Customer Reviews

The Children

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

It may seem like a nice day for a group of kids on a school bus going home, unfortunately there is a radioactive fog created by a nuclear power plant that gets in the bus's way. It has a deadly side effect which involves changing the kids into deadly pale-faced atomic zombies with black finger nails and if they hug anyone they would literally fry them, the adults start to panic as they must battle these sinister kids into trying to find a way to stop them.

Entertaining and somewhat silly low budget Sci-fi/horror flick with an interesting plot and some shocks. The acting with some of the special effects are kind of bad but the film is a riot and easy to make fun of "MST3K"-style at home, this was one of the highest grossing movies in the summer of 1980! it was discontinued on video for 25 years and has been a hard-to-find flick until now as Troma has finally re-issued this movie on DVD.

The DVD has an ok if somewhat bad picture and sound quality but there's some good extra like audio commentary by writer and producer Carlton J. Albright, introduction by Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman, Trailers to other Troma flicks, Tromadance short, interview with Carlton J. Albright, a featurette, and interview with Gil Roger and Patrica Albright.



Also recommended: "The Toxic Avenger", "Night of the Living Dead ( 1968 and 1990)", "The Crazies", "Beware! Children at Play", " Class of Nuke'Em High", " Dawn of the Dead ( 1978 and 2004)", " The Pit", "Children of the Corn", "Battle Royale", "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie", "Pet Semetary", "Bloody Birthday", "Sleepaway Camp", " Bio-Zombie", "28 Days Later", "Halloween", "Nightmare City ( a.k.a. City of the Walking Dead)", "The Stuff", "Return of the Living Dead Trilogy", "Final Destination", "C.H.U.D", "Slugs" and "It's Alive".

I first saw this movie when i was about ten years old on HBO (or was it "ON t.v.?), it scared the hell out of me! Needless to say i've been looking for it ever since.I have a young child who i won't let ride a school bus. To miss this horror gem would be a great loss for any horror/b-movie buff!We can only hope that one day soon that this film will be re-released!

It ain't Shakespeare, that's for sure. The only way to watch the piss-poor supposed re-mastering of The Children is Mystery Science Theater-style with a batch of mixed drinks and a group of friends who all share a fondness for bad cinema. The tacky late-70's/early-80's fashions are a hoot though...and a pregnant character huffing on a cigarette sent us into hysterics. This review is strictly for rental purchases only. Troma blatantly lied about the quality of this release and anyone foolish enough to purchase a copy after reading the last couple of reviews, deserves to lose their money.

You could call this film a guilty pleasure. The film is so bad it is rather watchable. A group of kids pass through a radiation leak while on their school bus and become mindless, black-fingernailed killers who burn their victims (mostly parents and family) upon embracing them. The townsfolk wander around wondering what the heck is going on. While the film as a whole is rather poorly made and acted, it should sustain interest. If you notice how much the music sounds like "Friday the 13th", you're right. This film has the same composer, not to mention the same director of photography.

This short "review" is about the picture/sound quality and other related issues of the 25th anniversary DVD release of "The Children".
Frankly I don't get it. I bought this movie - the 25th Anniversary Edition - on eBay,
in spite of the numerous negative 1 & 2 Star reviews here - for my collection (mostly
for sentimental reasons). I was expecting horribly washed out, blurry images, faded or absent colors, distorted weak sound, lots of pops and scratches, etc... Hmmm... I found none of the above. The film was the same low budget, silly and somewhat unexplained small independent movie, with fine picture, colors, sound and in very good all around condition. I played/watched it on an OK Sony DVD player on my old 27" Panasonic (CRT) television. This is the honest truth: both my wife and I were satisfied with the picture and sound of this DVD. Aside from a few "cigarette burns" (markers) and a few lines here and there, the image quality is just fine.
I'm glad TROMA released it on DVD, since (to date) nobody else has. Sadly it is OOP and hard to find, and I was lucky to secure 2 copies. I've seen many films on DVD that I can't even start to comment on without risking a coronary or brain aneurysm, induced by their transfer "quality"! Some of these are so bad, nearly unwatchable, colorless, blurry mess, that it verges on the criminal! That "The Children" is not among these is the understatement of the Millennium. I was very pleased and glad that I found and purchased this cheesy (in a good way) fairly low key and low budget movie, made nearly 3 decades ago, with its very good all around quality. This is my honest opinion. Hope my remarks were of some help. Laszlo S.

This is probably one of the few Troma productions I can call good and mean it unironically. I appreciate the idea behind Troma and always feel good about its very existence, but for the most part they keep to cheesy horror flicks that I just can't take seriously.

This one's pretty good, though. It's one part Village of the Damned, one part Romero, a touch of The Incredible Shrinking Man, and a tad of the usual Troma-tic effects (rubbery burn marks and gratuitous nudity). It follows a story about a bunch of kids who are on a schoolbus one day when it drives through a radioactive cloud, transforming into near-zombie killing machines.

In general it's a creepy and entertaining horror film, very reminiscent of fun 40s horror movies but with a better cinematographer. I actually really liked watching how the filmmakers moved the camera and composed the shots. I think some of the things they did were very original and interesting.

If it wasn't for the cheesy way the kids die and some of the lesser-rounded moments of acting and dialog, I'd say it's a really good film. Heck, as it goes it's one of the more horrifying movies I've seen, merely because it's not overstuffed with thick flashy editing and crazy digital effects, much more willing to linger on a shot of something horrific than just move along and act as if the audience must be sent into an epileptic seizure instead of scared.

At any rate it's made me realize that maybe some things Troma might not be half bad.

Edit: Since the transfer seems like a hot-button issue on Amazon, I thought I'd put in my two bits: The way I understand it, Troma has NEVER had money. Ever. I met Lloyd Kaufman once and he talked a lot about how hard it was to get these projects off the ground and how he wouldn't be able to do it if he wasn't so dedicated about it. And here these people are freaking out because the DVD isn't a pristine print. Listen... I could see the image (even on the poorly lit scenes) and I could understand the dialog. The image and sound are a LOT better than a lot of DVD prints I have seen. Seriously, what do ya people expect, anyway?

It adds to the experience... seriously, like finding an old warped record player in the attic that hardly works and listening through the hisses and pops to what remains of the music on the scratched vinyl. In a bizarre way this is how old horror classics are meant to be seen.

--PolarisDiB

I absolutely LOVED this movie!!!! I seen this movie with my cousins as a child. Never sure of the name, I myself always asked EVERYONE, Do you remember the movie with the kids on the bus, the fog, with the black nails and everytime they touched someone it was like they got burned??? This scared the grap out of me as a child. I was always scared of the fumes from cars b/c of this movie, till I realized it can't make you that away. My all time favorite SCARY movie. They just don't make them like that anymore. I HAVE TO HAVE A COPY OF THIS ONE!!! I just found out the Title and year this movie was made. I watched it at the Bruton Theatre in Pleasant Grove back in 1980 at the age of 8... Its like a dream come true to finally figure this myth out.

To say that I am furious over the unacceptable and shoddy video transfer Troma inflicted on us with this release is putting it mildly!

Troma advertised this release as a digitally remastered version of The Children, and when I spoke via phone with one of their representives they assured me that the video quality was going to be fantastic.

What they actually released looks like they found a print buried in a landfill, and could not be bothered to even dust the thing off before doing the video transfer. The movie is loaded (and I mean loaded) with pops and hisses, "cigarette burn" marks, scratches, dust, dirt...it's the worst video transfer I have ever seen on DVD, and I am not exaggerating. It makes even most of Platinum's releases look like Star Wars in comparison! Troma told me that there was a delay due to the video remastering process. What did they do, enhance the cracks, dirt, speckles, scratches, and other defects? That's what it looks like.

It's a travesty that they did this for the 25th Aniversary release and it's possibly criminally fraudulent to call this a "digitally remastered" film. My beat up old VHS copy has a much better picture than this DVD.

Of course, Troma refuses to answer emails or phone calls about this. Their customer service is the pits.

For fans of this forgotten classic, I am sorry to verify the bad news. I urge you to rent this first before paying money for it, because once you actually see it I doubt you'd be willing to spend $2 on it, much less the retail price.

I am making it my duty to review this DVD and expose the lies Troma is peddling about this DVD release everywhere I can, because fans of the film deserve better.

And for anyone who may defend this filthy release due to it being an obscure, low-budget, almost-forgotten film, I urge you to check out the movie Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural by Synapse Films. That movie is older and more obscure than The Children, and yet Synapse was able to release Lemora for its 25th anniversary last year in stunning condition. It looks like it was filmed yesterday.

There is simply no excuse for Troma to screw over the fans like this. Amazon forces me to give it one star, but truly this release deserves a zero!

This film has been one of my favorite horror films since I first saw it when I was a kid. I was really disappointed with the Troma dvd release! It's loaded with special features but the movie itself is missing about the first ten minutes or so. This was probably due to deterioration of the original prints. It's not missing any of the good parts but if you have never seen the film before, you would not understand what happened unless someone told you. The beginning sequences with the children on the bus passing through the radioactive fog is gone. The film starts at the scene of the first victim in the graveyard. The quality is not so good either. Lots of deterioration in some parts of the film. I was fortunate to get a hold of a VHS to DVD transfer of this film which has the whole movie. If you are looking to acquire a copy of this film, I urge you to avoid the Troma dvd release and get yourself either a VHS to DVD transfer or just find yourself a copy on VHS. This film is definitely on my must-see list for any horror fan. It's cheesy with poor acting but it's a classic. They don't make horror films like this anymore!!!!

God, I feel like I'm having some kind of recovered memory at the mention of this movie! I can't remember how young I was when I first saw it...up until now, I thought I'd just dreamed it! This movie is damn scary, right up there with The Thing (another movie that left me a deeply psychologically scarred child). Is there some kind of studio we can petition to get this released to DVD? Who owns this gem?!? And why are they just sitting on it???