It’s Alright, Mum. Mary Said She Wouldn’t Hurt You.
Main Cast: Scout Taylor-Compton, Chloe Grace Moretz
Director: J.S. Cardone
Each year there are movies produced that are never seen by the public. Their content is considered too graphic, too disturbing, too shocking for general audiences. This is one of those films.
In 2007, WICKED LITTLE THINGS was actually my first encounter with the original 8 Films to Die For. I had wanted to see all of them from the moment I heard about the series and when I saw the DVDs on the video store shelf, I decided to start my collection. It took a little while going from movie to movie, trying to decide which one to get first, where to start my collection, and, being the cautious viewer I am (I will always have BOOGEYMAN to thank for that), didn’t want to pick something that could possibly look good, but in the end suck huge. I probably picked this movie because the cover image was creepy, and because I had written a novel which featured a little ghost girl and I wanted to make sure they weren’t too similar. I’m happy to say they’re nothing alike. And if I had just stuck to my usual method of going alphabetically, I’d have bought THE ABANDONED first, loved it, and continued collecting the series. As it is, one viewing of WICKED LITTLE THINGS almost stopped me dead in my tracks!
The story isn’t bad. I found it pretty original, in fact, and refreshing in a tired genre.
Karen Tunny (Lori Heuring, RUNAWAY JURY, PROM NIGHT) has inherited her dead husband’s family home in the Pennsylvania hills. Oldest daughter Sarah (played a little too convincingly as the disgruntled teen full of angst by Scout Taylor-Compton, HALLOWEEN) and Emma (Chloe Moretz, The Peripheral), her youngest, are along for the ride. The house is massive, but just shy of being condemned. No one’s particularly thrilled with their situation, but in the wake of Mr. Tunny’s untimely death, the options are limited. So Karen tries to make the best of it while Sarah makes like a spoiled brat and pouts and Emma makes a new friend, Mary.
Backstory: in the early 1900s, a mining company in the area employed small children to get into tight places. A cave-in buried a number of children alive, and now their spirits still roam the mountains, looking to kill the last of the Carlton line (Carlton being the name of their employer back then) and eating anything and anyone they can get their hands on.
Present day, Karen finds a stash of old newspaper clippings about a mine disaster, then goes off into the woods surrounding their house in search of Emma who’s taken off into them, only to find her youngest daughter standing outside an old abandoned mine entrance. On the way back to the house they get lost and find the mountain cabin of Aaron Hanks (Ben Cross, CHARIOTS OF FIRE), who has been trying to keep the children at bay with blood offerings of his own, as well as pigs from his pen.
William Carlton, meanwhile, is in the area, surveying for a ski resort he plans to open. The last of the Carlton line, he’s laid claim to pretty much everything on the mountain, giving Karen and her daughters 2 weeks to get out. Unless, of course, the children get to him first.
By all rights I should have dug WICKED LITTLE THINGS. It took the evil child idea and really made it into something cool. They’re not the mindless drones of CHILDREN OF THE CORN, nor the creepy little white-haired creatures of CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED. These kids eat people, and they’re not delicate about it.
I related to Karen’s character, the down on her luck parent just trying to get by with her kids, trying to make a decent life for them, even if that means moving to an abandoned dump in the Pennsylvania hills.
I didn’t even mind the backstory, even if the whole “kids died in a mining accident and now their restless spirits are hanging around looking for retribution” is not exactly original. No, what killed this movie for me, and I hate to say it and lay the blame on the shoulders of one, at the time 17-year-old girl, but it was Scout Taylor-Compton. I can’t put my finger on it, there’s just something about her in the few roles I’ve seen that just screams “phony” to me. I thought her portrayal of Laurie Strode in the Halloween movies was bland and too obvious, and it’s the same thing here. She’s projecting such a huge chip on her shoulder, she might as well be wearing a sandwich board that reads “ACTING!” At the same time, she had a few lighter moments where she’s just being a typical teenager and even those rang so false I had to cringe a little inwardly. Whatever it is, I just can’t buy her in either of the roles I’ve seen so far. Unfortunately, it was enough in this movie that it made me avoid After Dark Horrorfest movies for several years.
Heuring has several genuine moments playing the down on her luck mother trying to keep it together for her kids’ sake, and she plays the part very well. I wasn’t overly impressed with her as the investigator, trying to piece together the backstory from an old photo album and some 90-year-old newspaper clippings that seemed to be in awful good shape for being in a box in the basement for decades. But as the struggling parent, she’s very good.
Production design on WICKED LITTLE THINGS was awesome. The scenery was creepy and surreal, the sense of isolation invaded everything. Even the chill in the air came through. The effects were mostly practical, which I always appreciate. The look of the wicked little things was unsettling, and the overall atmosphere of the movie didn’t lend itself to being watched in the dark–that is to say it’s most effective in the dark and should definitely be watched that way.
The story was from Boaz Davidson (THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN) with some restructuring from Ben Nedivi (Entourage), directed by J. S. Cardone (THE FORSAKEN, and writer of the remakes PROM NIGHT and THE STEPFATHER) and shot on a small budget, but that particular problem never seems to rear its head. What budget they had to work with was well-utilized, I thought. In fact, I’m having a hard time not giving the movie a really good review, and normally I would based on the story, production, acting, and overall experience.
But with Taylor-Compton in tow, I just can’t do it. She brought the movie down that much for me. The story was intriguing, the gore was well-played without being overdone. Overall, I dug WICKED LITTLE THINGS. I just couldn’t tolerate her. If, however, you liked her portrayal in HALLOWEEN, then you’ll probably like it in this movie, too, so by all means, give it a chance. If nothing else, if you don’t care for her work, you can try to tune her out and just focus on all the zombie kids eating pigs and plumbers and wayward teens.
More 8 Films to Die For
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
Leave a Reply