Children of the Living Dead (2001)

'Children' Should Have Been Aborted

Even if you're pro-life, you have got to admit that this thing should have been aborted immediately. To submit this heap to anyone with more than a few brain cells is downright criminal.

Mathew Michaels (Damien Luvara) is helping oversee the construction of his father's (Philip Bowers) new car dealership in a rural Pennsylvania town. They secured a good deal on the land because it formerly used for the local cemetery. The law, Deputy Randolph (Marty Schiff), has conveniently agreed to turn the other cheek as they relocate the graves. The townsfolk, the construction crew, and everyone else nearby eventually learn the hard way that it's not a good idea to mess with someone's final resting place. An undead serial killer named Abbott Hayes would see to that.

From what I've read about the behind-the-scenes action, the vast majority of problems that this movie has can be laid squarely at the feet of screenwriter Karen Wolf. She helped produce COTLD along with her father Joseph Wolf (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and John Russo (co-writer of Night of the Living Dead). Director Tor Ramsey has let it be known that Karen Wolf was obsessive, and indeed on the verge of lunacy, regarding her script and intense micromanagement of filmmaking details that she had little experience with or knowledge of. There were to be no changes in the script, and Wolf threatened to fire anybody that tried to change something or who disagreed with her ideas. And you'd think it would be important research, but apparently she had never even seen DAWN OF THE DEAD or DAY OF THE DEAD.

If you like mysteries, there are plenty of them to find here. Like why do they wait until dark to bury the bodies in the cemetery after a funeral? Why are Abbott Hayes' hands like two times as large as a normal hand? How did he become undead in the first place? Why doesn't anybody call the cops when they witness somebody get eaten by a zombie? Why didn't the guy that got killed and thrown in a coffin turn into a zombie? How come much of the time the dialogue doesn't match the actors' mouths? There are many more, just watch and make a game of finding all the nonsense.

The one shred of respectability in the entire film is the opening 15 minutes. The reason? Tom Savini. The town's previous zombie outbreak is shown to set up the rest of the movie. Savini plays a former cop turned survivalist enlisted to help deal it. What a tease. There's this big group of people hunting down and exterminating patches of zombies. Lots of guns, a helicopter, high production value kinda stuff. Then Tom Savini is gone and so is any hope for a good flick. Ramsey noted that the beginning works largely because it was only after this portion was filmed that Wolf went on her destructive rampage.

So who do blame? Was it an arrogant producer's daughter who killed a potentially decent flick? Or was it just a combination of bad writing, bad acting, bad directing, and bad producing all coming together? Regardless of whose fault it is, COTLD is a pointless waste of time. June 7, 2008

Garbage

This is one of the worst and boring zombie flicks I have ever seen. My goodness, why don't they have negative ratings on this site???

Forget Savini is in it. Yes, he's the man, but he is in this for like 7 minutes then gets KILLED and that's it for him.

The story for this supposed "sequel" to the great Night of the Living Dead has:

1. a stupid, unbelievable story.

2. WRETCHED acting, and i mean dismal folks.

3. lame special effects, what few there are.

4. a terrible soundtrack, if you want to call it that.

Bottom line: if you buy this, you will only watch it all the way through once...if you can make it that far, and then never again because it is terrible. basically, a complete waste of cash

You'd get more satisfaction in throwing 10 bucks down the toilet and watching it spin after you flush than watching this. June 5, 2008

a cheeseball classic

This is 70's bad horror at it's best...unintentionally, because it was made in 2001. It was the return of grindhouse before Quentin got the idea last year. From Tom Savini doing his Popeye impression at the beginning to the jive-strutting Abbot Hayes in funky golf shoes, this is a movie begging for MST3K to return... May 31, 2008

Yes, It's Another 1-Star Review

As a rule, smart people who are familiar with Amazon's "customer" reviews quickly learn to pour a bag of rock salt over most of the single-starred ones; on the other hand, when they total over half the number of a title's reviews, it's now exception-to-the-rule time. In the case of CHILDREN Of The LIVING DEAD, consider those 1-starred reviews as reliable as Lindsay Lohan's next meltdown.

Why do I loathe CHILDREN Of The LIVING DEAD? You tell me...

-Disjointed plot: The movie opens in the middle of a zombie holocaust where, for some inexplicable reason, children are sitting around unharmed and smiling. Jumping 14 years ahead, the townspeople seem to have forgotten everything that's happened. Plot holes like this are all over the place: One moment its hordes of undead, the next it's unscrupulous used car salesmen, then we have the corpse of a serial killer looking for the teenagers who broke beer bottles on the grave of his dear departed mother--who used to force him as a child to dress as girl (yes, just like that movie, Psycho)!

-No direction: Several times in the movie people are told that zombies can only be destroyed by a bullet to the brain, yet several of them clearly get taken out by body shots. Then there is the pack of rabid zombies who stop short of a diner's large windows, where they calm down to glide their hands over the glass. What was up with that? And, of course, we have the 6-shot revolvers firing 8 or 9 times.

-Deception: Although he is only in the beginning 10 minutes, Tom Savini gets top billing. Savini was the only reason I chose to watch this garbage.

-Amateurish makeup: The zombie serial killer looks like he's wearing a mask bought from a dollar store, while his nose and hands grow with each scene. Any movie "starring" Tom Savini, one of the greatest makeup artists in the business and an FX legend, should never have such low grade makeup/FX.

Savini should've walked off the set, I then never would've watched this garbage. It would've been a better world for us all.

To call CHILDREN Of The LIVING DEAD a bad movie is giving it undeserved praise.

The contents in the seat of a bum's pants have more worth than this movie.

I don't want to give it any stars.

So, if you are thinking of purchasing or renting this DVD don't just take my word for it, feel free to read the 54 out of 80 other negative reviews. You'll thank me later. April 22, 2008

More desecration of the canon.

Children of the Living Dead (Tor Ramsey, 2001)

Oh, how could you? Three of the principals from the original Night of the Living Dead-- John Russo (who produced), William Hinzman (cinematographer; his daughter appears in the film), and Tom Savini (who stars)-- came together to create this godawful offshoot of Romero's pictures, if offshoot it can be called. I'm not even going to offer you a plot summary on this one; the offenses to canon are even worse here than those in Day of the Dead 2: Contagium. Karen Wolf's script should have been published, as Melville once put it, only to the flames. Some of the acting is competent; most, to be kind, is not. Ramsey's direction is okay some of the time, terrible some of the time. (To be fair, it seems much of the problem lay with Wolf and Russo; according to IMDB, they lorded many crew hiring decisions over him, as well as recutting the final film without any input from him at all.) Technically, the film's a mess; the lighting and soundtrack are horribly inconsistent, the makeup is awful (how on earth did Tom Savini make this movie and have nothing to do with the makeup? Brilliant move, guys), the special effects are, shall we say, not so special. Avoid this one unless you need a reason to throw things at, or through, your TV. * April 1, 2008

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