Strange Cinema - The Child (1977)

Warning: this article contains spoilers and images of theatrical gore (make believe). If that's not your bag, turn back.

The Child is an odd film found in the deep, dark recesses of late seventies, early eighties. It is one of many zombie schlock films found in that great era of horror cinema, but instead of this being a Romero, Fulci or even Mattei affair this film was brought to you by Harry Novak (not as a director but a producer). Harry Novak is not known so much for horror productions as his sexploitaion and exploitation films. To give you an idea of the caliber of work, here are some titles: The Sinful Dwarf, The Secret Sex Lives of Romeo and Juliet, and Please Don't Eat my Mother. The director of The Child was Robert Voskanian with his only directing credit. The writer, Ralph Lucas has a few other horror credits that span some time. He also starred in the film as one of the movie's zombie-like creatures. This gory and atmospheric film draws inspiration from other horror classics like Carrie, The Omen, and Night of the Living Dead. The elements, those of a child who is an instrument of evil along with scenarios of zombie attacks seem crammed together in a patchwork storyline. Despite the film's flaws, The Child has some effective scenes and there is an ominous tone throughout, a credit to the director. The film manages to rise slightly above the impressively low budget that was estimated to be 30,000. The Child was said to have been shot on short ends, which is leftover, unused film salvaged from the end of other movie film rolls. The dialog was dubbed in post production, a logistic and cost saving measure. 

 The film opens in a fog machine graveyard where an innocent young girl is walking with a basket. Whats a girl doing in a foggy cemetery at night? What's in the basket? It's a kitten. Just a girl and her kitten taking a stroll through a foggy cemetery. She kneels before a gravestone and picks up the kitten. Oh God, what's she gonna do to the kitten? She hands it off to a decomposed hand that reaches out from behind the gravestone. No doubt the kitten becomes food for the undead ghoul. Not a bad opening scene, although it could have been paced a little better. Next, we meet our heroine Alicianne played by Laurel Barnett, she is a pretty young woman driving alone when her car is inexplicably forced off the road by a barrel that rolls into the road. She becomes stranded, but knowing her way around, (we discover she grew up in these here parts) she decides to go on foot. Apparently she does not give the mysterious barrel that flew into the road a second thought. She passes the same cemetery in the woods that the little girl was serving kitten chow in at night. Alicianne gets the creeps, like shes being watched, and here we see our first brief glimpse of a ghoul watching her from the woods. The viewer sees the thing but Alicianne does not. Another decent scene.

Alicianne finds herself at the home of a kindly neighbor who offers her some tea and a place to rest awhile. The neighbor Mrs. Whitfield was played by Ruth Ballan. I noted that this actress looked familiar, then I realized she is the spitting image of character actress Lois Smith of Twister and True Blood fame. Look it up. Their ensuing conversation provides some exposition as we learn Alicianne has recently lost her mother. The event caused her to make some changes in her life and leads her to take a job in her old hometown to become caretaker for a young girl who herself had recently lost her mother. Mrs. Whitfield upon learning of her intent to work and live with the Norton family cautions Alicianne that the family is strange and furthermore believes the daughter, along with the very woods that surround the town, is downright evil. Alicianne dismisses these warnings as paranoia of an old woman's mind.

Alicianne arrives at the Norton house and meets everyone in the family. There is the grandfather who is curmudgeonly as they come, the older son Len who is 70's handsome and conveniently about Alicianne's age, and of course the titular child Rosalie. The eleven year old Rosalie was played by Rosalie Cole who unsurprisingly, based on her performance, has no other credits to her name. As mentioned before there are elements of the story seemingly inspired by The Omen, Carrie, and other movies featuring evil children. Many of those films relied on a well-cast child actor who is able to convey an intrinsic creepiness. Unfortunately Ms. Cole is simply not that good of an actress. The script doesn't help, for most of the film she is more of a brat than an evil presence. She does have some creepy lines here and there that we will touch upon. Alicianne attempts to bond with Rosalie as she truly empathizes with the motherless child. But her increasingly disrespectful and strange behavior foreshadow the horrors she can guiltlessly cause. Rosalie seems obsessed with her mother's death. She spends an inordinate time in the cemetery, even sneaking off in the night. Initially it is believed that she is visiting her mother's grave but speaks of her "friends" in the cemetery and woods that "do favors for her". She is driven by an anger, misplaced or not, for those she feels are responsible for her mother's untimely death. One such person, a gardener, is found with some of her mother's jewelry so he is dispatched with a telekineticly operated shotgun. This kill seems out of place but at least is different from the others. Whether or not her mothers death was caused by foul play is not quite clear.

There are some nice shots establishing the small town and home exteriors. Exterior views at night combined with first person shots convey the lurking ghouls, until they are fully revealed. This is used often but first shows up in a scene where Mrs. Whitfield's dog is killed leaving the old woman alone and vulnerable. The classic cars tell you of the 30's time period while not much else does. There is a heavy overuse of fog machine and as commonly seen in low budget films, the lighting changes frequently and independently of the chronology of night and day. The music seems to have three modes: ominous, really ominous synth (some shits about to go down), and Liberace-esqe overwrought piano. The latter gets quite annoying real soon and adds a dated feel to the movie.

Our first kill belongs to the nosey Mrs. Whitfield. This shot creates a sense of isolation. The music here is effective and creepy. A first person view of something creeping outside her home increases the tension. She becomes aware of a new presence in and around her home and sets out to investigate. Mrs. Whitfield attempts to leave and confronts Rosalie who is there in her car as if to say you arent going anywhere. Rosalie frightens the old woman back into her house.

I know If I find myself menaced by a demonic child I'm heading straight for the cellar.

The first we see of our ghoul is a weathered hand that grabs her leg causing her to tumble. Then another (or the same?) hand  pulls her further into the darkness. It's a low budget but effective means of showing you monster, but not too much too early. And it beats the hell out of a quick camera cut to someone being dragged into a dark space for an off screen kill that is all too common in new horror.

The aftermath of the attack, a great makeup effect. The only problem is this is the only effect we see, over and over, as if the ghouls specialize in ripping half your face off. Seriously, everyone dies this way, where's the variety? The effect certainly looks painful but I don't even think this would kill you. A theory I don't wish to test.

Meanwhile Alicianne, in search of answers as to who Rosalie is meeting in the graveyard, does some good old fashioned snooping in the young girl's room. In doing so, finds these creepy yet efficiently drawn images. They show no corrections of any kind. On the upside, If this evil child thing doesn't work out she can become a cartoonist, perhaps for the New Yorker. The drawings detail her feeding kittens to her ghoulish friends in the cemetery, the people she blames for her mothers death (complete with X's  over the deceased), and of course, the terrible fate that befell poor Mrs. Whitfield in her cellar.

It's Halloween night and Rosalie is dressed as a witch and talks about going to a Halloween party with friends but no scenes of it are ever shown, probably due to budget restrictions. In an genuinly eerie scene Rosalie intimidates Alicianne with this Jack O Lantern that mysteriously moves on it's own throughout the darkened room even after shes left the house. 

This scarecrow inexplicably jumps out of the closet at Alicianne for a cheap yet effective jumpscare. This must have been Rosalie's will.

Things escalate towards the climax as Alicianne discovers Mr. Nordon as he takes his last breath, again a face mutilation, and again a wound that I doubt would be fatal. Alicianne and Len must face (he he) that Rosalie is somehow responsible.

Len and Alicianne decide to flee the house, the town, and Rosalie with it via Alicianne's car, but a rock shatters the windshield as they drive away and Len crashes and the car stalls. While he is trying to start the car again, the zombies close in on them and try to drag them out of the car. As the ghouls ramp up thier attacks they are slowly revealed, briefly, yet more and more. Here the creatures attack the car and we witness them through the windshield. I thought this was a creepy, cool shot.

Len (Richard Hanners) and Alicianne flee their disabled car and taking a page from the "Night of the Living Dead" playbook, they hole up in a tattered old shack. Not the best idea, but admittedly they did not have a ton of options.

Alicianne (Laurel Barnett) looks particularly luring in this taut moment as she is waiting for the creature's next onslaught.

In this juncture of quiet tension we see one of the ghouls peeking in at them. Alicianne is unaware at the time.

Hell breaks loose as the zombies attack again bursting through weaknesses in the old shack. This assaulting ghoul gets a swift axe to his head.

In the madness of this final standoff this ghoul is out of focus, backlit, and obscured by camera flare. These effects made the scene disorienting and the creatures scarier.

The creatures begin to find their way in to the flimsy shack through the floor. Len finds a shotgun, that unfortunately is not loaded, so he pummels the creatures as they try to climb into the structure.

Our heroine spent almost the entirety of the climax screaming just like this. I know this is a horror film from the seventies and it was a common showcase for female hysterics, but Alicianne has been our main character. We have followed her throughout the entire film only for her to dissolve into this blubbering mess. Paralyzed by fear, unable to help herself, she is relying on the man in the room to save her.

At times these guys look like your standard zombies, other times they look like mummies, even swamp creatures, but mostly they look like the burnt end of a cigarette. That being said they are pretty menacing looking figures.

Len gets it. He's been fending off several ghouls with the butt of the shotgun, but ultimately without help from Alicianne who is busy screaming, gets overtaken. And it's another of the same ol' face mutilation. Since the creatures were attacking from below, this would have been a great oportunity for Len to get his gut munched or stomach ripped open as he would have been actually vulnerable to that kind of attack. But instead, Len is dragged beneath the floor, then mysteriously pushed out to reveal his torn apart face to the camera. His makeup is arguably the most brutal of all and it is undoubtably an admirable practical effect. Still, this is the third time weve seen it, some variety of kill effects would have been nice. They could very well have called this movie "Night of the Face Rippers".

After Len's death Alicianne is all alone except for the dead. Then, just as it seems she's going to get half her face ripped off, the tone of the movie suddenly changes and you can sense an abrupt ending is near. The attacks seem to stop. Alicianne finally stops screaming and in the deafening silence she moves slowly, yet purposefully closer to the door of the shack. Then as is if to forcibly bookend the film, Rosalie (who is the cause of all this but has been absent through the climax thus far) comes in the door of the shack and is quicky dispatched by Alicianne with an axe. A tacked-on and anticlimactic climax. There really is no reason for Rosalie, who was telekinetically controlling the creatures, to suddenly show up there. Especially when the creatures were doing just fine without her. I can understand if Alicianne had killed all the ghouls and then Rosalie showed up to finish the job herself. But she doesn't attack or even say a single word. Its just an odd and puzzling end, as if they ran out of film or ideas or both.

The Child unsuprisingly had an international release with various titles throughout the world such as Kill and go Hide (a variation on the films american release tag line as seen on the poster) Zombie Child and (variations of) House of the Zombie. The Italian example called "House of the Zombie" shows a frightfull scene on it's poster that really has nothing to do with the events of the actual movie.

The Child is a profoundly flawed and uneven movie, rife with bad acting, slow pacing, and topped off with a grossly diapointing ending. But despite all that, the prevailing ominous atmosphere, coupled with some compelling scenes of scary tension, and gruesome practical gore effects make this old school chiller worth at least one watch.  

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