The Infamous Horror Hidden Gem With The Craziest Villains Ever

The film opens with two workers leaving their shifts at a chemical plant near the small New England village of Ravensback. After they depart, one of the pipes begins leaking fluid, resulting in a mist that slowly moves from the facility until it settles in a low spot on a rural road. A school bus carrying five children passes through the mysterious fog and is later found abandoned at the side of the road by a local Sheriff’s patrol.

The children from the bus are missing and presumed kidnapped. When one of their mothers investigates the area near the bus, she sees her son wandering through a cemetery at the side of the road. After stumbling over the body of the dead bus driver (who looks like he’d been cooked in a microwave), she catches and embraces her son, only to have his touch scorch her to death.

The children from the bus are missing and presumed kidnapped. When one of their mothers investigates the area near the bus, she sees her son wandering through a cemetery at the side of the road. After stumbling over the body of the dead bus driver (who looks like he’d been cooked in a microwave), she catches and embraces her son, only to have his touch scorch her to death.

As it turns out, the children who went through the toxic plume on that ill-fated bus ride home have been transformed into horrid little creatures that burn everything they touch. Their black fingernails are the tell-tale sign that they’ve been infected by whatever chemical leaked from the plant. As they burn their way through several townsfolk, it becomes apparent that they are impervious to bullets and that the only way to stop them is to hack off their hands.

It’s not high art, but The Children sure is a fun film to watch. The low-budget production generated some great special effects, notably the sequences of the adults getting nuked by the children’s fingertips. The acting certainly didn’t yield anything worthy of the red carpet either, but the cast of mostly unknowns did well enough to sell the story and their fear of the murderous little tykes.

I’ve seen films that have given greater chills, but there’s something quite unsettling about the pre-teens in The Children. Maybe it’s their zombie-like gait when they’re preying on their next victim. Or maybe it’s the look of glee on their faces when they capture someone in their arms, their smiles never wavering as they burn a grown-up to death.

The Children received many negative reactions from critics after its release, but its campiness and scare factor managed to garner a decent fan base in the early 1980s when it was released on home video. In 2005, the team at Troma secured the rights to the film and re-released it for its 25th anniversary. In 2018, distributor Vinegar Syndrome produced a Blu-ray version.

REVIEW SCORE

The Children is scary as it is silly, and while the kids in it are utterly terrifying, it’s not a film to be taken with a large amount of seriousness. It’s a great break from the slasher films of the era, abandoning the solo killer approach of Halloween and Friday the 13th, and instead has a kill count that’s just as fun but from multiple monsters. It’s a fun watch and a solid 3.0/5.0 stars.

You can stream The Children for free with Tubi, or rent it On Demand from Prime.