Come Out and Play (2012)

Written by Jennifer Manriquez, Editor-In-Chief, Paddy Jack Press

I caught this one on Hulu, totally on a whim, and I was kind of surprised that I enjoyed it. I've read a lot of mixed, mostly negative, reviews, so my hopes weren't high. But it wasn't bad. After watching it, I did a little research and learned that it's actually an almost shot-for-shot remake of a 1976 film called Who Could Kill a Child? Shot-for-shot remakes seem totally pointless to me, so I'm really glad I didn't have that knowledge before I went into this. The remake of Psycho with Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche is a disastrous pile of manure, and I can blame that movie for ruining shot-for-shot remakes for me. If it's shot-for-shot and I've already seen the original, then I've already seen the remake! You don't need my money.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***
From here on out there be spoilers...

"BECAUSE APPARENTLY..."
We start with Francis and his seven-months-pregnant wife, Beth. They are vacationing in a hot foreign country, where the water notoriously gives you diarrhea, because apparently that's something good for a pregnant woman to do. They decide to visit an island out of the blue because apparently they were bored with the vacation they were already on. They take a teeny rented boat to the island over choppy waters because apparently it's totally cool to bang your baby up and down with the force of a hammer blow over and over and over. Okay, there's your set up.

It doesn't take long for Francis and Beth to realize that there are no adults on the island, only creepy kids who smile and giggle while they're mercilessly beating old people with a cane.

These kids are nutty as hell, totally depraved (note the ear necklace in the photo above). They don't seem to care about anything but killing adults and playing with dead grown-up guts. So, you might think, "But why?" And you never really get an answer, but you do get an idea that there is an alien or supernatural force at play. When the murderous savage kids come upon some "normal" kids, they impart their desires to the new kids with a touch on the shoulder and a deep, smoldering eye-linger. These crazy little assholes are psychic now?!

Anyway, I'm just gonna cut to the chase. After some sad stuff in the middle (some nice people, that you are actually compelled to like and root for, bite it hard because they don't want to kill the kids), and the death of our lead heroine Beth by way of her unborn baby tearing her up from the inside out, we're left with Francis running for his life to the dock where his boat is parked. He finally says 'eff it" and just starts knocking the crap out of any kid that comes near him with a baseball bat. I say good on you, Francis. Spare the rod, spoil the child. It's the only way they'll learn.

Francis is busy smashing a kid's head into gorilla cookies when the law pulls up. They see what he's doing and... of course... shoot him. (Thanks for making this a thing, George Romero! Ugh...) Francis dies. Then the police hit the dock to help the kids, where they are quickly attacked and killed. Next a handful of the kids hop on the police boat and sail off to parts unknown, in an obvious effort to take over the world. What happens next we don't know. Once all of the adults are dead, do the aliens descend? What if the aliens lose interest in our planet and go away? Do the kids just kill each other when they reach a certain age, like the children of the corn did? What about the adults who live out in the middle of nowhere and don't have kids around. Will they eventually save the day with their abundance of weapons and survival gear? I've got questions, man!

I enjoyed this movie. I say check it out. And be sure to go online and dig up scenes from the original. Those 70s kids are even creepier.