The Child (1977)

A newly hired house-keeper in a secluded area is alarmed to discover that her boss's eleven-year-old daughter is using her supernatural powers to take revenge on the people she holds ... See full summary »

Director:

Robert Voskanian

Writer:

Ralph Lucas

Stars:

Laurel Barnett, Rosalie Cole, Frank Janson

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Laurel Barnett	...	Alicianne Del Mar
Rosalie Cole	...	Rosalie Nordon
Frank Janson	...	Nordon
Richard Hanners	...	Len Nordon
Ruth Ballan	...	Mrs. Whitfield (as Ruth Ballen)
Slosson Bing Jong	...	Gardener
Rod Medigovich	...	Priest / Creature
Wendell Hudiburg	...	Pall Bearer
Chris Tieken	...	Jefferson
Ralph Lucas	...	Creature
Jim Dickson	...	Creature
Chick Cavanaugh	...	Creature
Anoosh Avan	...	Creature

Storyline

A newly hired house-keeper in a secluded area is alarmed to discover that her boss's eleven-year-old daughter is using her supernatural powers to take revenge on the people she holds responsible for her mother's death, with the aid of her flesh-eating zombie 'friends'.

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Plot Keywords:

revenge | child villain | little girl | female villain | psychokinesis | 

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Taglines:

Let's play hide and go kill...!

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

March 1977 (USA)

Also Known As:

Children of the Night

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$30,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Panorama Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

82 min 85 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film is sampled by Rob Zombie for the intro of the song "What?" from Hellbilly Deluxe II, specifically the lines of dialogue: "I want to know who you were meeting in the cemetery." "I don't have to tell you anything."

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Goofs

During the climactic ghoul confrontation, Len lands an ax blow to the head of one of the ghouls. You can see though that the fake head is already broken open before the ax even connects.

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Quotes

Rosalie Nordon: My friends are going to come and hurt you both! Hurt you bad!

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Alternate Versions

The German DVD released by Best Entertainment in 2004 is listed as and has a running time of 85 mins. However the longer running time is due to a time expansion (meaning the film print was slowed down). It has nothing extra and the content is exactly the same as the US VHS tape with the following two exceptions- The opening title sequence is a little different in the way the credits appear and that it has some added wind sound effect playing in the background (which you can hear was from the film print and not something added as a new sound effect). Also towards the end when the zombies attack, our two main characters are fighting one by a saw mill type building where the zombie gets stabbed with a wooden stake. The US version then shows a far away shot of our two heroes running around to the front of the saw mill building before her leg breaks through a floorboard in the front. The German dvd omits this long shot, so after the zombie is stabbed it cuts to them already in the front of the building a second before her leg goes through the floorboard.

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Connections

Referenced in Horror Business (2005)

User Reviews

The Bad Seed on drugz

This is one of those 70s independent horror films like "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" and "Let's Scare Jessica To Death" that are odd, crude, dated, but interesting in their dreamlike approach to the genre. It's not as good as the aforementioned, but it has its points.

A very beautiful young woman shows up to be nanny for a bratty young girl living in an isolated farmhouse with her crusty old father and hunky grownup brother. We figure out pretty soon that the brat is a malevolent force around here, though just how she manages to (apparently) raise the dead in order to off anyone who ticks her off is one of many logical details you're better off not pondering. (The movie doesn't bother explaining, anyway.)

The plot is very thin, yet the film feels atmospheric and eventful enough. It's not "good" by any standards, but it has personality and its own oddball sense of conviction. The most laughable and incongruous element is a musical score overwhelmed by florid piano arpeggios (I'm not the first person who thought of Liberace), though after a while you can somewhat tune it out. If the movie had a more effectively disturbing score, a la "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," it might now be considered a minor classic-- which would be overrating it, but it's certainly no piece of camp trash, either. (Which is not to say I don't enjoy camp trash at times.)

Most of the participants seem to have never made another movie, and "The Child" has that compelling curiosity of a one-shot genre movie made by people whose arty inclinations probably doomed their futures in commercial cinema, but which also make this sole effort more interesting than most of what it would have shared drive-in and grindhouse screens with in the mid/late 70s.