Come Out and Play (2013)

A remake of the 1976 Spanish Cult Classic, Who Can Kill a Child?, Come Out and Play works on the assumption that no one could ever kill a little kid, even if their lives were in danger.

Fair enough.

I'll be the first to say though that if a gang of kids were trying to kill/cut/chop me up, and do nasty shit to my corpse once I was dead, I'd kill those little bastards with no compunction whatsoever. Sure, I'd probably need intense therapy for the rest of my life, but there's no way that a bunch of 9-year-olds are taking me out without one hell of a fight.

Then again, I wouldn't be on some isolated Island with the hot Mexican sun beating down on my very pregnant wife's head, so the point is moot.

That's really the issue that I have with this remake, and to a lesser extent, the original film; people go to such lengths to avoid harming a gang of sweet little killer kids, that it doesn't take long before the whole experience becomes frustrating and tedious.

Let's break down on of the worst plots of the year, shall we?

Come Out and Play begins with an American couple on Holiday in Mexico; he's not much of a thinker, and she's 9 months pregnant and ready to pop. They decide to rent a tiny motorboat and head over to some isolated Island, crossing what I'm assuming are the choppy waters of The Gulf of Mexico in what looks to be 100+ degree weather, because who cares if any of that makes sense for a woman about to give birth to be doing.

Long walks in ridiculously hot weather is great for pregnant chicks.

When they arrive at La Isla de Fucked Up Kids, there's no one around, save for a few kids who are acting all creepy. No warning bells go off in their heads, because maybe the locals are all on a siesta. They walk through the deserted streets and happen upon a Cantina... which is also deserted. Still, no warning bells, but hey, let's open up a few beers and relax, despite the place looking like it was turned over by banditos on crack. Then hubby is all like "stay here and relax, I'm going to go find a store." Thankfully Nothing Creepy happens to her while he's gone that basically seals her fate.

Meet Nothing Creepy, a local waif.

After stealing a bunch of shit from the store (and totally missing the bloody corpse laying in the middle of aisle cinco), they head off and find the Island's Hotel, only to find that it too looks to have been ransacked and abandoned. Still not dismayed at how wrong everything feels, they do what any normal, rational people in their place would do, and just decided to check themselves in. All of this asinine behavior aside, can we take a second to ponder how dumb you have to be to just help yourself to shit in an isolated part of a Foreign Country?

No, Gringo. It was not meant to be.

Despite receiving a bunch of eerie radio communications and finding a girl beating an old man to death, they still make no attempt to leave La Isla de You're Fucked, Gringo. By the time one of the last surviving adults on the island shows up and tells them just how fucked that they truly are, it's far too late to do a damn thing about it... unless of course they're willing to kill a bunch of kids to survive.

Needless to say, the Gringo's are el screwedo.

"Foreigners... come out and play-eee-ay!"

 

Come Out and Play is a remake of Who Can Kill a Child? (1976), and while the mechanics of both films tend to confound us at times, their shared premise is a great one; a city full of crazed/possessed/"sick" kids is out to kill you, and if you want to live, you're going to have to do them in first. All of them.

The movie looks and sounds great, and is a well made effort overall. The atmosphere was pretty solid and remained tense throughout also.

What was the deal with the kids though? Was it a supernatural force that possessed them, or was it like in The Children, where some creepy virus made them all into little maniacs? We'd really love to know the answer to this question.

Siesta, forever.

Why even remake Who can Kill a Child? I understand why you remake movies, but if you're not going to add anything new with your version, or try something different with the premise, then it's all just window dressing, isn't it?

Don't grab the spare gun that the dead kid isn't using anymore, because there's only 63 more rabid, killer kids out there on the street who still want you dead. Also, once you finally use the gun that you do have, albeit very briefly, just go ahead and drop it, because why live? ...and did you not see the boat just sitting there at Abuela's house? It was right there for the taking! ...and where the hell was the human pinata scene, Makinov? 

The bottom line is that too many gaps in logic kept this movie from being truly great.

"Why are you doing this to us, Mexico!"

Makinov.

Yes, the director of this movie goes by a mysterious pseudonym, and wears a hood in interviews. Maybe we're too jaded for our own good, but that just comes off as nothing but pretentious to us, and it irks the living shit out of us.

Kids killing adults, adults killing kids, a baby killing their mother from inside of the womb... this movie is pretty disturbing, violence-wise. Towards the end, the blood and gore get crazy graphic, mostly involving little kids playing with decapitated body parts. This one is not for the squeamish.

He's a Wrangler, and he's, one tough customer...

 Nothing that we didn't already learn from the 1976 original. Not one new thing.

If you can look past the film's silly plot-holes and gaping chasms in logic, then you might just have a fun time watching Come Out and Play. We recommend that you instead seek out and watch the original film, because for some reason that version just worked better for us, despite both films being nearly identical in execution. *Maybe because it's old and grainy, which always tends to make movies feel creepier?

What this film does get right, it gets very right, but it's definitely going to divide audiences and test most people's Bullshit Meters.

It should be on Netflix by now, so if you're looking to check this one out, that's probably the best way to do it. 

C-

Vinessa Shaw was looking good in this movie, even with her character being really, really pregnant.

Quick Review: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)

"Do be afraid to spend your money on this movie..."

There are so many things wrong with this movie that it amazes us that Guillermo Del Toro's name is anywhere near it. Not only did he produce it, but he wrote the screenplay? Baffling, because Del Toro is a craftsman with narrative, and the script here is full of plot devices and plot holes galore. It's just a weak, weak movie.

*A Quick note on Guillermo Del Toro: For those of you not familiar with who he is, you need to be. Above all else, the guy seems like one of the sweetest, most genuinely kind people on the planet. He's also a massive film geek, which coupled with his kind sensibilities has allowed him to make some breathtaking, creepy, and emotionally powerful movies.

Awww...

He really is one of the best directors working today, along with names like Fincher, Wook Park, Tarantino, Nolan, Jackson, Boyle, among others, instantly demands an audiences respect and at least their curiosity.

Seek out Pan's Labyrinth, and experience his talent the way it should be. Don't let this movie represent his level of talent or storytelling ability.

Fanboy.

If you haven't seen the original 1970's Made for TV movie from which this film version comes, it's basically the story of a family that moves into a gorgeous old mansion with a troubled past. It has a secret basement you see, one that has been sealed of for many years, and for good reason; there's pretty much a tunnel to Hell in the furnace, which is home to hundreds of evil, hungry, little imp-things.

Imp-Thing.

The family is made up of Dad, who is clueless about pretty much everything, including how to be a Dad; Daughter, who is bratty and annoying; and Step-Mom, who is the least annoying of them all. Strange things begin to happen, and it eventually becomes apparent that there's something "wrong" with the house...

Beautifully shot and fairly atmospheric, it's sad to see that this movie dropped the ball in so many ways. First and foremost are the plot holes. When the creepy old handy man wanders into the basement, he's attacked by dozens of the little monsters who stab him repeatedly with various tools and sharp implements, leave scissors stuck in his neck and a screwdriver jutting out of his head, and it's explained as an "accident?" No one panics, no one asks what type of accident leaves a strong, huge man full of more holes than a pincushion, and above all else, no one leaves. The scene where the little girl is taking a bath felt odd too. She draws the shower curtain around her tub, which felt like it only served to make a tense scene of "things" poking at the shower curtain. I know she's a kid, and kids do odd things all the time, but who pulls the curtain closed during a bath?

Forced scene is forced.

Even when the daughter is attacked in the library during a dinner party, which leaves a dead monster corpse and arm (I think I remember an arm) laying on the floor, no one does anything sensible. "Something odd is going on here..." No shit, jerk-nut. How about you leave the house? But of course, they don't. The ending is as lame as what preceded it as well; I won't spoil it for you here, but I will say "Come on, Guillermo! Just come on, man!" It all just felt forced and convenient, and not much of it rang true.

The opening scene was interesting. Visually, the movie is gorgeous. The whispers of the creatures work pretty well when you can decipher them. Aside from those few positives though, the rest is tedious, cheesy, and not creepy at all.

Don't look so surprised, Katie.

I'm sure that I'm going to take some flack for this next part, but screw it. The worst part of the whole thing, which for me made it all the more unbearable, was Bailee Madison. I know she's a kid, and I'm not in the habit of insulting little children (even when they have it coming), but for Christ's sake is she ever unbearable to watch. To behold her on screen is about as pleasant as chewing tin foil, or maybe or dragging metal wire across a chalk board... She comes off as pretentious and fake to us, and it's impossible for us to find her compelling in the least. With or without her, the movie is still a clinker, though we honestly believe that with another kid in the movie -one who could act convincingly, and is actually cute- it may have softened the blow a bit.

It's true hun, they like Tom Cruise better than you LOL!

As for the rest of the cast... Guy Pearce, who is usually amazing, pretty much phoned it in here. Oddly enough, the best actor in this mess was Katie Holmes. She's mostly famous for marrying the High Priest of the Church of Xenu, but she's actually good here, and manages to make her character worth half a damn, which is more than we can say for the other two leads.

"Why did I marry the Son of Xenu?!?"

We will never fully understand how this movie, in the hands of one of the best filmmakers of our time, went so bad, and in so many ways. Were it not for the quality of the visuals, we'd DO NOT WANT this one in a hot second. As it stands though, it's a pretty movie, with hollow, contrived insides, that manages to frustrate instead of scare. Seek out the original 1970's version, which for being a TV movie, was pretty damned creepy. We adore you, Guillermo, but this one we just can't love at all.

D

Katie Holmes is still pretty cute, though we miss the old school version of her; you know, before the whole uncomfortably creepy marriage thing. *FYI, we still like Tom Cruise, even with his crazy and all.

Quick Review: Atrocious (2011)

"The events in this movie really happened. It says so right in the movie."

*In Limited Release now, via AMC Theaters.

With any Found Footage movie, you need to be able to buy into the concept and the set-up for it to be effective. If you can't accept what you're seeing on the screen as real -as in "it truly happened"- then all is lost.

Atrocious does a pretty good job at keeping things real for the most part, though it does get a bit mired down in the trappings of its own sub-genre. Much of the movie is spent with characters walking and filming, running and filming, and doing everyday life things which adds to the realism of it all, but does wear thin after a while.

Most girls her age have cameras just like that.

Atrocious is the story of the Quintanilla family, who was found murdered in their creepy old vacation house in Stiges, Spain. The family's two oldest kids, Christian and July, just had to poke their nose into the old legend of the Girl in the Garraf Woods; both of them running around through a massive and creepy forest maze looking for proof of her existence.

Here's some proof.

It's not long before strange and eerie things begin to happen to them, both in the woods and out: they find strange altars, a foreboding pavilion, and even an old "you know you're screwed now" wishing/drinking well, all of which screams "you're about to die painfully!" to me. Add to that odd noises and goings-on around the house at night, and by the time the dog disappears, you just know they're all screwed.

Aww, un perro! (He dead)

The problem here is that everything seems all too familiar, which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but seeing as there are so many Hand Held/Found Footage flicks out there now, they need to start standing out a bit more.

Think about it like this; after the original Halloween and Friday the 13th, Slasher flicks started popping up right and left in the early 80's. Some were good, some were alight, but looking back with an honest eye, a lot of them sucked. They retreaded the same territory over and over again until they became almost a parody of themselves. People eventually grew tired of it all, which is why by the end of the 80's, the Horror genre was pretty much DOA, and didn't get much life back until Scream came along in 1996.

Atrocious is kinda like those mediocre slashers of old; it delivers what it's supposed to, but we've seen it before and done far better, so in the end it all feels kinda blah. That's not to say that there aren't some great moments in the movie, because there are. Some of it is genuinely creepy and even unsettling, but like most Found Footage flicks, most of its running time is spent on set up to give us that "It's soooo real" feeling.

There's some blood in this.

The twist at the end was interesting enough, though it changed the movie for us in retrospect, and gave everything a different feel. For us, Found Footage movies work when they show us glimpses of the unknown, highlighting supernatural and unknown horrors that lurk about out there somewhere, whether in a forest or an old home. They're a warning.

Here, when we actually get an explanation as to what's going on, it somehow becomes a bit less creepy. 

Yeah, that's about right.

 

Good enough for what it is, Atrocious is middle-of-the-road entertainment for the most part. It gets some things right, really right, but overall it's bringing nothing new to the Found Footage genre. If you haven't seen many movies like this, or just can't get enough of this sub-genre's offerings, you will most likely have a good time with Atrocious.

For those of us who have seen too much of this kind of thing, and are a tad jaded about our movies, it will only inspire strong feelings of "meh."

C

So Yellowbrickroad sucked, Rammbock was good, and Atrocious was alright... Cold Fish had better be good, or Bloody Disgusting and whatever the hell "The Collective" is, have pretty much dropped the ball with their "select" partnership with AMC Theaters.

The overall results so far have not been much better than the average AD Horrorfest year, or even the Fangoria's Frightfest... and that's not a good thing.