Children of the Night

Weapons (Zach Cregger, 2025)

Never really understood the praise for Zach Cregger's Barbarian (2022). Despite an intriguing concept, revolving around an Airbnb in a derelict neighbourhood, it was let down by some idiotic characters, particularly its lead, along with a ridiculous final act. As a result, I found the film to be somewhat mediocre and indistinguishable from the glut of other overrated horror titles released at the time. Therefore, with Cregger's latest effort Weapons (2025) receiving an abundance of love via critics and movie goers alike, I was more than willing to let its hype die down before even mustering the strength to see it. Fortunately, Weapons is a considerate improvement over Cregger's previous film and a welcome surprise.

Centred around the mysterious disappearance of a classroom of third graders from their homes one night, Weapons is a non-linear film broken up into multiple intersecting chapters; highlighting the ripple effect of the event via various characters. School teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) the town's pariah blamed for the disappearance of her classroom, and Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), father to one of the missing children, embarking on his own personal investigation of the mass disappearance, have more screen time than some of the other featured characters, such as the school's comical principal Marcus Miller (Benedict Wong). The final and most expository chapter in the film deals with Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), the only child in Justine's class not to disappear into the night.

Performance wise, Garner and Brolin are very good in their roles; the former managing to play a deeply unlikeable character initially and turn it around into a deeply flawed and sympathetic individual, whilst the latter delivers an intensely emotional state of a parent coping with the loss of his child. However, it's Amy Madigan's performance as Aunt Gladys, best described as looking like the missing link between Kathy Griffin and the Joker, who will undoubtedly be most well remembered here. Partly because she resembles an old hag, with an ill-suited orange wig and terrifying grimace, but it's also due to how great she is playing such a manipulative and chilling character. No doubt, this won't be the last we'll see of Aunt Gladys.

Much like his previous film, Cregger injects dark humour throughout this mystery tale. Considering its premise, these comedic scenes are both cathartic and very welcome relief. Cregger also laces surreal dream sequences that tread the line of conventional horror films and art-house surrealism. Other highlights include some disturbing scenes that won't be forgotten in a hurry. Seeing a bloody and bug-eyed Benedict Wong running through the town like an absolute lunatic is one such example. Additionally, it's refreshing for a film to not cop out with a vaguely ambiguous explanation for an ending. An annoying cliché, which is both pretentious, unsatisfying and a blight upon many films. 

At a little over two-hours long, Cregger's slow burn thriller is just a bit too long for a film of this ilk. It's largely due to Cregger investing so heavily in multiple characters receiving a dedicated chapter. While these chapters are executed with entertaining satisfaction, I'm not entirely sure the film needed so many segments. Both the cop and junkie storylines could have probably been streamlined better, or possibly omitted. Still, along with a few plot holes, it's not a serious gripe in what's otherwise a genuinely entertaining film with a hilariously disturbing Benny Hill ending.

Hollywood occasionally delivers a large budget, mainstream horror that actually delivers the goods; Weapons is definitely one of those films for me. Given how mediocre I found Barbarian, I'm kind of glad I gave Zach Cregger a second chance as he might be the go-between of 2010s era James Wan and pre-up his own pretentious arse Ari Aster. Which subsequently has me eager to see what Cregger delivers when he tackles the Resident Evil franchise.

Recommended.  

Happy Days

Children of the Stones (Peter Graham Scott, 1977)

Nostalgia can often blur the fine line between the objective past and our hyper-realistic recollections. Therefore, it's a mixed blessing your host has no memory of Peter Graham Scott's cult children's series, Children of the Stones (1977) and discovering it only recently. Gutted I missed out on it all those decades ago, but enchanted with its discovery so many years later. The series is an absolute gem.

Co-created by writers Jeremy Burnham and Trevor Ray, Children of the Stones is a fantasy drama which weaves ancient ley stones, celestial bodies, and time loops into a paranormal serial. The end result is a hybrid of The Wicker Man (1973) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) made for kids.

Comprising of seven twenty-five minute episodes, Peter Graham Scott's serial treats its target youth audience like they were members of Mensa. A complex plot dealing with a perpetual time rift and pagan history can be difficult to mentally process at times, even for adults. Imagine what it must have been like for the kids who watched the series back then; it must have been an absolute head scratcher. Add the folk horror tone, accompanied by an eerie, choral theme, and you have some nightmarish teatime television. Refreshing, in all honesty.

Set in the fictional village of Milbury in England, Children of the Stones introduces a father and son departing from the modern day rat race and settling in the idyllic village. Gareth Thomas (better known as Roj Blake in Terry Nation's science-fiction series Blake's 7) is Adam Brake, an astrophysicist investigating the stone circle surrounding the village. His teenage son, Matthew (Peter Demin), is a dab hand in assisting his father's work and smart enough to be able to use the various complex scientific equipment of his dad's. Once arriving in Milbury, Matthew appears to have developed the power of psychometry; the extra sensory perception of able to read an objects history via physical contact. This makes him a "formidable" player to the series' antagonist.

Also recently settled in the quaint village is single mother Margaret (Veronica Strong), the curator at the local museum, devoted to the history and legends of Milbury's ancient past. Her daughter, Sandra (Katherine Levy), is a classmate of Matthew's.

Matthew's admission to the local school is where the Invasion of the Body Snatchers comparisons occur; the majority of the students are quiet, docile and mathematical geniuses; able to solve complex quadratic equations. Not exactly regular teens. Adults also display abnormal behaviour, too. Milbury's residents bizarrely greet one another with the phrase "Happy Day!" and are prone to holding hands in the middle of the night, chanting to the heavens above; worst of all, some of them take part in Morris dancing. One notable exception is the local poacher Dai (Freddie Joanes), an independent, gibbering hermit, who comes across as Mibury's very own Ben Gunn.

Every bucolic retreat requires its very own Lord Summerisle; enter Hendrick (Iain Cuthbertson), the village elder. Cuttbertson is really having a ball with his performance as the show's villain, as there's constant sinister smile upon his face. Hendrick's grand residence just so happens to be where the ley lines intersect. His home has a dedicated dining area, containing an ancient stone table and chairs (hardly Furniture Village), where his guests are tricked into being exposed to a celestial light from above that brainwashes them. Thankfully, they're not sitting long enough on those cold stone slabs to get piles.

Children of the Stones gets the Dada Debaser thumbs up for managing to outdo what so many terrible folk horror themed films get wrong today; be entertaining! Dead ringer for Heather Trott off EastEnders, Ben Wheatley might be influenced from it, but it's hard to believe he learnt anything with his "elevated horror" shite In the Earth (2021), though.

Peter Graham Scott also helmed a children's series that I'm slightly more familiar with; Into the Labyrinth (1981-1982). A trio of children are sent on a series of time travelling adventures at the behest of a sorcerer called Rothgo (Ron Moody) to retrieve a magical item, the Nidius. This is all set beneath spooky underground caverns and a labyrinth which transports the group through various time periods. Elements such as England and Wales' pagan history and cosmic energy really do run rampant in both of Graham Scott's shows, which was, and still is, so charmingly fascinating.

Romancing the Stone

"It's a relationship... of sorts. But we manage. We've even got a bit of a love life."

Love is in the air, so I'm compelled to share one of Russell T. Davis's most bizarre episodes from his original stint as writer and showrunner on Doctor Who (1963 - 2024).

Largely considered as one of the weaker episodes from the noughties relaunch, Love & Monsters focuses on a small collective of people obsessed with the titular Time Lord, while presented like a mockumentary. The concept is sound; the execution, not so much. What was originally intended as a lighthearted filler episode, especially after the Prince of Darkness (1987) and Event Horizon (1997) callbacks from The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit two parter, became nightmare fuel, thanks to its villain and disturbing epilogue.

With its human disguise, an alien villain known as the Abzorbaloff (Peter Kay), quickly takes leadership of the group and gradually consumes them for sustinance. The victims end up like the trapped souls within Freddy Krueger's body. The Doctor eventually saves the day (or does he?) and manages to give Ursula (Shirley Henderson), the last of the Abzorbaloff's victims, a fate worse than death by placing her within a slab of concrete. Adding to the disturbing mix is Elton (Marc Warren) and Ursula's relationship blossoms romantically and sexually.

The Abzorbaloff was a winning design by a nine year old on the long running children's BBC show Blue Peter. Therefore, it's a safe bet that Doctor Who was really cashing in on its family show rep at the time. Now, imagine the shock horror of the parents watching that particular episode knowing that it signs off with the hint that a man is having sex with a paving slab.

"Garlic bread?"

Children of the Corned Beef

When Evil Lurks (Demián Rugna, 2023)

Hollywood has commonly been lacking the required mean-spirited streak to appease desensitised fans of  horror cinema. In order to cast a net and attract the majority, the output is usually safe, soft and homogenised. Thankfully, there are foreign and independent film makers out there to counter the Disneyfied dross being churned out; Rob Jabbaz's The Sadness (2021/2022) and Damian Leone's Terrifier 2 (2023) are recent examples. Argentinian film maker Demián Rugna's When Evil Lurks (2023) is the latest to balance the scales with what's probably the best horror film of the year.

When Evil Lurks stands out from many of its peers for having the cojones to have all its characters as fair game to the horrors that unfold. As a result, it's still shocking when certain scenes are acutely telemarked and still landing a haymaker on your senses. This is a deeply nihilistic film; evoking the anything goes attitude of 1970s horror like Who Can Kill a Child? (1976). There is no safety barrier, it's pure destructive brutality. Critics will list some of Lucio Fulci's films as obvious inspirations, but I spotted traces of other notable horror films, such as Prince of Darkness (1987) and Hereditary (2018) in there, too.

Set in a rural Argentenian province where folks are deeply superstitious, the film's two major characters; brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimi (Demián Salomón) encounter a grossly bloated individual named Uriel, who is said to be one of the rotten. This is the colloquial term for demonically possessed. The brothers, along with neighbouring land owner Ruiz (Luis Ziembrowski), are given the unenviable task of dealing with Uriel. Like every horror film, things don't go to plan. 

The film introduces seven golden rules which must be adhered to when dealing with the rotten. If they aren't dealt with properly, and more importanly, by an expert, then the demonic evil spreads. Thankfully, with this being a horror film, the rules are constantly broken. As beasts and humans are possessed this allows Rugna to showcase some shockingly extreme moments that you don't see very often in contemporary horror. It's almost farcical watching Pedro making bad decision after bad decision and leaving a trail of death in his wake, but they do lend to a compelling film. Children being subjected to either being victims or perpretators are easily the most disturbing highlights of the film. One scene involving a mother carrying her infant son along a road is pure nightmare fuel. Definitely not something that will be forgotten easily.

It's not a perfect film, however. When Evil Lurks can feel disjointed at times, as it plays a balancing act with its cumbersome handling of multiple characters and locations for the sake of keeping everything breezy, along with a second ending that feels almost trivial in comparison to what occurs earlier. Still, these flaws don't ruin the film, as Rugna's main focus seems to be all about bringing back some utterly nihilistic and misanthropic brutality that's evidently missing in many of today's contemporary horror films. As such, the film is a triumphant success.

Really hope the film gets a physical release and not rot on Shudder like Deadstream (2022) has been doing in my region.

The Moment I Feared: Part 5

Worzel Gummidge 

(Willis Hall & Keith Waterhouse, 1979 - 1981)

 

There's a discreet chance it might have originated over Gloria Hendry's cruel demise by a remote controlled scarecrow in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973), but if ever a medium administered unexpected formidophobia to a young, urban audience then it would have undoubtedly been the children's television series Worzel Gummidge. Based upon Barbara Euphan Todd's children's books, the show about Worzel, an endearing dim-witted scarecrow, played by ex-Doctor Who Jon Pertwee, would wind up in a series of scrapes and adventures during its original run. 

It was bad enough having to witness the constant beratement by his object of desire, Aunt Sally (Una Stubbs), an uppity and rude, life-sized fairground doll; but seeing him endlessly disembowled and headless during many altercations, or wearing one of his alternate creepy looking heads was positively frightening for a young whippersnapper like me back in the day. 

Worzel and Sally weren't the only inanimate humanoid creations come to life, there was an ensemble of other characters who would appear on the show, including personal favourites: ship's figurehead Saucy Nancy (Barbara Windsor); Worzel's Sid Vicious inspired nephew Pickles Bramble; and Jolly Jack (Bernard Cribbins), a fish and chip shop figurehead. Those were the ones that looked half normal; the rest of Worzel's fear mongering kind were a motley bunch who resembled something between Edward Lionheart's mob of meths drinkers in Theatre of Blood (1973) and the typical crumbly rotten variety in Lucio Fulci's zombie films. Pure terror.

The series eventually wound up on the otherside of the world when it was relaunched and filmed in New Zealand as Worzel Gummidge Down Under (1987 - 1989), which I have no memory of. It was resurrected once more, this time by the BBC in 2019 with that scrawny bloke Mackenzie Crook from The Office. No idea if it was any good, though.

Coincidentally, around the same time as the original series, the classic television movie, Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) came along. Sadly it spawned a sequel earlier this year. Is nothing sacred?

The Moment I Feared: Part 3

Alligator (The Pool Scene)

Lewis Teague, 1980

 

Children in peril scenes are a dime a dozen in film, but kids getting killed? That's very much seen as taboo and ignites controversy even to this day. Disturbing scenes of child fatalities cropped up in mainstream cinema more often in the past, based on my recollections. Call it a symptom of the nihilistic seventies, New Hollywood out to shock, or to put it more bluntly, the film industry just not caring, but it seems like this was a decade where children were just as much fair game of a gruesome death as to their grown-up counterparts.

Steven Speilberg's blockbuster Jaws (1975) left a trail of knock-off creature features in its wake, one of my favourites being Lewis Teague's snappy B-movie gem, Alligator (1980). 

Seeing a couple of kids in pirate costumes by a back yard pool, and dragging a blindfolded youngster to his doom by making him walk the plank into the gaping jaws of a giant alligator, was enough to shock me as a kid: that poor child's terror before being pushed into the pool; the shot of the alligator when the lights are turned on; the blood. All of these elements lead to an unforgettably terrifying viewing experience. Over forty years later and that scene is instantly triggered whenever I hear about 'gators making their way into people's pools. 

Ironically, the film spawned a kids board game released by Ideal Toys in 1980, which my parents copped for me from Argos when I was a kid, because it was way cheaper than the Millennium Falcon.