Search - The Child on DVD

A decent zombie movie

Erich Hoelter | Eau Claire, Wisconsin United States | 07/14/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The Child is a zombie movie, although not a "great" one. A city-girl returns to the countryside where she grew up to be a nanny for a little girl who has been very awful since her mother died. But as the nanny falls in love with a man working at the house, the girl gets angry. The girl has control of zombies from the nearby cemetary, and she uses them to strike back at everyone around her.
This disk is very good, as well. It contains trailers for many other movies, and it has a "short" movie (which is about 70 minutes, I believe), that also has zombies in it (that movie is older, and there is very little gore, since the zombies are basically used as cheap workers, as in most older zombie movies).
Excluding several scenes, this one is not as graphic as most zombie movies, but still is gory enough that some people may want to avoid it."

This kid doesn't kid around! No kidding!

Craig Edwards | By the sea in NC | 12/12/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The Child (1977) This is an ultra low budget horror flick from distributor Box Office International, run by the amazing Harry Novak. Harry would scope out movies like this and put them on the drive in circuit throughout the 1960's and 1970's. In this rather odd little movie, pretty young Alicianne has been hired as a nanny for a girl named Rosalie. Little Rosalie lives way out in the boonies in an old house with her crabby old dad and much older brother. Alicianne finds Rosalie to be a strange little girl who spends a lot of time in the cemetery down the road. Don't feel too bad for Rosalie, though, because she does have some friends. Friends who hail from that very same cemetery. Soon, everyone who makes Rosalie mad starts to die horrible gory deaths. With no real explanation, it seems Rosalie has some kind of funky control over the dead, willing them to crawl out of their graves and attack those she feels are responsible for the death of her beloved mom, which is pretty much everybody, including the old neighbor lady, the gardener, her dad, her brother, and eventually even the new nanny. I enjoyed this movie's modest charms, though there's seemingly not much to recommend about it. The script is more a series of scenes than a story, and that lack of flow is not helped by director Robert Voskanian who keeps the pace pretty slow for the most part. One scene ends, another begins and there's no feeling or connection between them. The passage of time in the movie is poorly communicated. It's day, it's night, it's day again, but no time seems to have passed. The acting is not very good, and it's not helped by the fact that all of the dialogue on the soundtrack seems to have been dubbed back in later. On the plus side, there is a Halloween scene involving the scariest Jack O'Lantern EVER, the last twenty minutes are pretty zippy, the gore and makeup effects are nicely done considering the money involved, and there's a general air of dread about the movie starting from the early scenes that gave me enough to mark this one on the positive side of the entertainment scorecard. I'm not sure most would agree with me, so approach this one at your own risk. Something Weird's DVD release features several fun extras as well, including another zombie movie, two old film shorts and some wonderful 60's and 70's era radio ads for horror flicks played over a gallery of movie posters for the same kinds of flicks."

At least it's amusing . . .

Dancing Ganesha | Bangalore, India | 07/29/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Ultimately silly, especially because of the over-the-top acting by Rosalie (her name also happens to be Rosalie in real life), this film quite doesn't hit the mark. If anything, I found Rosalie, both the actress and the character, amusing; her acting style (if there is any) and her deliverance is hilarious. The actress Laurel Barnett is the only notable one here -- she seems genuine as a whole, although at the end she wore on my nerves with her endless screaming and lack of action. The only thing I really like about Something Weird videos is the jam-packed Special Features. If anything, get the movie for this reason alone."