maintenance employees of a nuclear power plant are conducting an outdoor safety check when they become anxious to leave. Eager to get to the local bar and have a drink, they skip part of the test. Unfortunately a large buildup of pressure causes a yellow toxic gas to leak from one of the pipes. The gas forms into a large cloud that drifts across the ground.
Nearby, a school bus carrying six students home from school is driving along the road. Cathy Freemont (Gale Garnett) passes the bus and waves to the children, when suddenly the large cloud of toxic gas drifts into the road. Both vehicles drive through it.
Cathy arrives home, but the school bus is detained somewhere. Sheriff Billy Hart (Gil Rogers) finds the bus haphazardly parked along the side of the road, apparently abandoned in a hurry, with no sign of the children or the bus driver. Hart pays a visit to the home of Tommy Button, one of the children on the bus. Tommy lives with his mother, Leslie (Suzanne Barnes), who lives with her female lover, Dr. Joyce Gould (Michelle Le Mothe). Leslie is dazed and heavily medicated, while Dr. Gould is hostile toward the sheriff for no good reason. She accompanies him to the site of the abandoned bus, where she finds Tommy's things on board. When Hart departs, Joyce goes to walk home when she spots a figure standing in a nearby cemetery. She recognizes it as Tommy, just as it disappears among the gravestones. She rushes up into the cemetery, where she stumbles across the horribly mutilated body of the bus driver; he seems to have been burned from within his clothes, his flesh horribly charred and disfigured. Suddenly Tommy appears behind Joyce, his fingernails black. Relieved, she sweeps him into a reassuring hug, suddenly screaming in agony as her flesh begins to char. Tommy's hands roast Joyce alive and her body falls beside that of the bus driver.
The five children have been transformed into smiling zombies by the cloud of radioactive vapors, intent on burning alive anybody who comes into their path. They move through the town, visiting their parents and families, most of whom are caricatures of bad parenting. Little Janet Shore's parents are swingers who don't even know or care where their daughter is. Paul MacKenzie's sister is a slutty blonde who is more interested in bedding the dopey town deputy. Cathy Freemont is pregnant with her third child, yet she still gives in to smoking in times of stress. John Freemont (Martin Shakar) joins the sheriff in the hunt for the children, trying to keep from Cathy that their daughter Jenny is among the missing children.
John and Sherrif Hart find charred bodies all over the town of Ravensback, the handiwork of the children. Nobody suspects that the children are behind the deaths, and everybody makes the mistake of hugging the kids when they come across them. John and Hart make the connection about the killer children and John rushes home to protect Cathy and the youngest Freemont child, Clarkie, who escaped the poisonous gas because he was at home with a cold. Along the way, they encounter Janet Shore, who is dazed like the other zombies, but apparently still human--her fingernails are normal. They take her along in the back of Hart's squad car.
Meanwhile at the Freemont house, the zombified Jenny attempts to return home, and Cathy joyfully rushes out to greet her, but John intervenes and Jenny scorches his hand before he can get away from her.
John and Hart barricade the house and start firing on the children, who have congregated in the yard outside the house. Bullets have no effect on the zombies, which get back up and continue to walk around. While the adults are distracted, one of the killer children sneaks into an upstairs window of the house and fries Clarkie to death. It then tries to kill Cathy, but John attacks it with a sword, slashing out and chopping off its hands. It instantly dies, howling in pain.
Armed with a machete, John hunts the children, cornering them in a barn, until he has hacked most of them to death. Unfortunately, he forgets about Janet Shore, whose fingernails have changed to black. She chars Hart to death, lurching at him out of the back seat of his car. John hacks Janet to death in retaliation.
John is distracted by the cries of Cathy from inside of the house--the baby is being born. As the sun rises, the sounds of Cathy giving birth to her child fill the house. The baby is born and all seems well, until John notices it nursing at Cathy's breast, its fingernails black.
[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
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- 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. Gil Rogers (Billy) appeared on daytime soaps Guiding Light and All My Children, and Gale Garnett (Cathy) had a hit record in 1964 with "We'll Sing in the Sunshine."
[edit] Plot holes and goofs
- It is not explained why Fred the bus driver, who is just as human as the kids were, was not zombified as well. (It is possible that the toxic cloud zombified only children. Cathy drove into the cloud ahead of the schoolbus and was unaffected; her unborn baby, however, was zombified. Also, during the news report that John and Sheriff Hart watch, it is revealed that many children in the Tri State Area have disappeared and were likely zombified.)
- It is never explained why none of the landline telephones work.
