Child Eater (2016) Online

"Child Eater" is a more than admirable attempt to revive a specific type of sub-genre, namely films that are probably best described as "boogeyman horror". Movies that bring to life eerie monsters that were initially invented to petrify little children, but then turn out to be frightfully real for kids and adults! In this context, I spontaneously think of semi-classics like "Jeepers Creepers", "The Gate", "Troll", "Monster in the Closet" or "The Boogens", but "Child Eater" is actually a lot darker and more sinister than those. The tone, atmosphere and evil nature of the boogeyman here is more reminiscent to "Candyman" or the original "Nightmare on Elm Street". Mind you, I'm not saying the overall film is as good as those classics, but merely that the titular monstrosity is truly nightmarish and his background story is ultimately morbid. Writer/director Erlingur Thoroddsen – I think we better keep an eye on him – makes it clear straight from the beginning that the tale he wishes to tell is dead serious. During the atmospheric opening sequences, the camera follows around a blond little girl who wanders around all alone in the woods. Only when a person approaches her to offer help, she turns around and we learn that the poor kid is holding her own eyeball in her hand. Don't know about you, but this is definitely one of the spookiest yet most attention-grabbing intros I've seen in quite a long time! 25 years later, the same area is still under the spell of the notorious child murderer Robert Bowery. He used to be a friendly petting zoo owner, but a dreadful disease caused him to go slowly blind … and utterly mad. Bowery became convinced that he wouldn't go blind for as long as he murdered young children and ATE their eyes. But that was a long time ago. Bowery was killed, his story became an urban legend and only occasionally there are still reports of a mysterious figure dwelling around in the woods. When 7-year-old Lucas comes to warn his babysitter Helen that there's a monster in his closet, she sends him away because she has more serious problems on her mind. But then Lucas vanishes into the night. As Helen goes further and deeper into the woods to look for him, she begins to realize that the monstrous killer is back. I really enjoyed "Child Eater" a lot. It's definitely not the most original horror story, but it benefices tremendously from the desolate ambiance, grim set-pieces and the menacing titular monster. Bowery is a tall creep with thick dark glasses, ginormous ears, rotting teeth and a constant petrifying grin on his face. He actually looks a lot like Michael Berryman... Thoroddson doesn't waste any energy on unnecessary humor and there's plenty of room for gore and bloodshed next to the eerie suspense. The acting performances are adequate enough and although there are some minor flaws, "Child Eater" is an impressive long-feature debut.

Based on the short film of the same name, Child Eater comes to us in a feature length horror film from director Erlingur Thoroddsen (who also directed the short), and it features enough spooks and blood to please plenty of horror fans, but it lacks in a few areas to come out on top.

Helen ( Cait Bliss) has a busy night of babysitting Lucas, a young boy who loves horror and thinks a monster lives in his closet. It doesn't help that the house the boy has moved into was the same house where a bunch of murders took place. Helen thinks nothing of the boy's fear, but it isn't long before he vanishes into the night and Helen runs off into the woods to find him, running straight into the creepy Robert Bowery (Jason Martin), the child eater.

It's pretty evident Child Eater is inspired by the many '80s horror films that we all grew up with. It features many of the same tropes and gives us just the right amount of gore to keep most horror fiends satisfied. Unfortunately, the film falters when it comes to diving into the character of Robert Bowery. We don't know much about him, save for a bit of third party related backstory. The ending of the movie does leave things open for more, but spending more time building up Robert Bowery in this film would have been very much welcome.

What Child Eater does well, though, are the creepy setpieces. The abandoned theme park is a frightening place to be chased around in at night, and the film makes sure to give us plenty of chase scenes.

As for acting, I've read other reviews where people were put off by the main actress Cait Bliss, but I think she did a rather nice job at conveying the babysitter in distress. Child actor Colin Critchley, who plays Lucas, also delivers an excellent piece of work and that's saying something, as I usually dislike most child actors in horror films.

Thankfully, Child Eater overcomes most of its faults and manages to provide an enjoyable horror experience, while introducing us to a new creature that deserves to have a sequel made. Hopefully, the sequel, if it gets made, spends more time on some backstory and character development.

This review originally appeared on the website Reviews From the Mind of Tatlock.

Sure, it's not the best acting or the highest budget, but this was creepy. My husband asked me if I saw the figure when the closet door opened, and I had to rewind it--still didn't see it. Just the door opening on it's own made me regress to being six years old and terrified of my closet. lol It's definitely a good watch for fall or around Halloween. Watch it in the dark.

Felt kinda fresh in all honesty, I'm just sadden by the fact that it didn't lay some kind of rules down. What is it? Can it be killed? Stopped? Slowed down? Sure, overall we have some data about it, and it does respect all said but I think it could have provided a lot more tension if we had more to work with.

Anyway, without further ado, Child Eater made the best of its budget, plot, actors, had a very good execution for such a production and managed to delivered on some levels. It starts rather fast I might say and goes on to create a good little world for itself.

If only more horrors would try this approach, and not rely so much on gore, blood and ripoff all other movies and genres, like zombies and torture porn in the woods.

Cheers!

I gave this movie a 4 but I'm actually being generous. The poor points were the amateurish, non-believable, clichéd acting. Another poor point was the uninteresting, amateurish clichéd kills. And another poor point is the uninteresting, ill-conceived, amateurish, clichéd direction of the plot. There were so many bad decisions by the director that the movie just collapsed on itself nearly 3 minutes in.

Who would bring a knife to a gunfight? Why, the babysitter, of course. Who would heal so quickly, after suffering a deep knife would to the abdomen and having one's left eye gouged out, in one night that they can continue searching for the bogeyman?

Why is the one-eyed woman, a former victim of the bogeyman (or whatever he calls himself) attacking the police who are there to help her and stop the madman from doing his killings? This point was never explained because she died. I'm guessing it was just in the movie because they needed more kills and the town was as empty as a cookie jar in a kindergarten class.

Where did those wings on the bogey come from in the end of the flick? He can fly? How come we never saw that? What child walks around calmly in the woods carrying their bloody right eye in their hand?

Why is the boy's father living so far away from civilization that his phone has no signal? (Oh, yeah. Duh. It IS a horror movie). One. Cliché. After. The. Next. Worth your time? Absolutely not.

Child Eater started as a short back in 2012. Icelandic director Erlingur Thoroddsen later put it on Kickstarter in hopes of getting enough financial backing to make it into a feature film, and raised $15,000 this way, releasing it in 2016. I watched the full film and then the short later in the day and, honestly, while the full length version was very similar to its origin, I thought the short was better in many ways.

The plot centers largely on Helen (Cait Bliss), the newly pregnant daughter of the local sheriff. Her father volunteers her for a night of babysitting for a man who just moved into town, which is where she meets Lucas (Colin Critchley), a bird-watching boy who has a very active imagination when it comes to believing he is being watched and stalked by a boogeyman. But before long she realizes it isn't just in his mind…

** SPOILERS! **

I know that the name — the simple title — of a movie has no real bearing on its quality, but Child Eater caught my eye in two different ways. I was scrolling through Amazon just looking for something new and simultaneously thought "huh, that's kind of a silly name" and "oh, a monster who eats children is pretty intriguing". Unfortunately the villain in this film doesn't really do a whole lot of child eating at all. What gives?

The acting was kind of hit or miss. I actually thought Colin Critchley, the one child actor, was arguably the best. And, surprisingly, I thought Cait Bliss, who plays the babysitter, Helen, was a bit better — or at least more natural — in the short. But the father was forgettable, the entire police force was laughable, and Helen's ex-boyfriend (or whoever he actually was) was just dead weight. Ultimately things were pretty cliché and stiff, with such classic lines as "I'm pregnant" and "I was the one that got away" and "They thought he was dead… but evil never dies" and "This ends now" ALL uttered at one point or another.

The one funny realization I had while watching this was thinking about how much I would have a hard time soothing my own scared child. In any movie like this the kid says "there's a monster in my closet!" and the babysitter or parent says, with no doubt in their mind, "of course there isn't" and is content to just leave the room. I would be ALL UP IN THAT CLOSET and making sure I peeked around the curtains and under the bed, too, and then sitting on the edge of the kid's bed discussing theories of how we think the monster got in and out so stealthily. Probably not healthy for either of us.

The boogey man himself, Robert Bowery (Jason Martin) looks sort of cool and almost troll-like the first few times we see him… but, as is often the case with lower budget films, he lost some of his fright factor when we saw him in more light and realized he more closely resembles a thinner and older Morpheus. I wish he had more back story to kind of flesh out his character a bit. Initially you think he's just a regular (albeit sadistic) old man, but then he's taking multiple bullets and still running after people and we've got this story about a black stork calling babies up to a hill so he can pluck their eyes out and things get a bit jumbled.

Ultimately, the short did more for me because I feel like the story was fine in a more abbreviated delivery. If the feature film had done more to explain Robert Bowery's character or motivation, fleshed out the other characters, or really done anything more than just having people running through the woods it may have changed my mind. But, sadly, not a huge fan.

I really enjoyed this movie. It was very intense and suspenseful. It reminded me a lot of some great older horror movies.

It's a story about a blind man who thinks he'll have sight if he steals the eyes of children. With that synopsis, of coarse it's pretty gory and graphic.

I give it 8 out of 10.

The film opens with a man with macular degeneration removing the eyes of children and consuming them under the belief it will cure his illness. We then jump 25 years later. Helen (Cait Bliss) is babysitting for the new family as dad (Weston Wilson) has to be out all night. Lucas (Colin Critchley) likes horror movies and claims there is a man in his closet, the same one he saw outside, who can get in through the hole in the basement. He gives us too many plot clues in one moment.

Lucas goes missing. We are told by Ginger (Melinda Chilton) that Lucas who just moved in, "knows the woods like the back of his hand" watch for bear traps along the paths...seriously? Now the kicker is after 25 years of macular degeneration, for which there is no cure, our man can still see and in the dark no less...and still fights after a shot to the head.

The film initially has effective jump scares, but there are only so many times you can go to that well. Unfortunately Cait Bliss looks like the babysitter we get in real life. To be an 80's throwback film you need a "10" who makes out with her boyfriend on the sofa.

The film doesn't develop any characters except for Helen, and she was done rather poorly. I don't like people who put their cigarette out in their unfinished food. It just looks trashy, like a tribal tattoo.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity. Winner best film/actress/cinematography Fantastically Horrifying Cinema Festival 2016 On a side note: The first words spoken were "He Hurt Me" which gave me XFL flashbacks to "He Hate Me." (I wonder what happened to that guy.) Anyway I just watched the XFL to see if I recognized any of the cheerleaders from strip joints. I had to stop watching when the game started as the overhead cam gave me vertigo

Was drawn into seeing 'Child Eater' with a cool poster/cover, a very intriguing if not creative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for the genre as said many times. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

'Child Eater' is a film it doesn't do enough with its potential (although there are far bigger wastes of potential in film) and could have been much better. 'Child Eater' is very weak with a lot of big problems. It certainly could have been far worse, considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre at best and terrible at worst.

Lets start with the positives. The setting is atmospheric and spooky and 'Child Eater' could have looked far worse visually, was expecting a cheap looking film and to me that wasn't the case here.

'Child Eater' has some suspenseful and creepy moments in the first third and it started off on a fun and intriguing note.

Albeit, there is nothing new here, it's all familiar territory and executed in old-hat fashion. The second half also takes itself far too seriously and gets incredibly idiotic, a very completely different film feel here. The creepiness dissipates completely fairly early on, with the horror, suspense and tension being nowhere near enough. Things start not making much sense and gets silly, with one of the most ludicrous and easily foreseeable endings ever. The acting is not amateurish, but it's also fairly unremarkable.

Further issues are that it was clear that it was written in haste. There is a very rushed and careless feel to the story, especially in the second half where confusion and choppiness can be found in editing and narrative, and the underdeveloped and scrappy script likewise.

Then there is some padding and aimlessness that also gives the film a dragging sensation. The characters are flimsily developed, annoying and bland, the direction lacks focus and the music and sound editing are far too intrusive and obvious.

In summary, weak. 3/10 Bethany Cox

This film started ok but went downhill very quickly. Slow evolving plot and the poor acting made it slower.

Maybe to grasp all the director was trying to accomplish here would have been better understood with a deeper understanding of this legend. The plot appears to me to be an underdeveloped urban legend thought of for this film and therefore even the good points of this short paled to a story that should have been better written.

This movie lasts only 1h22 but it seras much longuer due to repetitive scenes, a scenario that goes around in circles and accumulates clichés, and actors clearly not up to the task. In summary, it is terribly boring past the first quarter of an hour, there is not the least good idea, not the least good horror scene, the actors are bad, and the bogeyman is almost laughable. If you are a child may be this movie will scare you, but if you're over, let's say 11 or 12, you'll have a hard time feeling the least shiver of fear. A waste of time.

"Child Eater" felt like a second-rate "Jeepers Creepers" creation in what's a commonplace independent bogeyman horror (expanded from a short film) playing on the fears of what's lurking in the pitch dark and the protective instincts and responsibilities of parenting, or becoming one. It slowly escalates and pans out like a slight cautionary/or urban folklore tale without the complexities. Writer/director Erlingur Thoroddsen uses conventional tropes in trying to strike up an even balance between the ominously serene atmospherics (of throwaway sound fx) and brazen jolts (by inflicting grisly eyeball trauma). For some reason everything is magnified, including the spotty acting, therefore the story is limited by its small scale origins as the creepiness eventually evaporates into dogged silliness. Expect numerous false build-ups, sudden flashes of a looming figure and characters constantly wandering around investigating every strange occurrence/or sound. Although I did get a kick out of the closet shock. Visually the aesthetics are stylishly executed, dimly lit passages of an isolated old house and barn with an encroaching woodland, but how it gets there is predictably muffled in its formulaic tailoring. The background of the titular monster is delivered throughout in constant monologues, where it would stop everything to explain detailed stories, or horrific past events about this (confusingly) infamous supernatural serial killer. The more we learnt, the less interesting, even unnerving it became. An okay time-waster, but nothing more.

This movie is packed with ugly actors, i never seen so many ugly people in one movie, no talent, its all been done before.

A house with a secret, a paranormal killer chasing a kid, etc the gore was not bad but the rest annoying at best.

I hate people who post fake reviews so good people spend there hard earned money of crappy movies like this one.

Well, the least I can say after watchin Child Eater is that I am not impressed at all. The poster looked like it could be something creepy but in the end it's just mediocre. Not only the story, but also the acting. It was just not that great, to say it politely. It might be a low budget movie, and there is nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't mean it has to be of mediocre quality, and unfortunately it is. The end, where the climax should be and where it normally always is, is sometimes so dumb you wonder how they come up with it. How the hell can you be afraid of a blind evil creature? How can you not outrun that or just kill it easely? All questions that you will have at one point, and for that alone Child Eater is just a stupid movie.

Again another horrible terrible VHS video home. Please start to create the minus -10 . Low cheap budget movie, no actors, dialogue by force, no production, no director, this is a cheap low budget movie made by a bunch of neighbors in some redneck area in USA no writer, no history, nothing, no FX nothing, really terrible movie no waste your time download this horrible terrible movie. For sure the good comments are the families and neighbors of the people who make this terrible VHS home and the poor producer and director. This people and his director must be ban to produce or make another domestic VHS home movie. Bad terrible movie