Child's Play 2

Director: John Lafia (1990)

Starring: Alex Vincent, Jenny Agutter, Gerrit Graham

Find it: IMDB

As is bound to happen when you go around telling people that a possessed children's toy tried to kill you, Mother Barclay is immediately committed following the events of Child's Play. Andy (Vincent) is put into care, sent to live with Jenny Agutter and her husband for the duration. You would have thought that ensuring that the kid is sent to a Good Guy free household would be top of the social services' priority, but apparently not: the Simpsons just so happen to have a Good Guy of their very own just chilling in a cupboard. This gives the recently resurrected (again) Chucky the perfect way to infiltrate the house.

Which is a shame, because that spells curtains for Jenny Agutter, and I really like Jenny Agutter. It was her performance in Logan's Run which was instrumental in my first noticing girls (that and Catwoman in Batman Returns and, um, Wendy in Disney's Peter Pan). Jenny Agutter abuse aside, Child's Play 2 is a great slasher sequel. Andy remains the worst thing about the series, but he is sidelined enough by the rebellious Kyle (Christine Elise, looking as though she's escaped from a Nightmare on Elm Street sequel) to be less annoying than he was in the first. While still being quite annoying.

The plan remains much the same as the first - Chucky wants Andy's body, and won't rest until he's taken it. His being constantly distracted by a compulsion to kill everyone around the kid gets in the way though - if he was to just get it over and done with, nice and quickly, the film would be about half as long. Brain of a plastic doll, too.

There's more gore, more swearing and more great voice work from Brad Dourif. It's as good a sequel as A Nightmare on Elm Street: Part 2 was to its own predecessor - good, but a tad derivative. Child's Play 2 is less gay than the former (although there is a scene in which kinky Chucky straps little Andy to a bed). Savour it, for Child's Play 2 is the last genuinely good Child's Play film. It's all downhill from here.

Child's Play

Director: Tom Holland (1988)
Starring: Brad Dourif, Catherine Hicks, Alex Vincent
Find it: IMDB

Well, if you will insist upon buying your children birthday presents from a tramp in an alleyway. A hard-up single mother (Hicks) buys her awful son (Vincent) the next big thing - a $100 doll, cutting corners by buying it from a bearded tramp who probably stole it or found it in a pool of blood. Any money Karen might have saved by buying Chucky cheap will ultimately end up going towards the cleaning bill, since the creepy little bastard wastes little time in trashing her house, trying to kill her son and making everyone bleed everywhere. Buying from tramps - it's a false economy. That's why I never buy The Big Issue.*

We all know the plot. After all, Child's Play is a minor classic by now. Still, even today, it's surprisingly effective, and the moment Brad Dourif starts doing his angry Chucky voice is still chilling. There's no hiding the ridiculousness of the premise, but by constantly having Chucky on the move, or stabbing something, the film always manages to stay just on the right side of camp. Chucky still has the power to scare. Well, he doesn't scare me, but I won't exactly laugh in your face if you confess a fear of the little one to me*.

The real villain of the piece is Andy Barclay, a selfish little shit who gets his mother's best friend (and eventually his mother... and everyone else) murdered thanks to his own greed. Child's Play is a great argument for not buying your children what they think they want when they ask for it. You'll get what you're given and like it. Terrible taste in toys, too. What, Batman or Star Wars action figures not good enough for you, asshole? Really, it's like Jingle All the Way, gone terribly wrong. Forget what I just said; you know who the real villain of the piece is? Consumerism. Child's Play is a damning indictment of our consumerist culture.

Child's Play has aged impressively. The numerous sequels and his popularity have dented Chucky's power somewhat, but this remains an admirably shocking, nasty old slasher film. Wanna play? Oh go on then, Chucky, you twisted my arm.

*Not true.

Come out and Play

Director: Makinov (2012)
Starring: Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Vinessa Shaw
Find it: IMDB

Not just any remake of Who Can Kill a Child? It's Makinov's remake of Who Can Kill a Child? I have no idea who Makinov is, but since the opening credits refer to this specifically as Makinov's Come out and Play, in great big capital letters, he must be important. Like Madonna, or Adele or Fergie. On the evidence of all those people I just named, there seems to be a direct correlation between folks I don't like and folks who don't have a last name. Apart from Batman. He's cool, in my book.

The thing is, Makinov's Come Out and Play is almost exactly like Serrador's Who Can Kill a Child? It looks good and sounds incredible (it's one of the best-sounding horror movies I've ever seen) but plays like a scene-for-scene remake of its predecessor. If you're going to market a remake as being your version of a film, you had better make sure it's damn distinctive. The only way Come out and Play could be distinctive is if you've never seen Who Can Kill a Child? And even then, The Children did it better.

A young couple expecting their first child (Bachrach and Shaw) holiday at a remote Mexican island where the streets are mostly deserted and children roam, looking suspiciously like the birds from off've The Birds. It's not long before Beth and Francis realise that something is very much amiss. Remember that episode of Star Trek? It's like that, except really gory. As with the earlier movie, the best scene is the one in which Francis finally loses his shit and attacks the village children with a plank of wood. It's only the scenes of gore and violence that manage to better Serrador's film, which are genuinely cruel and nasty at times. Well, battering children to death with a plank of wood is a bit of a taboo.

In spite of its good looks, vicious kills, sharp direction and fancy acting (Hills Have Eyes victim Vinessa Shaw shines) Come out and Play is a waste of time. If you've not seen the original movie, I'm sure you'll love it. If you have, however, it's a vapid disappointment. Come out and play? Thanks, but, um, I'm washing my hair. Or something.

Paranormal Activity 4

Director: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman (2012)
Starring: Katie Featherston, Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively
Find it: IMDB

At what stage does something stop being Paranormal Activity and become a Regular Occurrence? All the activity has led to this, apparently. To be fair, Paranormal Activity 4 does head in a slightly different direction to the first three films, its threat being of a slightly different nature to which we're used to seeing. Paranormal Activity 4 is more of a spooky child movie than it is a haunted house flick.

But, in the worlds of meme Captain Picard, why the fuck, at this point, are they still recording everything they do? Aside from a little football match at the start of the film, barely any attempt is made to explain why young Alex (Newton) is recording her every move. Never before has the series' gimmick seemed so stretched and aimless.

Creepy kid Robbie (Brady Allen) and his mother move in across the street from tweenage Alex and her family. When his mother is mysteriously taken ill, Robbie comes to stay with the family. Unfortunately, the scary little shit has brought his Invisible Friend with him. Cue things flying around the house, doors slamming shut, people levitating out of beds and the whole family flying up and down stairs in hilarious Paranormal Activity style. I haven't been scared by a Paranormal Activity since the first one, but this fourth instalment isn't even remotely worrying.

There are some new ideas which work well though, particularly those which employ an Xbox's Motion Capture facilities to catch a glimpse of the demons which stalk Alex's home and the children in it. With several laptops and an Xbox all switched on at once, this family's reliance on standby mode is the reason we have global warming, people. Switch your shit off! Unfortunately, most everything else is laugh out loud funny. Alex levitating out of her bed raises a smile while the family's repeatedly being flung around the house like rag dolls is just hilarious. My favourite part of the Paranormal Activity films is the bit in which unseen forces drag the protagonists around the place; Paranormal Acivity 4 is like a spooky version of You've Been Framed in that respect.  

It's all a bit of a non-event, culminating in a reasonably interesting cliffhanger which probably won't be followed up on in the inevitable sequel. But oh, as long as they have people falling up and down the stairs some more, I'm on board for that.

Who Can Kill A Child?

Director: Narciso Ibanez Serrador (1976)

Starring: Lewis Fiander, Prunella Ransome, Antonio Iranzo

Find it: IMDB

The mother of all 'horrible children' films. Village of the Damned and The Omen are more widely recognised, but the children in those movies are far too polite for my liking. Who Can Kill a Child? captures the inherent creepiness of children like few other genre films. Its brats are recognisably foul and horrible, whereas I would gladly put up with an apocalypse in exchange for some Village of the Damned or Damien children. You wouldn't find Damien rioting in Footlocker or the Village of the Damned raiding their local Tesco. Who Can Kill a Child? is an accurate depiction of a society overrun with bloodthirsty children.

Tom (Fiander) and pregnant wife Evelyn (Ransome) travel to the remote Spanish island of Almanzora, where they find the streets deserted and the buildings empty. The only life they encounter belongs to the island's rude and giggly children. Obviously Tom and Evelyn never saw that episode of Star Trek with the planet of children, since alarm bells don't start ringing until they're in terrible danger.

The hot, deserted streets of Almanzora make a great setting for this atmospheric, gripping bit of paedophobic horror. Despite it being mildly creepy in places, the hysterical overacting tends to make it a difficult piece to take seriously. Prunella Ransome's screaming and shrieking during the later scenes is a little hard to take, whilst Lewis Fiander's Tom is a remarkable tit. Sure, it's the 1970s, but his condescending attitude towards his wife will have you rooting for the children. Neglecting to tell her about the terrible danger she's in, he wanders off several times, leaving her with only a local crying dad for company. And while we're at it, I hardly think it's responsible to be dragging a woman with freckles like that to a place like Almanzora.

Despite the worrying title, Who Can Kill a Child? is a lot of fun. It's like a cross between The Birds and Night of the Living Dead. It predicts Twilight by over thirty years in one utterly fantastic scene, and the ending is gloriously demented. Sure it's called Who Can Kill a Child, but I never expected to see the film break out a machine gun. By the time Tom began literally beating the children off with a stick, I was in love with Who Can Kill a Child? It's the perfect school holiday antidote.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Director: Lynne Ramsay (2011)

Starring: Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, John C. Reilly

Find it: IMDB

Spoiler: nobody talks about Kevin. Maybe if they'd stopped and said something like "our son is a bit of a twat. You should smack him more often, John C. Reilly," or, "Kevin, stop being a cunt," some of the lad's more horrifying acts might have been averted. Or maybe if Franklin (Reilly) had told his wife something like "you know, you shouldn't tell our toddler son that you resent him. Kids tend to hold onto that shit, later in life." But nobody really ever talks about Kevin, although Eva (Swinton) is very concerned.

The titular Kevin is a serial killer in the making. It's what would have happened if Harry Morgan had bought Dexter a longbow and said, "yeah, whatever" instead of teaching him not to go around being an arsehole. Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly completely flunk the 'bringing up a psychopath' parenting class. Buying your possibly crazy son a longbow for Christmas may not be the best course of action. Why not a chainsaw or a set of kitchen knives while you're at it?

The epistolary approach of Lionel Shriver's novel is abandoned, although the film takes a very non-linear path, jumping in and out of flashbacks in its telling of a story about the most problematic of problem children. Kevin needs not so much as a naughty step but a whole naughty staircase.

It's a difficult film to watch, despite there being virtually no bloodshed or violence ever shown. Instead, it is implied through the use of meaningful colours, like a competent I Know Who Killed Me. At times it makes the artifice of the production seem evident - nothing pulls you out of a story like Tilda Swinton standing in front of a stack of tomato soup tins with 'LOOK, SUBTEXT' practically tattooed (or slathered, with tomato soup) on her forehead. I love tomato soup as much as the next fellow, but do you really need that much on the shelves at one time?

We need to talk about this supermarket's stock ordering system.

But We Need To Talk About Kevin is a powerful, disturbing piece of cinema, gifted with the most malevolent sneer I've ever seen. Kevin's snarl is an expression most parents will have seen in their time ("what do you mean, be home by nine? Ugh") but then, most parents won't be at risk of being shoved down a trash disposal system after being on its receiving end. Not that Tilda Swinton's face is anything to be sniffed at. She does a fine line in "I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed." Between her and Ezra Miller, it's no wonder John C. Reilly makes so little impact.

We Need To Talk About Kevin is fine, as long as you don't intend on having children at any point. It's scary, very well-directed and genuinely shocking. We do indeed need to talk about Kevin. Specifically, how good it is.

Summer Scars

Director: Julian Richards (2007)

Starring: Kevin Howarth, Ciaran Joyce, Amy Harvey

Find it: IMDB

Six horrible Welsh children skip school in order to fuck around in the woods on a stolen scooter. On their travels, they happen across sinister drifter Peter (Howarth) who ingratiates himself to the children by threatening bullies and acting mentally unstable in a manner that children seem to love.

Despite no budget and a cast of disgusting children, Summer Scars is a watchable cross between Stand by Me and Kidulthood. The children are incessantly unbearable, as is the movie's villain, but  there is some gold in them there Welsh hills. Not much. Maybe the equivalent of a fiver or so in change. But it's a lot more than I'd expected.

Nasty bastard Peter (Howarth) is the woodland-dwelling weirdo. At first he seems like a friendly natured sort of tramp, letting the children punch him in the face and play with his pellet gun. A bit like the training levels in Bully (Canus Canem Edit) where a tramp teaches you kung-fu skills by letting you kick the shit out of him. Only Bingo (Joyce) takes it too far, breaking Peter's not-the-face rule. One of the brats is shot up the nose with the pellet gun and all hell breaks loose. The already creepy atmosphere becomes almost unbearable when Peter starts demanding to see the kids' pubes.

It's a grim and uncomfortable tale, naturalistic in its direction and the acting. Kevin Howarth is suitably horrible as the terrible tramp. I could almost see it as a Shane Meadows film, starring the brats from Eden Lake and Paddy Considine. It's not that good, but it could have been. The children are loathsome, so it's admirable that you end up rooting for them. However, I have a very low tolerance for whining, crying children, so I still hated Summer Scars quite a lot. If they'd finished the film by killing both the children and the dangerous drifter, I would have been a happy bunny. As it is, the climax is predictable but fitting.

There's an old kids' TV show called Tracy Beaker here in England in which Ciaran Joyce plays a chavvy fuck who goes around playing 'hilarious' 'pranks' on the other kids in his orphanage. I couldn't take him at all seriously in this, playing would-be hard nut Bingo. Amy Harvey is the least irritating person in the film, and even she is fairly irritating.

Despite its considerable flaws, Summer Scars is tense, chilling and surprisingly decent. Grim as it becomes, I couldn't quite turn it off. It has an oddly magnetic quality.

I wasn't scarred by the film itself. That poster, on the other hand...

Who Can Kill A Child

The second (We Are What We Are being the first) of my articles as published in Golf Sale magazine (available from all good retailers. And if they don't sell it then they're obviously not a good retailer, eh). This one is about paedophobia. Which is not what you think it is. I would urge you to buy a copy, but in lieu of that, you can read it here.

This August, England erupted with madness. A nation of prepubescents suddenly decided to re-enact the plot of The Crazies using their own streets as a stage. No bag of Basmati rice was left unturned and suddenly the library was the only safe place to be. Panic on the streets of London, panic on the streets of Birmingham. Dublin, Dundee and Humberside seemed okay though. Sorry, that was both lazy and (given that Mr. Morrissey is hardly in vogue nowadays) in bad taste. But at least I didn't predict a riot, unlike half of facebook.

Watching the news, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd accidentally switched onto 28 Days Later or the Dawn Of The Dead remake, with various sources crying “Armageddon” and demanding that the military rock up and start shooting. There were a lot of people of diverse ethnic and social backgrounds, but one couldn't help but notice a lot of children and youngsters. 22% of the rioters weren't even old enough to drink. I suppose that would explain why Birmingham looters hoofed the window of a sweet shop in. A whopping 52.1% were aged 18 – 24 (thanks, The Telegraph, for turning this into 8 Out Of 10 Cats). Suddenly, a whole slew of movies proved themselves remarkably relevant and prescient. Hug these hoodies, Cameron.

Cinema has always enjoyed turning our children against us. It's a disturbing concept; your own children coming for you, bloody garden trowel in hand. And as anyone who has ever witnessed a child at play can attest, the young mind has a great potential for cruelty. When I was a child, I threw a Pepsi can at a swan's head. Just because.

Amongst the earliest kiddy horror flicks are The Bad Seed and Village of the Damned. Neither are particularly scary, certainly not nowadays, but the Village people presented us with classic blonde hair blue eyes movie imagery, and Bad Seed has its diminutive killer told that there are special pink electric chairs for little girls like her. Supernanny's naughty step, eat your heart out.

There's a little girl zombie in Night Of The Living Dead, who trowels her mother to death, and a little boy zombie in Pet Semetary. That little sod dispatches the great Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne) with a scalpel and an equally horrid cat. The idea is chilling, turning diseased child against devoted parent. Could you kill your own child come zombification? Not unless you go for Burial Ground: Nights Of Terror. The “child” in that film is played by a middle-aged dwarf and is infinitely more horrifying than any ruddy zombie.

The most famous bits of supernatural brat horror are classics like The Omen and The Exorcist. In both cases, it's the Devil's fault, with Damien being The Antichrist and Regan possessed by some sweary manner of entity. Both stand the test of time with genuinely unsettling scenes and potfuls of pea soup to pass around. Rosemary's Baby follows suit, with poor Rosemary giving birth to Satan's seed. Iffy eyes, apparently. It's easier, I suppose, to blame the Devil or Pacman or Child's Play for your horrible children than it is your own bad parenting.

Doing what it says on the tin is The Children, a gritty Brit flick in which holidaying adults find their toddlers suddenly turn against them. There's stomach churning violence involving a sledge, and surprisingly good acting from not only the children but a girl from Hollyoaks too. A virus might be responsible, but the film shows enough crap parenting and videogaming to cast doubt in our minds.

There's no sign of viruses, zombies or Satan in A Clockwork Orange, Eden Lake, Cherry Tree Lane or Ils, just horrible children. I would use Eden Lake to advertise condoms. It has Kelly Reilly and Michael Fassbender as a lovely young couple terrorised by a gang of truly horrible children – including a slimy Jack O' Connell and Thomas Turgoose. It emerges that the parents are as nasty as their children, and leaves you feeling sad and dirty inside. Ils is essentially the same, but more French and less cruel. Cherry Tree Lane takes the battle onto the adults' turf, being a home invasion movie in which the yobs steal Rachael Blake's duct tape, thieve her biscuits and critique her bourgeois DVD collection. They're waiting to give her son a kicking, only he takes ages to arrive. It's almost existential, like Waiting For Godot with hoodies. It's a thoroughly depressing movie, and makes me never want to answer my front door again.

F turns its hoodies into ninjas, silently dispatching the movie's ineffectual adults in increasingly violent and cruel ways. It's not very original or scary, although it does show how scared us Brits have become of our own young. I've seen all of these movies and more, but I find myself far more troubled by the likes of Kidulthood and those who would attempt to glamourise not speaking properly.

And you certainly don't want to go adopting anyone else's spawn, if Case 39 and Orphan are anything to go by. In the former, Rene Zellweger picks up a spooky child who ends up having Ian McShane murdered by animals. All she wants though, is to be loved, so I wound up sympathising with her. The latter is a thoroughly unpleasant movie in which the adoptee winds up being a thirty-year-old Russian crone. Both demonic daughters end up in the bottom of a lake, rejected by a mother they aggressively loved too much. Be they your own children or someone else's, cinema has taught us that children are horrible little fuckers who are not to be trusted.

The two most soul destroying books you'll ever read feature young children as villains. Mendal Johnson's Let's Go Play At The Adams' sees a gang of brats hold their babysitter hostage and keep her that way for the forseeable future. It's a visceral, miserable book. These children can't be reasoned with, and nor can those in Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door (subject to an equally depressing adaptation). The children are amoral and alien, with no thoughts other than childish destructiveness. Like they would wings off a fly, the children tear the victims of Adams' and Girl Next Door to shreds. Adams' Barbara hasn't a hope of escaping because she doesn't have that childish amorality. I'd recommend both books, especially if you enjoy crying and feeling sad.

In the worst case scenario, we'll end up with Children Of The Corn, where not even Linda Hamilton stands a chance against a society of ill-behaved little bastards. Who Could Kill A Child? Visit the Mediterranean and you'll find a small island where the kids have murdered their parents. Travel into space, and you'll find a planet populated only by children. This was one of the best episodes of Star Trek, with the crew of the Enterprise trapped on a planet full of hostile children. Captain Kirk saves the day by flirting his way out of trouble.

With their Sith hoodies, disgusting trainers and horrible taste in music, our kids have become the great 'other' – inspiration to horror writers and filmmakers everywhere. HP Lovecraft was scared of black people. We're terrified by our own offspring. The Daily Mail doesn't like either. Maybe it's because you're not allowed to punch your kids anymore. There's a feeling (mostly from The Daily Mail and those who read it) that since smacking and national service were aborted, children have grown out of control and become a completely different entity. Maybe that's true and maybe it's not. But all I know is, some of the most disturbing films I've seen have starred children.

To be fair, have you seen Justin Bieber? Children are far weirder than anything Cthulu. Never mind looting or rioting, I've seen Never Say Never.* Who could kill a child? Well, maybe that one...

* Statement made for comedic purposes. I have NEVER seen Never Say Never, and in this case I certainly can.

The Wake Wood

Director: David Keating (2011)

Starring: Aiden Gillen, Eva Birthistle, Timothy Spall

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Pet Sematary, Hammer Horror style. When their daughter is killed by a savage dog, Alice (Birthistle) and Patrick (Gillen) relocate to the little Irish village of Wake Wood. In true Wicker Man fashion, Wake Wood is populated by shifty-eyed hippies and a sinister fellow with dodgy dress sense - in this case, Timothy Spall's Arthur. Where Christopher Lee was more concerned with burning virginal coppers in his Wicker Man, Arthur offers the parents an opportunity to see their little girl again. They've discovered a way to resurrect the dead for three days only.

Things seem to be going well at first - their little Alice is back, sans doggy chomp marks - but Arthur and Wake Wood's fellow villagers seem to suspect something is amiss. Cue violence, Timothy Spall looking worried and more than a little undue violence towards a dog. Although if my daughter had recently been murdered by a dog, the last thing I'd be doing is letting her hang around with more dogs. Animals, in The Wake Wood are responsible for a lot of the gore and violence. There's the initial scenes in which Alice is munched on by a dog, and then a poor unsuspecting farmer Giles type is squashed by a cow. The Wake Wood is like a scary version of Emmerdale.

The Wake Wood, like Let Me In and The Resident is a fine horror movie but nothing like the standards as set by old Hammer. It's another step in the right direction, but at the moment there seems to be something missing. Maybe the budgets are too high, the American influence too obvious... it's too contemporary, perhaps. Otherwise, it's perfectly enjoyable, plenty chilly and done with class and style.

Red

Director: Trygve Allister Diesen, Lucky McKee (2008)

Starring: Brian Cox, Tom Sizemore, Noel Fisher

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Stars Brian Cox as an ass-kicking old man. But this is not the Red you're thinking of. This is a far more subdued affair, with Cox quietly mourning the death of his beloved doggy Red and not making moves on any Dame Helen Mirrens.

Cox plays Avery Ludlow, a reclusive widower who lives a quiet life of fishing and relaxing with dog Red. During one fateful fishing trip, Ludlow and Red happen across a trio of delinquent youths who attempt to rob the old man. Out of spite, the most vicious of the kids (Fisher) shoots Red dead in the head. Seeking justice, Ludlow finds the boys' respective parents and appeals for them to do the right thing. The brats deny everything and the parents simply dismiss poor Ludlow. Still though, the old chap doesn't go as Harry Brown as one might expect. This is no average old-bloke-on-the-rampage movie.

Which is refreshing. I'd signed up to see Brian Cox blast ten shades of bollocks out of some hoodies, but what I got was something more fulfilling and even a little sweet. Ludlow, unlike Michael Caine or Charles Bronson isn't out for revenge; there's a difference between justice and vengeance, see, and Red realises this. So whilst there is violence, you'll find it avoidable at every turn. Ludlow is persistent and forceful, but not out for blood. At least, not initially.

If ever there was a brat to deserve the Could You Kill A Child treatment (answer: yes), it's Noel Fisher's Danny. Danny is a classic Jack Ketchum villain. With no redeeming features and easy to hate, he makes it very easy for us to root for Ludlow. And he's backed up by an even more despicable, sleazy Tom Sizemore. Robert Englund pops up in a surprising cameo as a sheepish father. Red is brilliantly acted, even by the kids and dogs. Red is the exception to that one rule about kids and animals.

It's one of the few Jack Ketchum novels I've not read (it's on my to-do list) but surprises with its subtlety and restraint. Even the emotion - I expected to be weeping like I did at Jurassic Bark - holds back a little. Which is good. I don't think I could handle this all over again:

At first I thought that Cox's Avery didn't seem to be particularly broken up by the death of Red, but you'll understand why over time. There's far more going on than the death of a dog. Shocking revelations are made. There's a fist-pumpin' moment with a baseball bat. Robert Englund wears a vest.

Red is the best adaptation of a Jack Ketchum novel so far. Dog lovers though, beware.

Case 39

Director: Christian Alvart (2009)

Starring: Renee Zellweger, Jodelle Ferland, Ian McShane

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Shockingly not shit and not at all what I thought it would be, Case 39 pits Bridget Jones against a magic child in a spooky thriller that, in terms of quality and content, is somewhere inbetween The Unborn and Drag Me To Hell. Zellweger plays social worker Emily, so taken with abused charge Lilith (Ferland) that she's driven to adopt the mite. It turns out that the brat might have been abused for good reason though, as bad things soon start to happen. Bad things include Doug Bradley and Ian McShane being hassled by animals and poor Renee forced to run down rainy streets in nowt but her underwear. It may interest you to know that she isn't wearing her big Bridget Jones pants in this movie.

As big studio horror movies go, it's a better, darker piece than you might expect and is ably supported by the ever reliable Bradley and McShane (who are to this movie what Gary Oldman and Idris Elba were to The Unborn). Zellweger is fine. It's a better film than that Chainsaw Massacre she screwed up, anyway. Once it kicks off (with a child and a gas oven, no less), Case 39 provides plenty of creepy scenes, some good kill sequences and an enjoyable showdown between mother and demonic child. That said, I did find myself feeling more sorry for the 'evil' brat than I did Whiny Zellweger. After all, it seems like Lilith just wants to be loved (she says as much too). A child is for life, not just Christmas. Even the demonic ones.

Cherry Tree Lane

Director: Paul Andrew Williams (2010)

Starring: Rachael Blake, Tom Butcher, Jumayn Hunter, Ashley Chin

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon

Like Waiting For Godot crossed with Eden Lake or Funny Games, Paul Andrew Williams' latest movie pits hoodies against suburbanites and thankfully perpetuates the director's spot-on batting average. His London To Brighton was a heartfelt, gripping drama that marked him as talent to watch. The Cottage, whilst annoying critics who felt it beneath his powers, was a superb mean little comedy-horror that (for scare fans at least) outshone his debut and delivered a jolly good backwoods horror to boot. Cherry Tree Lane is neither a heartfelt drama nor a comedy-horror. A sparse, sharp home invasion thriller, Cherry Tree Lane is as tense and thrilling as you could ask for. And not a jot of bullshitty reality rewinding remote controls or killers too smart for their own good.

Christine (Rachael Blake) and Mike (Tom Butcher) are a bickering, slightly annoying married couple found unsuspecting when vengeance-seeking hoodies barge into their home in search of son Sebastian. Sebastian being out at football practice, the yobs make short work of taping the couple up and acting all kinds of antisocial. No digestive biscuit is left unturned as the Kidulthood rejects eat their food, steal their duct tape, trash their rooms and mercilessly critique their DVD collection. It's a fairly thankless pair of roles for Blake and Butcher, who spend literally every scene after the ten minute mark very bound and gagged. Cherry Tree Lane is the Sun/Daily Mail reader's worst nightmare. And not just because it stars black actors and young people. With its feral yobs on a rampage, Cherry Tree Lane depicts a menace most modern; and one that most people can relate to. Who Can Kill A Child? You'll certainly want to after seeing Rian (Hunter) at his worst. True story fact fans: he was in Eden Lake too.

It's not a particularly likeable movie. Like Martyrs and the aforementioned Eden Lake, it's something to be endured rather than enjoyed. It's a hard watch, but one that fascinates as much as it revolts. Mind, it's not for everyone. Despite being better handled than it could've been, a rapey subplot feels like a step too far (so much so that one character comments on it as such) and the climax is both frustrating and a little predictable. The introduction of several other characters also feels a little excessive, although it does amp the action up a notch. But if you've the stomach to handle such things, Cherry Tree Lane is well worth a cheeky little viewing. Although be warned; it's plausible and horrible enough to give you palpatations next time your own doorbell rings.

ASS: THE MOVIE

Director: David S Goyer (2009)

Starring: Odette Yustman, Gary Oldman, Cam Gigandet, Idris Elba

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

Not since Demi Moore's derriere graced the VHS covers of I Spit on Your Grave has one girl's ass made such memorable marketing for a horror movie. Indeed, the film's repeated use of Yustman's arse almost rivals that of Twilight's abdomens in terms of harnessing the Sleaze Audience. I suppose it's a remarkably clever way to get people to watch your otherwise mediocre movie.

Ass aside, I think there might be a plot buried there somewhere. The Unborn isn't, but it feels like an American remake of something J-horror. It's use of the mundane (and The Unborn is very mundane) and grey cinematics is very reminiscent of The Grudge or that one with the drippy ceiling. Casey (Yustman) is plagued by visions of a ghostly child. Her unborn twin brother, as it happens. Little bastich ain't too happy with being dead, and wants to be born. In order to do this, he murders Casey's black best friend (and I thought this was supposed to be 21st Century filmmaking. Bad luck, black best friends; you're destined to remain knife-fodder for a while yet) and harrasses a house full of old people. Forgive me, I forget most of the plot mechanics. I was too busy focusing on Yustman's ass.

Upon discovering that the ghost brat is a figure of Jewish folklore, Casey hunts down Rabbi Sendak (Oldman) and asks that he exorcise Ghost Jew Boy for her. I have no idea what Gary Oldman is doing in such a movie, but he gives the whole thing a sense of (highly undeserved) gravitas, and makes it a mildly more watchable affair. Even during the scenes (both of them) in which Yustman's ass isn't facing the camera. What follows is a very silly but still midly watchable exorcism in which Casey is strapped down to a gurney and muzzled with a very BDSM-looking gag contraption. Also present is Casey's boyfriend (Gigandet) and a Priest (Idris Elba). As Gary Oldman screams into a wind machine, Casey struggles on the table and the Priest gets himself somehow killed. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, fake happy ending, pre-credits shock, THE END. The Unborn kinda resembles how Drag Me to Hell might have turned out if it'd been directed by a hack with an ass-fascination.

That said, The Unborn isn't as fully terrible as one might imagine it to be. It's even mildly watchable, amusing in an unintentional sort of way and vaguely arousing for those who appreciate tightie whities and the female form. The peformances are neither great nor horrible. Yustman is like a more tolerable version of Megan Fox, Gigandet will keep the ladyfolk in the audience semi-interested, and the combined forces of Oldman and Elba add the actorly factor - even if they're both just blatantly phoning it in. Meanwhile, Goyer's directional style keeps things snappy and watchable, although it does feel like a particularly assy music video at times. You keep expecting Jason Derulo or Justin Bieber to show up and slap Yusterman's butt whenever it's onscreen. And it's onscreen a lot. Go back and count how many times I've used the word 'ass' in this review. That's nothing compared to the amount of times it must have been used in the script. Which is pretty apt, I suppose. The Unborn after all, is a load of ass.

The Children

Director: Tom Shankland (2008)

Starring: Eva Birthistle, Stephen Campbell Moore, Hannah Tointon.

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Twatty Parents vs Malevolent Brats (or Eden Lake: The Toddler Years) pits a bunch of hippy liberal types against their own children when the wee toddlers become infected with some unknown virus. Could You Kill a Child? If it was as evil as the brats in The Children, then yes. During a winter break, two families enjoy a bourgeois get-together; simpering about business plans, bragging about their equally knobbish kids and unveiling twee plans to start home education. It's little wonder that the children should decide to start violently murdering their parents. And with not a copy of Grand Theft Auto around for the Daily Mail to blame, either.

As you might expect from such subject matter, The Children is horrible. Those with little tolerance for violence towards children in movies would do well to avoid this movie, since few punches are pulled (the shots don't linger, and a fair bit is implied, but director Tom Shankland in no way shies away from having his children violently killed). That said, the adults definitely get the raw end of the deal here. There's eyeball trauma, a multitude of stabbings/bludgeonings and a veritable bathtub of the red stuff spilled here. It's realistic, disturbing violence and is genuinely shocking whenever it happens (usually in short, sharp bursts).

It has a fairly interesting subtext too, which is nice. It's good to see a horror flick with a subtext that extends beyond "TORTURE. PHOAR LOOK." Okay, it's nothing incredibly deep, but it's still a thought provoker. Who's to blame? Well, probably the hippy parents. If only they'd brought a Nintendo Wii, all the bloodshed could probably have been avoided. There's a scene where one of the parents rather harshly beats his son on the arse. Does violence beget violence? Someone's not been watching Supernanny. A wee spell on the Naughty Step coulda' sorted the whole sorry affair out pronto.

The acting is excellent, even by the children. I was particularly impressed by relative newcomer Hannah Tointon (a Hollyoaks cast member, of all things), who plays a moody teenage type. She's adorably cute (it's okay, she's 22: I checked) and less annoying than her character could've so easily been. Talking of annoying: the parents pretty much all deserve to die. Particularly grating are the hippy would-be homeschoolers. I was home educated, but the homeschoolers in The Children made me want to join forces with Ed Balls and ban the practice altogether. So the parents are dickish, but that's the point. And the actors do it well. Plus they get what's coming to them (and then some). So it's a fair trade-off.

In all, The Children is a sharp, shocking little Brit horror that perfectly suits the child hater in all of us. This movie is a great advertisement for contraceptives.

Eden Lake

Director: James Watkins (2008)

Stars: Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender, Tara Ellis, Jack O' Connell, Chavs

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If the tabloids were to review this, the debut piece by James Watkins, they’d probably wheel out the hyperbole. They’d talk about holding mirrors up to things, and mention Broken Britain a lot. And normally, it’d be like listening to a slightly racist grandparent whinge about “the youth of today” and make with the populist ill-informed garbage. But in the case of Eden Lake, they’d be mostly right.

The plot (cribbed from the similarly themed French chiller They) follows a pretty young couple as they holiday to the rural, titular lake. A heartstrings-tugging marriage proposal is in the air, and they’re so gosh-darn lovely that the forthcoming nastiness is practically signposted. Their romantic weekend is rudely interrupted by a gaggle of noisy, recognizably horrible yobs. Soon enough, petty arguments escalate into brutal violence, and it’s adult VS yoof – to the death!

The past few paragraphs fail to convey just how horrible Eden Lake is. This isn’t a film you watch – this is something you experience. It’s all humourlessly done, with a sadistic streak so wide you could park a landrover on it. Forget the creepy blonde kids of Village of the Damned – these pre-pubescent psychopaths are achingly plausible and terrifyingly realised by the script and the child actors themselves. Kudos must go out to Jack O’ Connell, who plays Brett, the gang leader. He’s far scarier than any Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees. And worst of all, you can half expect to see him loitering outside your local chippy.

That’s not to say it’s perfect. Too much of the tension relies on horror clichés, and the final twist – whilst deliciously vicious – is perhaps a bit too predictable. The movie’s particular brand of terror won’t be for everyone, that’s for sure. Its deliberate humourlessness and cruelty will put off the squeamish, whilst it’s probably a little too dismal to make for a good date movie.

All in all however, Eden Lake is an assured debut from a director who has already proven himself as a face to watch in the future of Brit-horror. This is a white-knuckle rollercoaster ride from start to finish - provocative, relevant, scary and gruesome in equal measures. Eden Lake will make you fear children… Hug these hoodies, Cameron.