The Children

If you have seen The Children, the relatively underrated 2008 thriller directed by Tom Shankland and written by Paul Andrew Williams, then you know what a pain in the ass kids can be. Aside from having a direct line to your wallet, they tend to forgo building forts in exchange for killing people. As Quiet Earth reports, Williams, seemingly not content with just writing about psychopathic youths, has entered post-production on his most recent directorial effort Cherry Tree Lane.

Bearing an odd resemblance between The Strangers and Eden Lake, another UK film that deals with homicidal teenagers, Cherry Tree Lane focuses on Mike and Christine, an average couple in an average town held hostage at knife point by a group of teenagers who seek to exact revenge on their son Sebastian, who "grassed one of them up." Unlike most stories of its ilk, the teenagers in question firmly believe that what they are doing is the right thing.

Although a fairly conventional central plot, I do appreciate the morality twist to make it stand out from similar films. Williams wrote and directed The Cottage, another under-appreciate flick that's one part horror, one part dark comedy, so I have doubts concerning his capabilities of a filmmaker. We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

Cherry Tree Lane stars Tom Butcher and Rachel Blake. Stills from the film can be found after the jump.

Hey all. I hope you've missed me, but I'm just about to head home from approximately 13 days in Austin ... and once I get home, there are some big-time changes afoot for the Horror Squad! Nothing bad, I promise. But I feel like I've left you hanging lately, and for that I apologize. But hell, I've been knee-deep in the awesome horrors of Fantasia, Midnight Madness, and Fantastic Fest, so I'm sure I'm forgiven. I hope.

But there are two great reasons to be a horror fan this week: One is the odd but very successful release pattern for Paramount's indie acquisition Paranormal Activity, which has paved the way for a full-bore limited release on October 9. You've seen plenty of love for the flick all over Cinematical and HorrorSquad, so make sure you throw the movie a few bucks if it happens to play in your neighborhood.

The other flick to get good and psyched for? Michael Dougherty's Trick 'r Treat, which single-handedly demolishes the "all DTV movies suck butt" theory -- if you happen to believe that hooey in the first place. I do not. It's a rock-solid anthology horror that focuses on all the various traditions and trappings of the Halloween season, and I truly believe it's destined to become an annual favorite. Carpenter's Halloween + Trick 'r Treat + (your favorite horror movie) = the perfect Halloween night triple feature.

Also keep an eye out The Children, a fine British import that just hit DVD last week.

Best of the New Releases: Trick 'r Treat, The Children, The Thaw, Not Quite Hollywood
Okay, okay, you've had Trick 'r Treat bludgeoned into your conscious to no end lately. Well now is your chance to finally see Michael Dougherty's fabled film. I can't speak for what's on the DVD or Blu-ray, but the film itself is a wonderful tribute to all things Halloween. I saw it for the first time a week ago (review) and I'm already planning on popping in the Blu tonight.

This October's haul from Ghost House Underground isn't quite as large as the eight or so films they put out last year, but what they've lost in quantity they've made up for in quality (plus all four titles are available on Blu-ray). For starters we have The Children, a film I think can't be improved upon (review). Next up is The Thaw, a nice bit of eco-terror starring Val Kilmer and Aaron Ashmore about the discovery of a mammoth and the deadly parasites frozen inside it. Mark A. Lewis' film is basically a proposition of how to remake The Thing without remaking The Thing, but that's not entirely a bad thing considering how excellent the formula of frost-bound bio-horror is. I wouldn't call The Thaw a blind buy, but it's worth a look down the line.

More horror movies come out per month than I have numbers for. Plot that out over a year and the number of titles becomes sheer cacophony. There is so much mediocrity in the world that a film must be either bolt-of-lightning brilliant or sack-of-hammers stupid to stand out amongst the din. The year is 2009. We've seen all we're going to see, right?

Tom Shankland thinks otherwise. Tom Shankland proves otherwise.

I'm not prepared to declare The Children "bolt-of-lightning brilliant," but it certainly is the most invigorating piece of horror I've seen since [REC]. That may not seem like a ringing endorsement, considering Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's Spanish powerhouse is barely two years old, but if one considers the hundreds upon hundreds of horror movies that have risen and fallen between the two, I'd call that a pretty strong compliment.

From the title alone one can gleam the conceit behind Shankland's film. No one ever names a movie after the component of the story that goes smoothly. Something is wrong with the children. We don't know what, the movie doesn't know what, but something is going to go wrong with the children.

Ghost House Pictures may not win over hardcore horror fans in movie theaters, what with all the PG-13 Grudge filled Messenger Boogeymen (a few more in the vein of Drag Me To Hell couldn't hurt, though), but their DVD branding Ghost House Underground is a different story. Created in 2008 as a collaboration with Lionsgate Home Entertainment, you may remember last October GHU went all in with a round of eight titles to prove to fans their intent to give straight-to-DVD sequels and independent gems a safe haven in the retail world. Greg Bishop's blast of fun Dance of the Dead was easily the cream of the crop, but No Man's Land: Rise of the Reeker and The Substitute are both solid titles that may have gotten the shaft in American markets were it not for GHU.

Which brings us to 2009 and the first batch of titles announced for this October on both DVD and Blu-ray: Seventh Moon, The Thaw, Offspring, and The Children., all four of which are must-see titles for me. Despite playing to mixed acclaim at a few festivals, I'm looking forward to the Amy Smart-starring Seventh Moon, directed by Eduardo Sanchez. Even putting aside his contribution to The Blair Witch Project, Sanchez's first solo film Altered banked enough credit with me to give him the benefit of the doubt on his China set haunter. I haven't heard early talk about either The Thaw or Offspring, but the former has Val Kilmer in it and is about a new biological terror that squirms out of a frozen core sample while the latter is an adaptation of Jack Ketchum's novel about marauding cannibals. Can't complain too much on those two fronts. Then of course, we have Tom Shankland's The Children.

After a long flight on my part and a far longer drive for both of us, Scott Weinberg and I have finally arrived in Montréal for the FanTasia International Film Festival (their thirteenth, our first). The genre-heavy festival lasts for nearly three weeks; alas, we've but one to spare, so without much further ado, here's a look at what I've seen already and what I hope to see before Scott tips his own hand with a title or two to recommend.

Of the features playing, I can highly recommend Michael Paul Stephenson's Troll 2 doc, Best Worst Movie; the Aussie revenge thriller, The Horseman (not to be confused with the barely-seen Dennis Quaid vehicle,Horsemen); and Paul Solet's beautifully bloody baby horror, Grace. Those looking for something a bit stranger might end up being a bit more fond of Black and The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle than I was, though I also seemed more easily pleased by the Nazi zombies of Dead Snow than most, so I guess it all balances out. My enthusiasm for the ultra-kitschy likes of Alien Trespass and Lesbian Vampire Killers, not to mention the admittedly boundary-pushing Deadgirl, is all a bit less than what's already been mentioned, so let's just leave those at that.