I actually wrote a blurb about this a few months back after
acquiring the Video Treasures edition of this tape. I had gone out of
my way to find a copy, as it had been tirelessly recommended to me by people
who swore that it was a great movie. There is no shortage of glowing reviews
online which praised the film as being innovative for its period, and while
some of the violence is absurd for the time, this movie is otherwise a total
piece of shit that probably largely enjoys popularity on an ironic level due to
Leif Garrett’s participation. I guess that gives it a booster of kitsch, but as
a piece of horror cinema this is an otherwise forgettable outing that had been
done before even at that point.
The whole mess begins when a bus accidentally rolls down a
hillside and unleashes a pack of mentally ill pre-teen passengers, who then
make the trek to a snowy cabin in the woods, where they eventually start to terrorize
a group of unlikable protagonists. What’s funny is, I can give you the film’s
plot in one sentence, and yet it somehow drags on mercilessly before it
actually gets to the meaty core. There are a few quirky sequences during the
first half of the film that tease your interest, such as a cat fight with some slivers of nudity, but it's mostly dry and plodding after that. Leif Garrett actually turns in a decent performance as one of
the deranged kids under delusions of a Fauntleroy-styled Hollywood stardom, so he does bring legitimate worth to the production. Still,
this thing is splitting at the seams with horrible creative decisions,
production mismanagement, and shockingly bad editing. In particular, the first
on screen death, which is stretched out via slow motion and drably colored, is a
harbinger of terribleness to come, and is quite possibly one of the worst
things I’ve ever seen committed to celluloid.
If this film is innovative in any sense, it’s probably in
that it is one of the first slasher-style films to feature protagonists you don’t
like. And it’s not that they’re despicable either and you want to see them die.
They’re just a bunch of alcoholic, middle-aged leather bags that are almost on
the brink of throwing a key party. They’re just very mild and dull. Meanwhile,
the kids are only slightly more interesting but difficult to really appreciate
because they seem like a bunch of pretentious theater fags. Eventually, the death count just sort of erupts
and they bump all the characters off in rapid succession, so even if you could
manage to give a shit about either batch of characters, there’s no room to
build suspense.
The film does have one gold deposit, though, and it comes in
the shape of albino actress Gail Smale, who plays the homicidal habit wearing
nun child. She is conceptually and visually compelling, but it is Smale who
really makes the character remarkable. She is not just good by comparison to
the other crap she’s book ended by, but rather she is just legitimately good
here. The character could have probably carried a feature of her own.
The stories surrounding the production are undoubtedly more
interesting that the film itself, but also explain why it was such a mess.
Director Sean MacGregor was ousted from his seat due to incompetence and
replaced by venerable producer David Sheldon. Most of the film had to be
scrapped, but when they did go back to film they were forced to use an entirely
different location. Ironically, MacGregor did some time in a mental health
facility following his experience on set. There were also some creepy rumors
that MacGregor was sleeping with the underage Smale at the time.
I haven't found a copy of the Media Home Entertainment release, but I was surprised by the quality of the Video Treasures release. It's not great, but not as bad as some of their other releases. Still, this is a disappointing mess that makes something like "The Children" seem coherent and very credible by comparison.
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