The town of Ellenburg has probably faced harder times before, but nothing as bad as when their children started disappearing. A couple dozen youngsters have just vanished into the woods and rumors of goblins AKA “woodies” and strange sounds in the trees are the only clues that Sheriff Hamilton has got to go on. When one of his daughters goes missing, Hamilton calls in his buddy, John DeWolfe (Michael Robertson), a journalist who has turned to writing about the occult to make ends meet. John gets even more motivated to solve this mystery when his own daughter gets lured out into the woods by a gang of Ellenburg’s youth, who’ve all been brainwashed by their feral and charismatic (I guess?) teenaged leader.
Hoo boy! I’ve been very curious about Beware! Children at Play (1989) for many years but neglected to ever actually pull the trigger on it for some reason. Thanks to word of mouth and hype that Troma Entertainment likely laid the groundwork for ages ago, I might’ve been slightly intimidated by this splatter flick that dares to go there. And what is “there” you ask? Well, the thing is this movie takes the taboo of a kid getting killed onscreen -that most directors are afraid to commit to- and just goes frickin’ hog wild on it. I have to imagine that if this film had gotten distribution in the UK (and I’m still not sure if it did or not), all hell would’ve broken loose. Mary Whitehouse herself would’ve used her self-righteous, holy heat vision to melt the tapes at the loading docks.
Director Mik Cribben and writer Fred Scharkey almost nailed this one but they hit a few snags along the way. The film establishes its nihilism immediately and then delves into a mysterious and creepy tone which lasts for almost 2 minutes or so. Then the pacing takes a nosedive, and just when you thought you could get away without some laborious padding, the villagers show up to hang out all night in front of the local grocery store while their cult-like leader talks them into doing something drastic. He fucking talks to them all night! I suppose I should be grateful that the scene isn’t in real time. Speaking of unwanted things, this film didn’t need a rape scene with children watching, but it totally has one. Check, please!
On a much more successful note (ba dum tss!), the music score by Herschel Dwellingham sounds like your creepy uncle’s Moog musings during one of his many nights under house arrest. So yeah, he’s completely catering to my tastes. No complaints here! The acting in the film is exactly what you’d expect as the cast is filled with non-professionals, vacant-eyed kids, and some real cornballs who never did anything else. My favorite actor in Beware! is a guy named Rick Bitzelberger. He plays a local physician named Dr. Fish and he’s exceptionally terrible. Sadly, this is his only acting credit on IMDB before becoming a screenwriter of Lifetime Christmas movies. The new code word for bad acting in my household is “Dr. Fish”.
What I love about Beware! Children at Play is how it’s loaded with some serious attempts at cool ideas, even though they’re delivered with the subtlety of a pitchfork to the throat. References to Anglo-Saxon literature, changelings, parapsychology, urban legends, and even witch trials (yeah, I have no idea) are thrown around to give this scrappy runt of an exploitation film a hint of respectability. None of that shit works, but bless these folks for trying. The gore is gruesome and the finale is truly jaw dropping, even if it’s not especially well done. If you hate children or just distrust them to the point where their mere presence gives you panic attacks, you might love this!
Vinegar Syndrome took this grubby old flick and made it look pretty damn gorgeous. Seriously though, how the heck is this film so pretty? Extras include a commentary track with director Mik Cribben. There’s a 51-minute documentary with the cast and crew about the making of Beware! Children at play and they kind of talk to everyone! It’s a pretty fascinating doc with tons of cool stories about how this wacky film came to be. There’s also an archival interview with the director from the old Troma disc. As with all of Troma’s old content, it’s obnoxious!