Ah, once again it's time to get Troma-tized as those vile guys Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman bring to us a story of bizarre behavior and plenty of gore! Think of this as a CHILDREN OF THE CORN movie, only minus the CORN... and the budget... and a big flaming dragon... and Stephen King... and even a mediocre cast... okay, this movie's deffinatly not winning any prizes from "The Tomb". It opens with the gut wrenchingly charming scene of a boy and his father, as they camp in the wilderness of New Jersey. The fun is plentiful and the marshmellows are sickeningly perfect, and everything is right in the world... you can only pray that these losers die soon, and in a painful manor! Well, our prayers are answered! The father, while acting stupid and annoying, is snagged in one of those large bear traps with the steel teeth! Score! Serves ya right, ya wang! But, too bad for daddy that both he and his son are far too weak and feeble to pull the trap apart, so dad get stuck there in the wilderness, going crazy and becoming a maggot farm while junior just watches on and tries to figure out what the Hell's happening. Soon enough, father finally dies, and when he does, the kid's hunger becomes aparent, when he rips daddy's guts open and tanks out the guy's still beating heart! This move just got 8 times better! This brings up one piece of observational humor though. The kid's father dies, and he INSTANTLY decides he'd better eat his own father to survive?! Come on! This kid HAD to be planning to do this! For all he knows, maybe daddy just slipped into shock, but he doesn't care, because he cuts that fucker open at the first sign of unconsciousness! So anyway, "10 years later", a small family of 3 (John and Julia DeWolfe and their daughter Kara) heads for New Jersey, to a small town where a group of religious fanatics called "Brownies" held a wholesale slaughter after World War I in order to "exorcise the heretics". Damn it, the Bible Belt seems to be riding higher and higher up over the bloated, beer filled stomach of America with each passing day... As for the present, the town is seiged by a new problem: someone or someTHING is kidnapping the town's children at a rate of one every two months, the latest victim being the duaghter of John's friend Ross. Elsewhere, a Bible salesman is cut in half with a BIG scythe and we see a three-legged dog! Alright! As for Ross's other duaghter, she too goes into the forests to join the "Woodies", who are a cult of savage children, ala LORD OF THE FLIES. And yes, that thought you just had, these kids are the same ones who are kidnapped. They wind up brainwashed by the kid from the opening sequence, whose name is Glenn Randall. His dad was a Literature teacher, and he always talked about the stories of Beowulf, more particularly, that of Grendel. You know, Glenn Randall - G. Randall - Grandall - Grendel. Got it now? So, in light of their other child's disappearance, Ross calls in a police psychic to help out. Meanwhile, what's up with the Farmer Braun guy? I think he knows something... As for the psychic, she winds up with a slit throat courtesy of the cannibalistic brat pack. It's a good thing too, because if I had to hear her cackle "deary" one more time, I would've killed her myself! But, she is spared any further torture or any kind of molestation, when some horny teen wielding a stick scares the little buggers off, then reports the incident to the local fuzz patrol. Sick and tired of getting picked off by their own impudent offspring, the town's adults get together, lead by that Braun guy, in a "holy" crusade to "purify" the little bastards, even if it means their death! Uhm, the kids' death, not the adults' death... just wanted to clarify. While Ross and John look into all the crap surrounding this mayhem, the Woodies raid Ross's house, killing John's wife, swiping his daughter Kara, and kidnapping Ross's wife Cleo too! Cleo then becomes the rape victim of that Grendel kid (who's, like, 18 by this point), while Ross tries to quell the amassing mob. As for John, he leaves Ross to deal with the fanatics while he battles some of the little lords of the flies. John escapes their prepubescent wrath, making his way to a barn, where Sheriff Ross gets killed when he comes looking for John. Not to make it a total loss though, John re-kidnaps Ross's missing daughter Amy (the one who was taken several months ago, not the little one) so she can lead him to the Woody stronghold in the woods... only problem is, the crazy little wild woman keeps trying to copulate (or, "fuck" as some might say) with her "Uncle John"! Damn statchitory laws. Anyway, after finding out where the kids are staying, he goes for help, the angry church posse (who have apparently been standing around wielding torches and listening to Braun quote the Bible) decide to just run off and "exorcise" their bedeviled children! Now, John's caught in a race against time (and a race against that crazed mob) to get to the children and try to talk some sense into them before they all get a lead baptism! With Amy's forced support, John find the camp and proceeds to beat the snot out of that little Grendel wanna-be Glenn, reclaiming his daughter Kara and trying to open the kids' eyes to what's happened to them. Happy ending and everything works out right? Are you kidding, this is Troma we're talking about! The posse shows up, kills John and all the children, then, a job well done, leave! Only one child survived the massacre, that being Kara, who hid under daddy's fresh corpse, then goes off into the woods to start her own clan. Oh, and the three-legged dog survived too. The most noticable horror of this movie was the brain numbing and utterly talentless acting! It's sad when the children are the closest thing to a bastion of talent you can find in a movie. I'm not just talking Troma bad, but these actors were even worse than the usual Troma stars! I'm reminded of BLOOD FEAST bad! Well, with the minor exception of Michael Robinson (John DeWolfe), he wasn't that bad... at least in comparison to the other cast members. Also, I really wanted to pound that reporter woman... and I'm NOT making an inuendo! I really wanted to do some physical abuse to her obnoxious ass! Thankfully though, she is killed later on by the children. Sometimes it's a good thing to root for the bad guy(s)! On the plus side, this movie does offer us one of the rarest, though most enjoyable forms of hardcore slaughter: child genocide! We're talking pitchfork impalements, clubbing, and getting guns stuffed into their mouths and having their brains blown out! Note though, this edition did go under the editor's blade, cutting out some stuff, but I'm sure if we send e-mails to Troma at Troma.com, then we could possibly get a release of the FULL bloodbath! Wahoo! Oh, and at the same time, it's kinda eerie to see the kids die, because it shows us that the supposed "good guys" can become even darker and more evil than the people they're fighting. One a closer, here's today's moral: "Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys"... instead you should kill them now! Kill them before they kill you, that's my motto!

Sequels: Nope

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: LORD OF THE FLIES or CHILDREN OF THE CORN