Beware! Children At Play
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''Beware! Children at Play'' (also known as ''Goblins'', ''Caution! Kids Are Playing'', ''Warning! Children'' and ''Attention! Enfants'' and originally styled as ''Beware: Children at Play'') is a 1989 American
independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...
slasher film A slasher film is a genre of horror films involving a killer stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools like knife, chainsaw, scalpel, etc. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a ...
directed by Mik Cribben and distributed by
Troma Entertainment Troma Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974. The company produces low-budget independent films, primarily of the horror comedy genre. Many of them pla ...
.


Plot

A young boy plays with his father in the woods when his father is caught in a bear trap; he tells his son that eventually people will come and free him. After several days, he dies of the injury and orders the son to cannibalize his corpse after death, which the little boy proceeds to do. Ten years later, parents John and Julia along with their daughter Kara drive to visit their friends, the Carr family made up of Sheriff Ross, Clep and their daughter Mary-Rose, in New Jersey and along the way are warned by bible salesman Franklin Ludwig about a series of disappearances in the area; when the DeWolfe family drives away, Ludwig is bisected by an unknown person with a scythe. Meanwhile, the wife of farmer Isac Braun is killed after being lured outside. Mary-Rose, the remaining daughter of the Carr family after the previous one named Amy disappeared, disappears as well and a psychic is called in to find her; later that day, Mary-Rose lures the psychic into the woods where a group of children slit her throat with a razor and cannibalize her body. A mob forms after the body of the psychic is found and a reporter, Dale Hawthorne, visits the Braun farm only to find the corpse of Mrs. Braun before two children impale her upon a spiked plank of wood. Julia theorizes that the words she heard the kids chanting are linked to Beowulf and discovers that ten years ago, a professor with the surname Randall went camping with his son Glenn before disappearing. Julia finds several children in Kara's room and is killed by them; Cleo attempts to fight them off but is knocked out by Glenn (now known as Grendel). John is ambushed by children but fights them off, with him realizing that the kidnapped daughter of the Carr family, Amy, now believes herself to be Grendel's wife; Sheriff Carr arrives but is attacked and stabbed to death by the children. John forces Amy to lead him to the children's compound in order to find Kara where he watches as Cleo is stabbed by Grendel, who then pulls her heart out; the angry mob, led by the new sheriff Luke, arrive and when John attempts to stop them, he is shot directly in the forehead by Isac with a shotgun, killing him. The adults open fire on the children, killing Grendel and Amy, before using several other weapons to brutally massacre the remaining children. After the adults leave, Kara is revealed to have been hiding beneath John's body and is also revealed to have been brainwashed as well.


Cast

* Michael Robertson as John DeWolfe * Rich Hamilton as Ross Carr * Robin Lilly as Cleo Carr * Lori Romero as Julia DeWolfe (credited as Lori Tilgrath) * Jamie Krause as Kara DeWolfe * Mik Cribben as Isac Braun


Reception

The film is one of Troma's most controversial titles due to its gruesome finale, a sequence in which the townspeople brutally
murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
each of the cannibalistic children using firearms, pitchforks, and other assorted weapons. According to
Lloyd Kaufman Stanley Lloyd Kaufman Jr. (born December 30, 1945) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. Alongside producer Michael Herz (producer), Michael Herz, he is the co-founder of Troma Entertainment film studio, and the director ...
, when the film's trailer played at the
Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
before a screening of ''
Tromeo and Juliet ''Tromeo and Juliet'' is a 1997 American independent transgressive romantic black comedy film and a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's ''Romeo & Juliet'' from Troma Entertainment. The film was directed by Lloyd Kaufman from a screenplay ...
'', nearly half of the theatre walked out in protest.


See also

* '' Who Can Kill a Child?'' – a 1976 Spanish horror film * ''Children of the Corn'' (film series)


References


External links

*
Beware! Children at Play
at the ''
Troma Entertainment Troma Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974. The company produces low-budget independent films, primarily of the horror comedy genre. Many of them pla ...
'' movie database 1989 films 1989 horror films 1980s American films 1980s English-language films American horror thriller films American independent films American splatter films Films about cannibalism Troma Entertainment films {{1980s-horror-film-stub