Director: Narciso Ibáñez Serrador
Year: 1976
Country: Spain
Alternate Titles: ¿Quién puede matar a un niño?; Island of Death; Island of the Damned; Death is Child's Play; Trapped; The Hex; The Hex Massacre; Les révoltés de l'an 2000
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Deciding to vacation in Spain, a couple of tourists decide to rent a boat and visit a supposedly abandoned island nearby for their trip, only to find a group of children living on the island playing homicidal children’s games with every adult they come across and must try to get away alive.
Review:
This was a decidedly odd and chilling genre effort. One of the films’ best aspects is the enjoyable setup here that manages to have a lot going for it. With the tonally off-putting but still incredibly harrowing intro featuring footage of the atrocities children have faced in the world through the various wars and disasters creates a bleak and depressing tone, this feels far too real for what’s to come later on against the cinematic terrors of the killer kids. Their arrival on the abandoned island with the eerie behavior and off-putting nature of the kids creates plenty of tension that goes quite well alongside the quiet and noticeable but unmentioned lack of adults living there. The clues that there’s something wrong with them, from dead bodies out in the open but unobserved from their location, the way they always retreat from contact or shown observing them from afar is all brought together into being a fine beginning here.
Once this starts to put some payoff into the second half when the children start attacking. The initial scenes of the couple going through the village where they have the suspicion something’s wrong involving the children running away with the dead bodies to play their warped and demented games with it are exceptionally cruel and brutal. As well, the growing realization that something is wrong with them when the violence starts to take a personal turn and their increasingly creepy attitude towards the others becomes the catalyst for a series of impressive chases and encounters trying to keep the kids from killing them that has a lot of action involved. The idea of the kids being able to corrupt others to turn them into a like-minded gang to attack and confront the couple is subtle enough to work out what’s happening and the grim ending is a fantastic conclusion, giving this plenty of incredibly enjoyable elements.
There wasn’t a lot wrong but it does have a few minor issues. One of the biggest factors is the overlong running time here which mostly comes about due to the excessive travelogue footage of them wandering around the Spanish village before leaving for the island. This is all way too bland and dull to be a good mood setter with just bland scenes of wandering around looking at fireworks or talking with the locals which holds this one up somewhat. As well, the utterly moronic idea of taking too long to get the hint that something’s wrong and then staying at the island once they fall victim to the kids which seems highly unrealistic considering how little he tries to change her mind from the obvious that’s going on around them. These aren’t too detrimental, though, and manage to make for minor issues that hold this back slightly.
Overview: ****.5/5
With only a few minor flaws that aren’t even that detrimental anyway, there’s plenty to like with this effort that has some creepy ideas and concepts alongside its fantastic action. Any and all fans of Eurohorror, and Spanish genre cinema in general, should track this one down or even those curious about the concept, while those who aren’t into the subject matter or appreciate the approach here might not be that interested in what’s going on.
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