Revenge of the Revenant Review 28: The one where the kid is more dangerous than the zombies

 

Title: The Child aka Zombie Child, The House of the Zombie, Dream No Evil

What Year?: 1973 (preproduction and filming)/ 1977

Classification: Unnatural Experiment/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: For Crying Out Loud!!! (1/4)

 

With this review, I’m starting the final countdown for what I planned for this feature. In the lead-up to this point, I’ve been giving thought to a lot of movies from the late 1970s and early 80’s in particular that are definitely “weird” enough for inclusion. It’s enough in itself for either a continuation of the feature or an “honorable mention” list, like Dead And Buried, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, and for that matter Shock Waves, reviewed on my Exotroopers blog. What I kept finding is that most of the movies that came to mind, no matter how novel, don’t really stand out from each other or the movies I’ve reviewed so far. Then I recalled one particular movie that I had looked up once and barely remembered after that. Even from my disconcertingly vague recollections, I knew this was the one to fill out the list. Here is The Child, a movie about a kid who makes friends with the undead.

Our story begins with very atmospheric shots of a forest and a little girl on the way to a cemetery, with a basket of kittens. After this ends as badly as could be expected, we meet Alicianne, a newly hired governess for the girl, Rosalie Nordon, who lives with her recently widowed father and a grown-up brother, Len. Unsurprisingly, all is not well. All the family is distraught over the death of Rosalie’s departed mother, which is hinted to be the work of tramps living in the woods. (Oh, and apparently this is supposed to be the 1930’s.) In their grief, they miss or refuse to acknowledge overwhelming evidence that the girl is a full-blown psycho. The governess finally becomes alarmed when Rosalie shows her drawings of “friends” she visits on her long walks, shown killing or devouring animals and people. When the disturbances escalate to the murder of several neighbors, Alicianne sounds the alarm, only to find that a group of undead are already closing in on the house. It’s up to her and Len to make a final bid to escape, so will they stay in her secure and potentially repairable car or run for a dodgy tin shed?

The Child was the first and only film directed by Robert Voskanian, from a script by Ralph Lucas, also “credited” for Planet of Dinosaurs. The film was reportedly filmed between 1973 and 1976 with an estimated budget of $30,000, under the working title “Kill And Go Hide”. The cast was led by Laurel Barnett of Goodby Norma Jean as Alicianne and Rosalie Cole in her only screen role as the girl of the same name, with TV veteran Frank Jansen as the elder Nordon. The finished film was distributed by exploitation producer Harry Novak under his Boxoffice International Pictures label. It was released theatrically in the US in January 1977; foreign-language posters and alternate titles attest to further distribution in Germany and Italy among other markets. A German release reportedly ran for 85 minutes, possibly due to differences in technology; known English-language videos are timed at 82 minutes. Barnett went on to appear in Barnaby Jones later in 1977. Box Office International closed down the same year, though Novak continued to operate into the 1980s at least.

For my experiences, this is yet another movie I first heard of from Dendle’s epic Zombie Movie Encyclopedia. Somewhat more unusually, I never heard any more about it from other circles spontaneously. Eventually, long after I heard of it but still many years ago, I looked up a dodgy online video. What I remembered was possibly the worst zombie movie I had ever seen. That was enough to put it on my radar for this feature, just so I could reassess it, and I even paid a modest price for a digital rental. What very quickly stood out was a movie that feels jumbled and out of place in time, worthy of my perhaps overused designation of Anachronistic Outlier. There are front and center moody shots and overdramatic music that would be at home in the 1950s if not even earlier. At the same time, there are also choppy edits and menacing “POV” shots that could easily be dismissed as a slasher movie knockoff, except that this would have been well into filming around the time venerable predecessors like Black Christmas and Texas Chainsaw Massacre were coming out.  

Moving forward, the most curious thing is that the movie sets up a “bait and switch” where what we get is more interesting than the “bait”. From a bare recounting of the story, one would expect lengthy scenes establishing Rosalie as a tragically misunderstood “innocent” and her governess as the only person who can get through to her. In fact, as already alluded, Rosalie is already flat-out psychotic, while Alicianne seems barely able to stand her. It doesn’t help that I never came close to sorting out the family relationships. What’s far more problematic is that even in her most menacing moments, the kid still oscillates between bratty, actively annoying and simply dull. Most of her threats consist of hints about her “friends”, with the repeated warning, “You’ll find out,” when in fact we never really get a clear picture of her relationship with the undead. Her more interesting moments come when she accuses certain characters of killing her mother, which come the closest to giving a sympathetic angle. Eventually, we are indeed offered a suspect who seems to know something, but my money would still be on the “friends” or Rosalie herself.

That brings us to the undead. For much of the film, they are kept almost unseen, in the best gothic horror tradition. It becomes clear from these scenes that these are more intelligent and resourceful than usual, able to pry through weak points in structures, lie in ambush, and in one surreal sequence operate a shotgun (shades of City of the Walking Dead?). In the finale, we get a far better look at them than many reviewers have noted. There’s even an unusual distance shot of a whole pack of them in broad daylight (the one thing that works for zombies). In appearance, they most resemble the spectral figures of Carnival Of Souls, with powdery, stylized makeup that comes close to that of Baron Samedi in Live and Let Die. They prove agile enough to move at a good clip even on steep or broken terrain, and don’t forget the use of weapons. In the strangest moment of a very odd film, the lot of them scatter at the sound of a car horn. At face value, it’s ignominious and nonsensical, yet on  consideration, it’s an intriguing nuance of behavior. Unfortunately, this is followed up merely by a chase where the undead always advance or slow down depending on how close the protagonists are to getting lunched.

That leaves the “one scene”, and nothing could top the beginning. We start with the title on black, then get a prompt jump to stormy skies over the house and the dark woods. It’s a striking example of the film’s anachronisms; if it wasn’t shot in color, this would look right for a 1930s monster movie (perhaps more so than The Walking Dead actually from that time). We get a few cuts between the dark clouds and the interior of the house as Rosalie emerges, accompanied by typically overdone piano music. After a few shots of the woods, we find her sitting in the woods with a basket. She uncovers the basket, and takes out a kitten. That’s when we see that she is seated in front of a headstone, shrouded in mist. As she holds up the cuddly pet, a grungy arm reaches over the slab and grips it. The kitten does not scratch or hiss, but only gives a single plaintive and perplexed “mew” before disappearing out of sight. It’s bizarre, it’s perverse, and for the right mood and taste, it’s funny. Alas, it’s a high mark of the rest of the movie put together never lives up to it.

In closing, I must address whether I changed my mind about this movie. Before venturing a viewing, I found plenty of reviewers who speak well of it. After a repeat viewing, I’m happy to concede it’s not the worst zombie movie I have encountered. (The leading contender by far for that distinction is from, dear Logos, 2008.) Even among the movies I’ve giving the same rating, it’s well above the bottom. By comparison, Hard Rock Zombies still stands out as the worst I’ve given a rating, with dishonorable mention for Hell of the Living Dead and Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. The key consideration, as usual, is that the true worst of the worst simply wouldn’t be here, because the true bottom of the barrel of this or any genre are the movies that are either hopelessly dull or offensively stupid. All in all, if you like this movie, you haven’t made a bad choice. The rest can join me in moving on.