The Children (1980 film)

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article is missing information about the film's production. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (April 2018) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "The Children" 1980 film – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

The Children
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Max Kalmanowicz
Written by	Carlton J. Albright Edward Terry
Produced by	Max Kalmanowicz Carlton J. Albright
Starring	Martin Shakar Gil Rogers Gale Garnett
Cinematography	Barry Abrams
Edited by	Nikki Wessling
Music by	Harry Manfredini
Production company	Albright Films
Distributed by	World-Northal
Release dates	June 6, 1980 (1980-06-06) (Tucson)[1] September 26, 1980 (1980-09-26) (Los Angeles)[2]
Running time	93 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$7 million[2] or $2.1 million[3]

The Children (also known as The Children of Ravensback) is a 1980 American horror film, directed by Max Kalmanowicz, and starring Martin Shakar, Gil Rogers, and Gale Garnett. It follows a group of five children in a small New England town when they are transformed into zombies who, after being exposed to waste from a nuclear plant, microwave any living thing they touch. The film received generally negative reviews from critics.

Plot

Jim and Slim, two workers at a chemical plant in the New England town of Ravensback, decide to call it a day and head for the bar. Unfortunately, a large buildup of pressure leaks from one of the pipes that starts to form a yellow toxic cloud that drifts across the ground. Meanwhile, a school bus is taking children home. After dropping one child off, five children are left on the bus.

After Billy Hart, the local sheriff, finds the idling bus abandoned near a cemetery, he radios his deputy and dispatcher. Billy orders a roadblock at the intersection of the main highway and the lone road leading into town, recruiting a couple of armed locals, believing that the children were possibly kidnapped.

While John and Billy are on the road, they encounter Janet Shore standing in the middle of the road, who is dazed like the other zombified children, pale-faced and apparently stunned as they put her in the car to drive her home. It turns out that Janet has not yet fully transformed into a radioactive zombie, but she gradually changes into one during the ride (as evidenced by her fingernails shown turning black). After they stopped, she attacks Sheriff Hart who is able to dodge her while she flees the vicinity.

Eventually, the zombified Ellen, Tommy, and Paul meet and walk together. They are then spotted by the deputy who radios the station, but is soon killed. The three children converge in front of the general store, where the dispatcher comes outside to hug them, but is also roasted to death as her screaming is heard on a police radio dispatcher by John and Billy.

Billy shoots the zombies with his pistol, but the bullets have no effect on them. Cathy, who is still not aware of the children's zombified state, knocks Billy out with a glass object in order to stop him from shooting them. She then finds Clarkie's roasted body and tells John, who runs upstairs and tearfully puts the child's body back to bed.

Paul then attacks the adults, while Billy instinctively picks up a replica katana and chops off both Paul's hands as he howls in pain, which kills Paul as the fingernails on his severed hands revert to normal. Ellen then breaks through one of the windows with one hand, which is immediately severed by Billy and causes her to apparently die. Billy and John then go outside with the sword in hand to find the rest of the zombies. The remaining three zombies, Tommy, Janet and Jenny, converge at the upper level of John's barn where they are found by John and Billy who, despite Jenny's pleas to John, are promptly dismembered and killed.

The next morning, Cathy yells to a still-sleeping John that "it's time". He wakes up and runs frantically into the house to help her deliver their third child. As they are delivering the baby, the camera pans over all of the dead bodies, including Sheriff Hart's (but not Clarkie's). All five of the zombified children are laying down peacefully and hacked up. After the baby is delivered, John is aghast and wide-eyed as he notices that his newborn child has black fingernails while being breastfed by Cathy.

Cast

Release

The Children was given a

Horror film review website Terror Trap awarded the film one and a half out of four stars. Although they called Manfredini's score for the film "somewhat effective", they criticized the film's direction, cast, and low production values.[7] Jonathan Stryker from HorrorNews.net gave the film a slightly positive review, calling it "a predictable, by-the-numbers but somewhat entertaining yarn".^[8]

Home media

It was originally released on VHS by

References