I wasn't around until the eighties so I didn't catch a lot of these obscure horror cult films at the drive-ins or the grindhouse theaters. I first saw some of these on late night TV, the Saturday noon horror shows, and on home video (remember the days of the mom and pop video stores and the oversized video dispaly boxes).

THE CHILD (1977) aka KILL AND GO HIDE and ZOMBIE CHILD. Starring LAUREL BARNETT, ROSALIE COLE, FRANK JANSON, RICHARD HANNERS, and RUTH BALLAN. Directed by ROBERT VOSKANIAN.

The improbably named Aliciennce del Mar (Laurel Barnett) is driving to a heavily wooded area where she grew up to become the governess to troubled Rosalie Norden (Rosalie Cole) whose mentally ill mother recently died. Alicienne's car is run off the road so she has to make her way through the foggy woods at night after being given directions by elderly Mrs Whitfield (Ruth Ballan) who informs her that Rosalie regards the woods as her own and that her pranks have driven away all of her boarders. Having lost her parents at a young age, Alicienne sympathizes with Rosalie. Alicienne arrives at the Norden house late at night and witnesses an example of Rosalie's telekinetic powers. She also discovers that Rosalie has taken to going out at night and communicating with a presence in the foggy cemetery which her grumpy father (Frank Janson) believes to be tramps but are actually monstrous creatures that feed on human flesh and are laregley content to make a meal out of anyone who Rosalie dislikes.

An atypical release from Harry Novak's Box Office International, this low budget chiller is heavy on the horror with some surprising doses of gore minus the sexual content of other Box Office releases as A SCREAM IN THE STREETS, DUNGEON OF VIRGINS/CAGED VIRGINS, BEHIND LOCKED DOORS and the like. The attempt at gothic atmosphere is strained - I'm sure DARK SHADOWS was an inspiration - but it makes for a unique atmosphere. Handheld, wide-angle shots of Alicienne wandering through the blue-tined, foggy woods and barely glimpsed clawed hands, a scene where she dreams she is waltzing with Rosalie's grown brother Len (Richard Hanners) only for him to turn into a scarecrow, and a sequence where a jack o'lantern in a darkened room lights up on its own and rotates around the table to follow a terrified Alicienne with its gaze (which sounds funnier than it is) are all evocative of images from half-remembered nightmares. The partially post-synchronized dialogue and the jangling piano keys amidst the early synthesizer sounds also add to a sense of displacement. There is also some effectively startling gore effects judiciously placed throughout and the filmmakers balance quiet and loud scenes (in terms of sound effects, music, and action) effectively. During the all out climactic attack where the creatures of the cemetery make themselves known in a jump-in-the-car-drive-until-you-crash-run-to-the-mill-board-up-the-windows-type NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD assault, there's a quiet buildup, a gory shock, the chase, the shelter, the lull, another shock, a lull, unexpected gore, another lull, and then an ending that goes out with a whimper but is nonetheless effective. This is the kind of film that makes wannabe filmmakers take a look around at their settings and resources and think "I could do something like this and make it better." I'd recommend this film for late night or rainy weekend viewing for people tired of the latest 5.1 or DTS-enhanced, CGI-riddled horror flicks with insufferably annoying young former, current, or soon-to-be TV actors.

THE CHILD had two releases on videotape in the eighties. The first was an hour-long condensation under its original title paired with DUNGEON OF TERROR, an hour-long condensation of the English dub of Jean Rollin's REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE which Box Office International distributed under the titles CAGED VIRGINS and DUNGEON OF VIRGINS (the onscreen title of the Something Weird Video release; the now out of print Image DVD and the European 3 disc set feature the uncut version) from Best Film & Video which distributed a couple other condensed pairings of Box Office International titles in irresistable red clamshell boxes. Monterey Home Video released the uncut version of the film under the title KILL AND GO HIDE (the film's tagline though the onscreen title of the tape was THE CHILD). The film popped up again on video in the nineties when mail-order company Something Weird Video took possession of Harry Novak's Box Office International library. A few years later, SWV struck a deal with Image Entertainment to distribute several of their titles on DVD including THE CHILD. Image's DVDs of Something Weird titles are loaded with trailers, posters, and featurettes, and this disc is no exception. In addition to the nice transfer (its a low budget film so its never going to look pristine but the image is an improvement over the tape releases), you get the film's trailer, trailers for several other Box Office International titles (many featuring graphic nudity that seems inappropriate paired with the main feature but is indicative of Novak's usual product), two vintage educational short subjects (THE OUTSIDER and THE ABC OF BABYSITTING), a gallery of drive-in posters and some radio spots, and the most substantial extra of all: an entire second full-length feature, the black and white zombie 1964 flick I EAT YOUR SKIN (which was paired with the 1975 film I DRINK YOUR BLOOD on a memorable double bill) though the film's franky quite boring.