When Hallmark Cards Go Nuclear
Ah, small-town New England. Quaint houses, friendly locals, and apparently a chemical plant one minor OSHA violation away from turning every Cub Scout into a walking microwave oven. The Children takes this Norman Rockwell backdrop and dumps a barrel of glowing nuclear waste all over it—literally—resulting in five pint-sized zombies who look like Casper with bad manicures and the ability to roast you alive with a hug. Because nothing says “family entertainment” like children weaponized by corporate negligence.
The Cloud That Couldn’t Scare a Weather Man
Our horror begins when two plant workers—Jim and Slim, because apparently “Dumb and Dumber” was taken—let a toxic gas leak roll through town. The cloud drifts lazily across the landscape, looking less like a harbinger of doom and more like a dry ice machine at a prom dance. Yet somehow it transforms a busload of children into nuclear-powered serial huggers. Forget chernobyl—this is Kiddie-nobyl.
Sheriff Billy Hart: Lawman, Sword Collector
The local sheriff, played by Gil Rogers, stumbles upon the abandoned school bus and immediately treats it like an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. His first instinct? Roadblocks. His second? Hugging suspicious, pale-faced children. Spoiler: this is a bad plan. When bullets prove useless against the microwave moppets, he upgrades to a decorative katana—because when you’re in rural Massachusetts, there’s always a random samurai sword lying around for just such occasions.
The Deaths: Hug It Out, Then Burn It Out
The “kills” here are all identical—someone leans in for an embrace, cue the ssssss sound effect, then we cut to a smoldering corpse. It’s like Care Bears meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only without the tension, the gore, or the care. The film somehow makes murder by hug boring, which is a cinematic achievement in failure.
Parents in Denial
Half the adults in Ravensback react to their children’s glowing fingernails and death hugs with the same concern they’d have for a scraped knee. Cathy, the lead’s wife, even knocks the sheriff out to protect the little radiation grenades. This is the horror movie equivalent of, “He’s not biting, he’s just playing.”
The Ending – And You Thought Daycare Was Expensive
Our heroes eventually discover the secret to stopping the kids: chopping off their hands. Yes, folks, that’s it. Not radiation therapy, not decontamination—just instant medieval dismemberment. Problem solved… until Cathy gives birth in the final scene, and wouldn’t you know it, the newborn has black fingernails. Which means the cycle will start all over again, provided anyone cares enough to make a sequel (they didn’t).
Final Word: Hug-Free Zone
The Children should have been creepy. It should have been unsettling. Instead, it’s a cheap, repetitive, unintentionally hilarious PSA against public affection. The effects are laughable, the tension is non-existent, and the scariest thing about it is realizing it somehow got a theatrical release. Hug your kids, sure—but maybe wear oven mitts.
