Movie Review - Wicked Little Things

Wicked Little Things

(2006)

Millennium Films / Nu Image / Sandstorm Films : After Dark Films / Sony Pictures Entertainment / Lionsgate Home Entertainment

7.75 / 10

The main reason to watch this film would be the story as it gives a refreshingly fresh take on the Zombie genre.

The Carlton's had owned the land for generations. On that land were forests, houses, and a mine.  Deep in the mine were buried the Carlton's darkest injustice.  But some transgressions don't stay buried...  These ones are on the hunt for retribution.

The Carlton's used child labour down in their mine and one day an avoidable incident caused the deaths of most of the youngsters.  Carlton was cleared of any wrongdoing and was never prosecuted for the deaths.  The event was ruled a tragic accident.

Wanting revenge, the children now walk the woods looking for Carlton and his bloodline...

Enter Karen (Lori Heuring) and her two daughters, Sarah (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Emma (Chloe Grace Moretz), who move into a property on Carlton land.  The house had been left to their husband and father, who had passed away leaving them in enough debt that they had to sell their home.  The house is one of the most oppressive I've ever seen.  It's dark and foreboding.  The door is open and blood has been painted on the door.

It's not long before Emma has made a friend in Mary...  The trouble is, nobody else can see Mary.

The director, J S Cardone (of The Slayer - reviewed on this blog) does a winning job of creating atmosphere, tension, and suspense at all the right times in the movie.  The night scenes in the moonlit woods are lovely, verging on beautiful, they do give an eerie feel to the location and situation.  However, as I stated in the review to The Slayer, it appears he also likes dark houses.  It's actually brighter outside in the woods by moonlight than it is in the house with all the lights burning.  It's just as annoying here that the light of an electric bulb only radiates a couple of feet.  There are some wonderful iconic and haunting shots of the children in their miner's garb carrying their work tools, which they use to dispatch anybody they run into.

The actors all give good performances, though, at times, both Ben Cross as Aaron Hanks and Martin McDougall as Mr Carlton ham it up, but they do reign in the piggies after a short while.  Not one actor or actress stands out above the rest, they are all fair at making their characters believable.  Though I do have a fondness for Geoffrey Lewis, especially after the hauntingly eerie rocking chair scene in Salam's Lot that stays with me today.  He is good as the irascible plumber Harold.

It's the story that's the star in this film, though, and that is a very unusual thing to say about a horror film.  It's the fresh take on the Zombie mythos, in some ways it harpers back to the original Zombie, where a spell or a curse would resurrect the dead.  They then become unstoppable until the curse is lifted has run its course.  The course here is the revenge of the children on the Carlton bloodline.

I would recommend this to all horror fans or the casual viewer looking for something respectable in the genre.  You could do worse.