Death is Child's Play

Encouraged the day before yesterday by the new horror film Eden Lake, where the villains are also played by kids, I indulged today in this gem from Spain. The opening montage of various ugly images (you’ll understand) is already quite intense, while the story itself brings a disturbing atmosphere that peaks in the last half hour (the shot of a pack of children descending on the coast is awesome). The beginning with a couple wandering in an abandoned village reminded me of the recent Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper, and I could easily believe that its director, D’Amato, took inspiration from here. Who can kill a child? is smart and intense horror that remains current even 30 years after it was made. BTW, the director, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, five years later would deliver another very good horror film, The House That Screamed. (06/11/2008)

Eden Lake of our parents’ generation. It is their fault that this gem, which relies on the disturbing atmosphere of a sultry day in the middle of a village with the lowest average age of population in the world, has remained completely hidden. (19/06/2012)

The culmination of the film fortunately comes with its very end, which is a good thing because it pays off the long waiting time that the entire film presents. Despite its length, the film "Who Would Dare to Kill a Child?" is a very successful piece of work that can shock you with scenes involving children, with the final one being excellent, making you wonder who allowed this to be filmed. But this is exactly how the film should have looked like. (14/11/2015)

The attempt at some kind of insight, expressed by the documentary footage at the beginning (the worst atrocities of the 20th century, including Auschwitz and genocides all over the world), is rather futile, and actually quite unnecessary, because it doesn’t enhance the overall impact of the film. Plus, the cutters of the editor should have worked harder, halfway through I felt like I'd swallowed a whole pot of lemon balm. But I can't deny the interesting atmosphere, the killer children with their innocent faces are really disturbing, sometimes even scary, and the fatal scene with the pregnant woman is physically unpleasant. Besides, I can't imagine something like that in today's politically correct times, when at the end a machine gun unexpectedly comes into play and the little bastards are cutting each other down on the head with boards, knives in thighs and carotid arteries. Simply, as was the custom in the 70s – the Spaniards did not mess around. (12/06/2021)