The Child

The Child is one of the better zero-budget drive-in horror flicks and exemplary proof that form can save just about anything. In this case, we have a screenplay for a medium-length film, but the artfully shot and edited sequences, where the atmosphere and tension both stretch the film to feature length and also serve as its main attraction. The story of a girl who befriends the reanimated dead and uses them to take her revenge on the people she blames for her mother’s death is transformed from a run-of-the-mill tale into a suggestive and, in places, surreal treat thanks only to the formalistic handling of the scenes. It would have been enough to refine the screenplay and this could have been a horror flick that doesn’t fade from one’s memory when the end credits roll. In these respects, The Child bears a strong resemblance to Italian productions of the period, where half-baked and even dismal screenplays get imaginative formalistic execution. Something else that it has in common with Italian trash flicks is the obvious attempt to feed off of popular concepts of the time, particularly films with possessed or supernaturally gifted children, a trend that originated with the popularity of The Exorcist and The Omen, as well as Italian zombie movies. (17.01.2015)

The American movie The Child is low-budget and shows. It is a movie with a few shortcomings, whether it’s the bad acting, the bad lighting, or the boring screenplay. However, it is also a movie that is made well enough for horror fans to get what they want. In this case, there is a parade of gory scenes and nasty zombies that murder or are slaughtered in many unsavory ways. (04.09.2019)