Memorable, crazy movie

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It does resemble "The Children (1980)" somehow and is also from Troma. Here there is actually a story behind the children's actions. I was surprised that the movie is from the late eighties as it looked so seventies to me. Character development is still not much to shout about. The killings done by the kids are a bit more inventive. Unfortunately they also kill of good characters. I would have given it a 4 but the ending was so stupid and only went for shock value than actually opt for a proper solution. For those who want to know: The adults kill all the kids in the end because they believe the blabber of some religious moron in a rather graphic way even though they are no longer under control of their devilish leader.

"Beware:Children at Play" tells the shocking story of small town in New Jersey called Pine Barrens.Every month one child is missing from it and some adults are mysteriously butchered and cannibalized.It's up to Sheriff Carr and paperback writer John DeWolfe to solve the mystery...Mik Cribben's "Beware:Children at Play" is an amateurish and surprisingly nasty "Children of the Corn" knock-off.The acting is poor and the gore effects are gleefully cheap for example a salesman gets sliced clean in half but still attempts to crawl away with his entrails hanging out.The chanting of murderous children is pretty creepy.The final showdown is an insane and bloody massacre of children which is poorly executed at the same time.6 dead children out of 10.

The children of a sticksville Pine Barrens, New Jersey hamlet venture off into the surrounding woods and become members of a crazed cannibal cult which turns the little buggers into feral, fiendish, flesh-eating freaks. The nasty nippers attack adults and devour their corpses. When the scared devoutly religious townspeople find out what's happening they form into a dangerously hysterical and heavily armed mob who go storming into the forest with the specific intention of killing their own kids. Boy, is this jaw-dropping wackoid wonder one really creepy, disturbing and seriously sick movie! Director Mik Cribben, who also shot and edited the picture and portrays the deranged ringleader of the insane posse (Cribben's other credits include second unit work on "Annie" and "The Eyes of Laura Mars," plus various behind-the-scenes contributions to such horror films as "Squirm," "Nightmare," and "The Deadly Spawn"), effectively creates a spooky and mysterious tone, elicits sound performances from a game no-name cast, keeps the pace chugging along at a slow, yet steady clip, and, most importantly, pours on the graphic carnage by the nauseating bucketful. WARNING: Possible *SPOILERS* ahead. Lots of tykes get messily offed in copious volume in the truly jolting climax: one tot's head goes boom into a dozen bloody bits by a pump shotgun blast, another child's brains get splattered when a pistol is jammed in his mouth, and a third moppet winds up impaled on a pitchfork that's rammed through his neck. Furthermore, we even get a pertinent message about the hazards of hardcore religious dogma and the equally lethal lynch mob mentality. A beautifully bent, batty and berserk bloodthirsty barn burner.

I went in expecting low budget thrills and they came, but they just came late in the movie. It was decent for the first three fourths of the movie,but it moved slowly. Once it hit the last quarter of the movie it picked up tremendously. I love the last quarter of the movie. If the whole movie had been like that part I could have given it a much higher score. Still I am proud to have added this Troma classic to my collection. (5 out of 10)