1964, Movies

Children of the Damned (1964, Anton Leader)

A long time ago I read something which told me to add this film, and not the earlier film, to my list. Watching this movie now, I have no idea why someone thinks this is the better movie. Because this film is worse in basically every way.

There are fewer kids this time out, so I guess that makes them less powerful But this time they’re the United Nations! This time it’s Global! Or something. (Go to your embassies!)

The movie is slower then the first film and we have to go through the same motions with learning about how the children operate. (Though it is certainly briefer this time out.) And we also get the same pseudo-scientific explanation as to what’s happening.

There are even more scenes of adults debating what to do about the children than the first movie. And there are adults fighting with each other and it’s just stupid.

I think perhaps the only thing that has improved is the effects, which have improved slightly (no burning model, only the occasional use of stills). But the effects are still not great, especially in the scene with the sound which makes people crazy.

But everything else about the film is substantially worse than the original. And worse, it’s pretty boring until third act. And then a lot of it is a lot of money spend on army stuff to make the climax feel bigger. And the climax is so utterly ridiculous with some guy from the UN and university professors ordering around soldiers.

I don’t know why this movie this movie exists except for the earlier movie was financially successful. It’s a classic sequel in that it is inferior in every way even though they go bigger in nearly every respect (location, number of characters, budget). The only difference is that here they don’t even try to relate it to the first film. So in some ways it’s more like a remake than a sequel.

Not very good.

4/10

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