Beware! Children At Play

A review by Nick Peron

So what happens when you take a bunch of children, put them in the woods and turn them into cannibals? Well you get the plot to Beware! Children at Play a 1989 film that is distributed by the fine folks at Troma Entertainment.

The film was written by Fred Scharkey & Directed by Mik Cribben (Producer: Return of the Alien's Deadly Spawn ((1983)) Sound Department: Robot Holocaust ((1987)) ) about a bunch of cannibal children in a heavily religious town. Enter the fun and wackiness!

A Cast of Stars!:

The movie stars Michael Robertson, an Australian actor who plays the role of John DeWolfe the paranormal investigator sent on behalf of a friend of a missing child to solve the mystery. You may not have seen him in very many acting roles after this film. He was given such amazing and plot driving characters as a cussing patient in 1996’s Cosi , and a Pro-Steve Demonstrator in The Man Who Sued God (2001). However he has directed Back of Beyond in 1995, and Going Sane in 1986.

It’s also got Rich Hamilton… Who aside from a movie role in 1970, hasn’t done much since this movie. But he plays the sheriff that has no clue what’s going on in the town and hires a paranormal investigator/writer to help him on the case!

And of course, can we forget to mention Robin Lilly? She was in 1994’s Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills! You don’t know who she is? Yeah, well neither did I until I watched this movie, and um. Yeah.

Also, Mik Cribben himself plays the role of Farmer Isac Braun, the crazy religious farmer freak who rallies up all the God fearin’ town folk for some good ol’ fashioned vigilantly action.

Interesting Side-Note On Acquiring This Film:

I ordered this movie directly from the folks at Troma, as it was not a film that was regularly carried by my local movie outlet, and I knew that if I did order it from them they would charge me an absurd price, and since Troma was selling it off their website for $6.00, I couldn’t go wrong.

Interestingly enough, my package was stopped at the boarder, by customs and inspected, and it was a few days late. This was apparent to me by the tell tale “Inspected by Customs” tape they used to re-seal the package. I suppose seeing a movie titled Beware! Children At Play, set off some sort of warning alarm at Customs, they probably thought it was kiddie porn or something (Completely understandable considering the title of the film, it does sound like that sort of filth), but now because of that, I bet I got my name on some sort of no fly list or something.

Getting Back to the Movie:

So the movie begins with a young boy and his father going out camping in the woods. The father is some sort of English lit teacher, who loves the story of “Beowulf ” and specifically playing a game with his son where he pretends he is the demon Grendel and chases the boy around. One day during their camping trip daddy steps on a bear trap and tells his son to stay with him. Of course father dies and the boy decides that it’s a good idea to cut dad open and eat his remains to survive (Picture what would happen if they took the movie Alive and smashed it together with Home Alone and you get a pretty good picture where this is going.)

Flash forward a couple of years, where there children are disappearing in town, and the parents are afraid of a killer on the loose because there has been a rash of vicious murders and cases of cannibalism.

The sheriff, hires his good buddy, a paranormal investigator/writer to come and check things out, and with the help of a really irritating and stupid psychic they try to find out what’s happening to the children in this town, as the body count continues to get higher and the kiddies keep on disappearing.

Soon we find that the children are living in the woods and attacking people and eating their dead bodies. Something has is defiantly gone wrong here. I guess the parents haven't learned the miracle of Ritalin in this town.

In the end we find out that it was the boy from the beginning of the movie, who now thinks he’s Grendel and lours the children into the woods and brainwashes them into flesh eating cannibals.

The investigator tries to talk some sense into these children and tell them that “Bouwolf" was only a story and it’s not real, when the townfolk, who believe their children are possessed by demons and Satan storm in and kill everyone.

WOW WHAT A HAPPY ENDING!!

Interesting Fact About This Movie:

1. The R-Rated version of the film does not have all the gory child death at the end and is severely cut.
2. When the folks at Troma where screening Tromeo and Juliet at the Cannes film festival, they showed the trailer for Beware! Children At Play before the film, and half the audience left the theatre after watching all the graphic scenes of kids getting killed.

Things to Watch Out For In This Movie:

If you can sit through all the bad acting, and can put up with an irritating little kid who sings rather horribly in the first five minutes of the film, then keep your peepers peeled for these amazing scenes:

1. Although really nasty to watch, I’m really impressed with the scene where the child cuts open his fathers stomach and peels back the skin, it Almost looks believable. A for effort.
2. One scene, a door-to-door bible salesman is cut in half with a scythe. Now you’d think it would end there, but nope, buddy is still alive, and as he’s trying to back away from his attacker, his upper body pulls away and all his guts fall out, very nice effect.
3. When the annoying psychic woman gets killed, sure you put up with her saying “Where you going dearie? Don’t you want your dolly dearie?” for a few minutes, but she gets what’s coming to her, even though it wasn’t a very inspiring death scene.
4. This really bad scene where “Grendel” clubs a lady on the head. It’s humors because it’s so badly done.
5. The final scene where the investigator has finally got through to the kids and it sinks into their heads that they shouldn’t kill their parents and eat them, then he gets shot in the head by the angry mob of locals! Priceless.
6. Finally, the carnage of the parents killing off their kids. One gets an ax in the back, another gets pinned to a wall with a pitch fork, head explosions! BLOOD! GORE! Priceless mayhem that is so cruel and unrestrained, and moderately well done. If your not watching it for the senseless violence at least enjoy the shock value.

Watching This Movie Is Like:

Being trapped in a room full of aspiring child actors, and after being forced to endure them for about two hours they give you a gun and a couple of sharp knives. I'd have to say that it's the child-killing equivilant to be constipated four about a week and then finally taking a dump. It's a painful process to endure, but the end result is oh so satisfying.