- Directed by Tom Shankland
- Written by Paul Andrew Williams, Tom Shankland
- Stars Eva Birthistle, Stephen Campbell Moore, Jeremy sheffield
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83SpGgQTH2Y
Spoiler-Free Judgement Zone
If you hate children, you’ll love this. If you love children, it’ll creep you out. Either way, it’s thoroughly… OK. It’s not great though, as the children are really annoying, and the parents are really stupid. .
Synopsis
Two families are spending Christmas together. Casey is a moody teenager who doesn’t want to be there, but she has to deal. Little autistic Paulie pukes all over, apparently carsick. There are too many little kids, and it’s all obnoxious and annoying. The parents are less annoying, but only a little. Little Leah coughs up something nasty and wipes it on the pillow. Casey goes outside to find cell phone reception and hears something in the woods. Everyone goes to bed.
The next day is bright and sunny, and everyone heads outside to play in the snow and do some sledding. They can’t find the cat. Little Paulie won’t stop banging on his damned xylophone.
The two fathers try to talk about business and medicine as the kids have a snowball fight and it doesn’t go well. Jonah wants Robbie to invest in his Chinese drug import venture. The kids start feeling sick at lunchtime. The mass crying begins. Miranda goes berserk and hits her mother in the eye.
Everyone goes back outside, and Robbie gets impaled in a sledding accident that’s not quite an accident. Paulie, who has a thing about cutting people with knives, picks up a knife and cuts his father’s arm then runs off into the woods. Robbie dies, and Elaine sends Casey off into the woods to find the little kids.
Elaine goes out to cover up Robbie’s corpse, but it’s gone. There are red sled marks on the ground. Paulie then lures Elaine up onto the jungle gym and that goes badly for her. Then a whole bunch of stuff happens all at once, accompanied by excessive screaming. Finally, that evil little shit Paulie gets what’s coming to him, but his mother isn’t at all pleased.
Chloe accuses Elaine of killing her child, which she did, but at least he had it coming. Chloe thinks the whole family is insane and runs off looking for her remaining children. Casey thinks it’s a disease since she’s been finding puke puddles all over. She figures out that the little kids are murdering psychopaths.
Chloe finds Leah and Nicky in the woods, but they stab her eyes out. Meanwhile, Miranda is upstairs beating the cat to death with the phone. Jonah thinks Elaine murdered Paulie and Casey has attacked Miranda, but it was the other way around. He takes Miranda and drives away.
Soon, it’s Leah and Nicky against Elaine and Casey. Casey kills Nicky and wants to stab Leah, but Elaine makes her stop.
The two get into the car and leave her behind. There’s nothing but static on the radio. Soon they pass Jonah’s car on the road and find Jonah buried in the snow. Elaine runs Miranda down with her car on purpose.
Casey pukes up yellow stuff. Is it nerves or is she infected? Soon, there are a dozen children surrounding Elaine’s car. It wasn’t just her kid, it’s some kind of plague. Casey gets in the car they drive on.
Commentary
And I thought our family Christmas get-togethers were messed up!
If you didn’t hate children before this film, you will afterward, even ignoring the horror elements. These kids are just annoying as hell from the get-go. Thirty minutes into the film, and I was ready to go in with a chainsaw and solve all their problems before they began.
Jonah was continually harping on Chinese medicine early on, so I guess we’re supposed to assume that this is some kind of Chinese virus that the kids picked up on one of his trips. But there are signs throughout the film that it’s not just their house. Lisa on the phone mentions someone got sick. The ambulance calls promised to arrive later and later, and the radio stations don’t seem to be working.
It’s effective. It’s creepy. The kids are ultra-annoying, but at least they die in entertaining ways. Wait, am I allowed to say that about little kids?