Customer Reviews

Children of Living Dead [VHS]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(51)

 

 

As a rule, smart people who are familiar with Amazon's "customer" reviews quickly learn to pour a bag of rock salt over most of the single-starred ones; on the other hand, when they total over half the number of a title's reviews, it's now exception-to-the-rule time. In the case of CHILDREN Of The LIVING DEAD, consider those 1-starred reviews as reliable as Lindsay Lohan's next meltdown.

Why do I loathe CHILDREN Of The LIVING DEAD? You tell me...

-Disjointed plot: The movie opens in the middle of a zombie holocaust where, for some inexplicable reason, children are sitting around unharmed and smiling. Jumping 14 years ahead, the townspeople seem to have forgotten everything that's happened. Plot holes like this are all over the place: One moment its hordes of undead, the next it's unscrupulous used car salesmen, then we have the corpse of a serial killer looking for the teenagers who broke beer bottles on the grave of his dear departed mother--who used to force him as a child to dress as girl (yes, just like that movie, Psycho)!

-No direction: Several times in the movie people are told that zombies can only be destroyed by a bullet to the brain, yet several of them clearly get taken out by body shots. Then there is the pack of rabid zombies who stop short of a diner's large windows, where they calm down to glide their hands over the glass. What was up with that? And, of course, we have the 6-shot revolvers firing 8 or 9 times.

-Deception: Although he is only in the beginning 10 minutes, Tom Savini gets top billing. Savini was the only reason I chose to watch this garbage.

-Amateurish makeup: The zombie serial killer looks like he's wearing a mask bought from a dollar store, while his nose and hands grow with each scene. Any movie "starring" Tom Savini, one of the greatest makeup artists in the business and an FX legend, should never have such low grade makeup/FX.

Savini should've walked off the set, I then never would've watched this garbage. It would've been a better world for us all.

To call CHILDREN Of The LIVING DEAD a bad movie is giving it undeserved praise.

The contents in the seat of a bum's pants have more worth than this movie.

I don't want to give it any stars.

So, if you are thinking of purchasing or renting this DVD don't just take my word for it, feel free to read the 54 out of 80 other negative reviews. You'll thank me later.

I SAW SOME STINKERS IN MY DAY BUT THIS ONE REALLY TAKES THE CAKE...DON'T BUY THIS MOVIE OR EVEN BOTHER RENTING IT. THE ONLY QUESTION THAT I STILL HAVE IS... WHY TOM SAVINI HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS

I have seen a lot of bad low budget horror flicks in my time, but this one takes the cake. The special effects are bad, the plot is non-existant, and there isn't even some decent erotic stuff to make up for it all. This movie reminded me of the old "Revenge of the Living Zombies" movie, but it doesn't even live up to that one. Only watch this one if you are a diehard zombie movie fan.

Children of the Living Dead (Tor Ramsey, 2001)

Oh, how could you? Three of the principals from the original Night of the Living Dead-- John Russo (who produced), William Hinzman (cinematographer; his daughter appears in the film), and Tom Savini (who stars)-- came together to create this godawful offshoot of Romero's pictures, if offshoot it can be called. I'm not even going to offer you a plot summary on this one; the offenses to canon are even worse here than those in Day of the Dead 2: Contagium. Karen Wolf's script should have been published, as Melville once put it, only to the flames. Some of the acting is competent; most, to be kind, is not. Ramsey's direction is okay some of the time, terrible some of the time. (To be fair, it seems much of the problem lay with Wolf and Russo; according to IMDB, they lorded many crew hiring decisions over him, as well as recutting the final film without any input from him at all.) Technically, the film's a mess; the lighting and soundtrack are horribly inconsistent, the makeup is awful (how on earth did Tom Savini make this movie and have nothing to do with the makeup? Brilliant move, guys), the special effects are, shall we say, not so special. Avoid this one unless you need a reason to throw things at, or through, your TV. *

and because I couldn't give zero stars. Ha ha. This film is BAD. Just like almost all the previous reviewers have said. It's not a sequel to the original Living Dead trilogy, but it DOES try to make you think that it is, mentioning how everything started with the Venus Probe crashing to earth and releasing radiation...The film starts out good, though obviously cheap, with Tom Savini kicking butt. His sherriff sidekick unfortunately gives away the fact that Tom is going to be the only good actor in the bunch. Everyone else is awful. The camera work is terrible too! What's with all those close-ups?! These actors were waaaay too unattractive for all those extreme close-ups. The zombies looked pretty lame too, but radiation zombies are among the few things that scare me so I still found them a bit creepy. The head zombie didn't seem all that intelligent to me, except when you consider how long he had remained hidden somehow. There wasn't really any point to his character though. And as for the plot, well, it was practically nonexistent. It goes like this: The film starts out several years ago. Tom Savini is killing zombies, he finds a bunch of kids in a barn, sends them away, and is killed in the barn by a zombie who was once a psychotic serial killer. The zombie kills Savini. End of all chances of this movie being good. We are taken into modern day, when the kids are young adults. Apparently only one of them has any memory of the existence of zombies. While the film throws hints here and there that it is somehow related to the classic film Night of the Living Dead, it clearly is NOT a sequel. In this film the zombie incidents have been neatly covered up. As a matter of fact, it even seemed to try and link itself to the Return of the Living Dead movies, mentioning an attack in the '80's as well. Anyway, the zombie plague returns now, since the serial killer/zombie has been hiding ever since, and has decided now is the time to start infecting again. This might have been enough of a plot, except that some mess about a car dealership gets mixed in too, and sort of messes everything up. It's all pretty stupid. I can't say the atmosphere was hopeless, the low budget and cheap quality of it all could have added some horror if the script and acting had been good. Let's not forget how good some other cheap horror films have been in the past, such as the original NOTLD. So as for the good and bad of this film, Tom Savini's small part, the potential that was there before anyone started writing or filming or acting, and the mixing in of an Ed Gein type character were all good. Everything else was bad. I only hope someday another Living Dead film worthy of the genre is created.

Aw geez. Shame on you, Tom Savini! I typically love zombie movies and it is a given that most of them are ultra low budget, so that is a given. Well, this particular gem takes the cake in lame. I think "ugh" sums it up pretty well.

Upon first impression "Children of the living dead" looks like it has been produced by a couple of children who managed to convince their neighbours and friends to star in an unofficial sequel to the "living dead" series. However after a few moments have passed (and very slowly I might add) sudden realisation dawns that this is far worse than any living children could produce and eventually you're convinced that this must have been produced by people as brainless and primitive as the living dead themselves. Initially the script seemed to show some merit and I was beginning to feel it was just marred by the talentless people involved however it soon tops the list as one of the films major faults. On the acting front it is devoid of any memorable performances and even poor Tom Savini appears to have realised just how bad this production was and decided to just phone his performance in. The editing is choppy and atrocious and the word continuity seems to be missing from the directors vocabulary. Alan Howarth's score (a former collaborator with John Carpenter) soon becomes tedious and after a while you can tell he either bailed from producing fresh music for the project or they just couldn't afford him any more when his score from Halloween 4 & 5 appears throughout the last half of the movie. The only saving grace is the special Make-up f/x which although not always great (the lead zombie Abbot Hayes looks like an over-exaggerated scoobie Doo zombie) at the majority of times remind you of the excellent Zombies that Tom Savini created for "DAWN" and "DAY". On that note The producers of the original Living Dead series should be ashamed that this inbreed of the excellent originals (including the 1990 remake) should ever have been released in the first place and upon viewing the credits it appears that the producer Joseph Wolf has used the "living dead" name in shame as an outlet for his daughter Karen Lee Wolf to produce such uninspired drivel...some people have more money than sense and I probably should include myself in that statement for wasting mine on this thrash, although it did make me laugh out loud more than once;) If you're looking for a more modern, clever take, well acted and original spin-off on the Zombie and Living dead genre, my advice is to check out the special DVD release for "The dead hate the living" which in my opinion, for a low budget shocker, definitely set my taste buds on fire.

Even if you're pro-life, you have got to admit that this thing should have been aborted immediately. To submit this heap to anyone with more than a few brain cells is downright criminal.

Mathew Michaels (Damien Luvara) is helping oversee the construction of his father's (Philip Bowers) new car dealership in a rural Pennsylvania town. They secured a good deal on the land because it formerly used for the local cemetery. The law, Deputy Randolph (Marty Schiff), has conveniently agreed to turn the other cheek as they relocate the graves. The townsfolk, the construction crew, and everyone else nearby eventually learn the hard way that it's not a good idea to mess with someone's final resting place. An undead serial killer named Abbott Hayes would see to that.

From what I've read about the behind-the-scenes action, the vast majority of problems that this movie has can be laid squarely at the feet of screenwriter Karen Wolf. She helped produce COTLD along with her father Joseph Wolf (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and John Russo (co-writer of Night of the Living Dead). Director Tor Ramsey has let it be known that Karen Wolf was obsessive, and indeed on the verge of lunacy, regarding her script and intense micromanagement of filmmaking details that she had little experience with or knowledge of. There were to be no changes in the script, and Wolf threatened to fire anybody that tried to change something or who disagreed with her ideas. And you'd think it would be important research, but apparently she had never even seen DAWN OF THE DEAD or DAY OF THE DEAD.

If you like mysteries, there are plenty of them to find here. Like why do they wait until dark to bury the bodies in the cemetery after a funeral? Why are Abbott Hayes' hands like two times as large as a normal hand? How did he become undead in the first place? Why doesn't anybody call the cops when they witness somebody get eaten by a zombie? Why didn't the guy that got killed and thrown in a coffin turn into a zombie? How come much of the time the dialogue doesn't match the actors' mouths? There are many more, just watch and make a game of finding all the nonsense.

The one shred of respectability in the entire film is the opening 15 minutes. The reason? Tom Savini. The town's previous zombie outbreak is shown to set up the rest of the movie. Savini plays a former cop turned survivalist enlisted to help deal it. What a tease. There's this big group of people hunting down and exterminating patches of zombies. Lots of guns, a helicopter, high production value kinda stuff. Then Tom Savini is gone and so is any hope for a good flick. Ramsey noted that the beginning works largely because it was only after this portion was filmed that Wolf went on her destructive rampage.

So who do blame? Was it an arrogant producer's daughter who killed a potentially decent flick? Or was it just a combination of bad writing, bad acting, bad directing, and bad producing all coming together? Regardless of whose fault it is, COTLD is a pointless waste of time.

This is one of the worst and boring zombie flicks I have ever seen. My goodness, why don't they have negative ratings on this site???

Forget Savini is in it. Yes, he's the man, but he is in this for like 7 minutes then gets KILLED and that's it for him.

The story for this supposed "sequel" to the great Night of the Living Dead has:

1. a stupid, unbelievable story.

2. WRETCHED acting, and i mean dismal folks.

3. lame special effects, what few there are.

4. a terrible soundtrack, if you want to call it that.

Bottom line: if you buy this, you will only watch it all the way through once...if you can make it that far, and then never again because it is terrible. basically, a complete waste of cash

You'd get more satisfaction in throwing 10 bucks down the toilet and watching it spin after you flush than watching this.

WHY? This is the question I asked myself after viewing the UK release of this travesty of a movie (actually, home movie is more apt). "Director" Tor Ramsey needs to be fed to one of his own zombies after making this awful excuse, and what is it with the terrible script? Maybe George Romero needs to have a word with his old NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD partners, and tell them to stop ruining the name of that cult classic.

The thought of Tom Savini appearing (in a very minor role) bolstered my hopes, but after seeing him act like he was still in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN only left me more depressed. The special effects aren't very special, the cinematography is dull and lifeless (no pun intended) and the acting is appalling. Actually, I don't know if the acting is that bad, it may just be the way the film has been shot and edited together, thus not really giving the actors much help at all.

However, all in all the movie is unwatchable. I sat down three times to try and sit through it, only giving up the final time as life is too short to watch amateur dreck like this. I just can't believe talented people like Tom Savini (who actually did outstanding work in DAWN and DAY OF THE DEAD, and created some of the most interesting effects work in the 80s) would lend their names to such drivel.

I heard recently that they're remaking DAWN OF THE DEAD (hello, bad move anyone?), if you have to do that, please don't hire Tor Ramsey to do it. After this major disgrace of a movie, I wouldn't trust this guy to direct traffic . . . I just hope 'ol George Romero is watching and laughing to himself somewhere in Pittsburgh. He seems to be the only guy who can bring justice to a zombie movie . . . it's just a pity that the creators of CHILDREN OF THE LIVING DEAD don't seem to have the same respect for the dead that he has . . .