The Children
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
Two maintenance employees of a nuclear power plant are conducting an outdoor safety check when they become anxious to leave. Eager to get to the local bar and have a drink, they skip part of the test. Unfortunately a large buildup of pressure causes a yellow toxic gas to leak from one of the pipes. The gas forms into a large cloud that drifts across the ground.Nearby, a school bus carrying six students home from school is driving along the road. Cathy Freemont (Gale Garnett) passes the bus and waves to the children, when suddenly the large cloud of toxic gas drifts into the road. Both vehicles drive through it.Cathy arrives home, but the school bus is detained somewhere. Sheriff Billy Hart (Gil Rogers) finds the bus haphazardly parked along the side of the road, apparently abandoned in a hurry, with no sign of the children or the bus driver. Hart pays a visit to the home of Tommy Button, one of the children on the bus. Tommy lives with his mother, Leslie (Suzanne Barnes), and her female lover, Dr. Joyce Gould (Michelle Le Mothe). Leslie apparently spends her life dazed and heavily medicated, while Dr. Gould is hostile toward the sheriff for no good reason. She accompanies him to the site of the abandoned bus, where she finds Tommy's things on board. When Hart departs, Joyce goes to walk home when she spots a figure standing in a nearby cemetery. She recognizes it as Tommy, just as it disappears among the gravestones. She rushes up into the cemetery, where she stumbles across the horribly mutilated body of the bus driver; he seems to have been burned from within his clothes, his flesh horribly charred and disfigured. Suddenly Tommy appears behind Joyce, his fingernails black. Relieved, she sweeps him into a reassuring hug, suddenly screaming in agony as her flesh begins to char. Tommy's hands are roasting Joyce alive, and her burnt body falls beside that of the bus driver.The five children have been transformed into smiling zombies by the cloud of radioactive vapors, intent on burning alive anybody who comes into their path. They move through the town, visiting their parents and families, most of whom are caricatures of bad parenting. Little Janet Shore's parents are swingers who don't even know or care where their daughter is. Paul MacKenzie's sister is a slutty blonde who is more interested in bedding the dopey town deputy. Cathy Freemont is pregnant with her third child, yet she still gives in to smoking in times of stress. John Freemont (Martin Shakar) joins the sheriff in the hunt for the children, trying to keep from Cathy that their daughter Jenny is among the missing children.John and Sherrif Hart find charred bodies all over the town of Ravensback, the handiwork of the children. Nobody suspects that the children are behind the deaths, and everybody makes the mistake of hugging the kids when they come across them. John and Hart make the connection about the killer children and John rushes home to protect Cathy and the youngest Freemont child, Clarkie, who escaped the cloud of poisonous gas because he was at home that day with a cold. Along the way, they encounter Janet Shore, who is dazed like the other zombies, but apparently still human--her fingernails are normal. They take her along in the back of Hart's squad car.Meanwhile at the Freemont house, the zombified Jenny attempts to return home, and Cathy joyfully rushes out to greet her, but John intervenes and Jenny scorches his hand before he can get away from her.John and Hart barricade the house and start firing on the children, who have congregated in the yard outside the house. Bullets have no effect on the zombies, which get back up and continue to walk around. While the adults are distracted, one of the killer children sneaks into an upstairs window of the house and fries Clarkie to death. It then tries to kill Cathy, but John attacks it with a sword, slashing out and chopping off its hands. It instantly dies, howling in pain.Armed with a machete, John hunts the children, cornering them in a barn, until he has hacked most of them to death. Unfortunately, he forgets about Janet Shore, whose fingernails have changed to black. She chars Hart to death, lurching at him out of the back seat of his car. John hacks Janet to death in retaliation.John is distracted by the cries of Cathy from inside of the house--the baby is being born. As the sun rises, the sounds of Cathy giving birth to her child fill the house. The baby is born and all seems well, until John notices it nursing at Cathy's breast, its fingernails black.

Review: When a school bus drives into the fog from a nuclear plant leak, the children inside are transformed into black-fingernailed zombies that incinerate anyone they touch, apparently from the inside-out.
The premise is great-a radioactive cloud turns children into zombies, but the acting and directing bring the film down.
Is it trying to make an environmental statement about how nuclear waste will turn children's fingernails black and make them kill every adult they touch?
I rented the movie again a few years ago just to jog my memory of it, because all I really remembered was was it was about some kids who can burn people with their hands.
Yes, the acting is bad & yes, some of the dialogue is horrendous, but this was such a fun movie.It has its creepy moments & an alright 'twist' ending, that leaves it open for a sequel?
It has a side effect as it turns the formerly good kids into pale faced atomic zombies that sport black fingernails and are extremely dangerous when they hug adults as they literally fry them, the adults must battle these sinister kiddies and have to find a way to kill them.Entertaining and somewhat silly low budget horror/Sci-fi flick that's got an interesting plot and some shocks.
it's kind of a overlooked film that has been discontinued on video for 25 years and has been a hard to find movie in ages until now as the Troma Team company has finally re-issued this movie on DVD.Also recommended: "The Crazies", "The Toxic Avenger", "Class of Nuke'Em High", " C.H.U.D.", "Night of the Living Dead ( 1968 and 1990)", "Dawn of the Dead ( 1978 and 2004)", " Bloody Birthday", "Children of the Corn", "Sleepaway Camp", " Halloween", " Slugs", " Beware!
i thought this was a fun little horror classic.as far as i know,it's an original concept.not the zombies themselves,but how they became zombies.and how they kill their victims.it is cheesy and the acting is hammy,but so what.the premise is pretty cool.it's genuinely creepy.i especially love the score by Harry Manfredini,although it's very similar to Friday the 13th(which he also scored)and it does become overpowering and a bit distracting at times.the makeup effects are actually pretty good for the time.and if you're paying attention throughout the movie(which i obviously wasn't)the ending won't come as a surprise to you.overall,an enjoyable 90 minutes or so.for me,The Children(1980)is an 8/10.
I saw The Children when I was 6 years old at a drive-in in Mississippi and at the age of six it scared the hell out of me.Watching it twenty-years later it's one of the funniest "I'm trying to be scary horror film"The best part is the soundtrack is the same one used in another horror classic released that same year "Friday the 13th" Watchable but only to those you love pure cheese in their horror films..
THE CHILDREN is one of the more enjoyable "killer kid" films, featuring several bust-a-gut moments, usually involving a gushy death or samurai sword-wielding sheriff!
Gotta love Troma.You know you are watching a low budget film when you see a nuclear company sign that has been stenciled and the director decides to sometimes use a tape of dog howls when the children are hurt.The makeup could have been much better - I think even with the limited budget it could have been done more effectively.
The children 1980 this was re watch I had not seen it for while It was not as good as remembered it before, I liked the story of the movie but I would have found the kids a lot more scary if they looked evil and don't Black finger nails were that scary But I did like the kill scenes there were really fun to watch .Also I didn't really like how slow they reacted to the news even thought the movie was face paced and not boring , it such Felt like they were reacting in slow motion and I actually shouted at the mo ie To hurry up I found the end both funny and predicable , 5 out of 10.
For me that wasn't the case, as I just watched for the first time, but I found it to be a surprisingly effective little low-budget feature which saw some of the film crew (lead by music composer Harry Manfredini) to go on to be apart of Sean S.
When a school bus drives through a yellow mist of nuclear waste, a group of children of a rural town go missing, unknowingly to the town's folk they find out they have been transformed into zombies that are aching for a hug.
The kids end up being like zombies with black fingernails and they cause their parents to melt when they touch them.
A radioactive fog turns a group of kids into deadly, black nailed killers who can kill you with a touch (particularly hugs-they love to do that.) "The Children" is the screen writing debut from "Luther the Geek" director Carlton J.
While it suffers some of the same problems as his later movie (wooden acting, plot holes), it's still a decent slice of low budget horror.Much like "Luther", "The Children" has an absolutely ridiculous plot.
They're not out to eat you brains or anything like that, they just want a hug, with their black finger nails they plan to spread "love" all over the habitants of Ravensback, starting with their own parents.I enjoyed this movie, reminded me of another great movie that also deals with killer children "Who could kill a child?" In both you are presented with the moral dilemma of killing a child.
this right here is one of the better "evil kid" movies folks!some scenes are scary and shot well,the ending was kinda came out of left field,and the silent credits gave the ending a little something more..the effects of the burns are pretty cool,and the sound effects of the kids getting killed were pretty cool too.movie is very hard to find,a few years ago,i came across a copy at a used CD store,movie goes for like around 20.00 on eBay,and hopefully Anchor Bay will re-release it.
A nuclear-plant leak turns a bus-load of children into murderous atomic zombies with black fingernails.The trouble begins when a school bus filled with kids passes through a giant radiation cloud.The kids vanish without a trace and return soon as smiling,black-fingernailed zombies.Their hugs becomes deadly to some unfortunate adults,who are fried.The town sheriff and one of the fathers are starting to fight with radioactive killers.Silly and amusing zombie romp with a competent Harry Manfredini score.The scenes of children murdering their parents are fairly creepy and the climax is surprisingly unsettling and tense.Admittedly the plot is ridiculous,but if you are a fan of early 80's slasher and zombie flicks you can't miss "The Children".8 out of 10..
I don't know about the others, but I refuse to dislike a cheap horror movie from the early 80s about a group of zombie children with black fingernails who kill their victims by giving them a deadly hug.
Whatever the case may be, guilty pleasure or not, the director deserves credit for creating this stupidly fun little flick.There's something oddly compelling about evil children in horror films, isn't there?
I know the killers are a group of five children who wander around a small town killing grown-ups, but they never actually act like human beings to begin with.
They're just empty creatures with no personality or feelings whatsoever and the only reason why they kill, it's because at the very beginning of the film, they are all zombified by some kind of toxic cloud (?) These children are not exactly evil and they have no personalities because they're not human.
The toxic smoke turns the kids finger nails black and them into evil, little children.
A bunch of kids on their way home in a school bus are mysteriously abducted en route and turned into mindless zombies whose mere touch will burn you to death.
The base of this film actually isn't bad; there's a whole load of films that prove that creepy looking kids make for great horror (The Bad Seed, Carrie, Village of the Damned etc), plus the whole nuclear energy thing tends to bode well with the genre.
The townspeople assume that the kids have been kidnapped, but in fact they've been turned into nuclear zombies, and they're out to get their parents...There are a lot of people killed in this film, but the way that most of them meet their maker is practically the same, which makes the film rather boring.
Ugh. Let me see if I have this correct: there is a group of kids, and the bus they are riding in drives though a cloud caused by a radioactive leak in a chemical plant in a small town, which causes them to incinerate people ...
After a school bus full of children drives through a toxic mist due to the nearby nuclear power plant, the terrible tykes are turned into black-nailed monster whose mere touch corrodes the flesh of their victims.
Legendary Drive in Trash horror film about a school bus full of kids that goes through a chemical cloud and causes them to become black nailed little monsters that melt you if they touch you.This movie has to be seen to be believed- however be warned the effects aren't good-there are frequent laughably bad death scenes and the film ultimately isn't very good- still somehow there is something about the film that sticks in the memory-that causes anyone who's seen it to say "is that the one with the black nails?".
Children, The (1980) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Village of the Damned meets Night of the Living Dead in this horror film, which has gathered a big cult following over the past several years.
A "mystery cloud" that a school bus full of kids (by full I mean like 4 or five,a small town) passes through it and suddenly they can cook people on contact with their creepy little black fingernail adorned hands.I don't know about you but any movie where kids get all weird and start killing and stalking is usually good fun.
I think with a full bus load of kids and a whole community of people in town this movie would have been more of a hit, but I did like it to say the least..
It certainly deserves a better transfer, if possible (the VHS I saw of it was awfully dark in spots), and a DVD release, if only to satisfy the many people who ask on the I Need to Know and Horror Message Boards "What is that movie with the kids in the school bus who drive through a cloud and turn into zombies with black fingernails that burn people?"  This wouldn't be a bad one to remake, either..
I remember seeing The Children when it first came out around 1980...Even back then it was cheesy to say the least...It tries to be creepy in the way Village of the Damned was, but fails miserably...The acting is pretty bad and I actually remember having a great time because of it...I can't give it just 1 star because it's too entertaining a movie to fall into the "awful" category...those black fingernails on the kids...the hugs that produce that nuclear smoke, and the hysterical reactions of the adults they hug make this movie a baddie classic...look for my favorite bad acting line in the movie..."Sheriff you shot a dead dog!" 1980 winner of the Ed Wood entertainment film award in my book!.
Cheesy but creepy movie about children who turn into little zombies with black fingernails and once they hug you you turn into burnt chicken!
Well, it seemed like an intriguing premise: A school bus of kids gets a dose of escaped radioactive gas, turning them in to zombies that burn up everybody they touch.
Most of the acting is pretty wretched, the characters and the script are completely uninteresting and the special effects are almost non-existent, there is really very little to recommend this movie for even the most die-hard b-movie fans like me.
when poisonous gas leaks from a near by nuclear plant the children on a bus taking them home get turned into murderous black fingernailed zombies who zap anybody they touch in to a crisp this film asks the question have you hugged your child today ha ha.
The gas has somehow changed the children of the small town into evil zombies with black fingernails, and whoever is unfortunate enough to be touched by the children is in for a nasty surprise: their hands yield the ability to flash-fry their victims alive in about sixty seconds, leaving behind a corpse that looks like it's been on the barbecue for a few hours.
THE CHILDREN is a pretty fun and schlocky 80s cult horror film that has it's moments.
Nothing to really write home about, but I have a soft-spot for any film that has kids getting shot and having their hands cut off with ninja swords.A nuclear plant leak causes a bus full of school kids to turn into nuclear zombies with skin-melting hugging abilities.
The kids terrorize the town melting all of the adults, and the local sheriff and one of the parents is out to stop them...Pretty cheezy for the most part, THE CHILDREN is worth a look to low-budget 80s horror fans.
Suddenly the bus passes through the yellow cloud and the kids get turned into zombie-like monsters with black fingernails.The townspeople only think the kids have disappeared, so they shut the town down and try and keep out any outsiders until things clear up.
This movie "The Children" is a very good, scary early 1980s movie about innocent kids who get exposed to yellowish smoke from a nuclear power plant and they end up as black finger-nailed zombies who burn people to death when they hug them.
"SPOILER"I just ordered this Video from Ebay-- I barely remember renting this from Video King like 6 years ago--- the only thing that struck me as odd was the quiet credits-- it's an all black screen with the credits, usually movies have background music on end credits, but this movie and "Carnage" have quiet credits--SPOILERThe end was kind of stupid - with the baby shown with black fingernails, and that high stringish noise supposedly to "shock" us-- added to the stupidish--These kids on the bus drive through a yellow cloud, and then start burning people on contact--- i know it's a movie- but the idea of getting burned from a child on contact seems very unrealistic, and very funny!!!
There are several movies handling about evil children (even some genuine classics, like "The Bad Seed" and "Village of the Damned"), but this baby is easily one of the most entertaining and memorable films I've seen about the subject.
The children of the usually quiet & peaceful town of Ravensback are singing songs on their way home when suddenly their school bus drives through a toxic yellow cloud, caused by a leakage in the nuclear power plant nearby.
the gore FX are sweet for such a low budget movie, echoing both Fulci and the old stop frame transformation of the wolfman back in those original B&W movies-- while the children themselves look like nothing more than the Goth kids who would actually terrorize their parents in years to come!
The children of the small town of Ravensback are on their way home from school but as the bus drives along it passes through a cloud of the yellow gas.
Sheriff Hart & John (Martin Shakar) a distraught parent, must find a way to stop them & their indiscriminate killing spree...Co-produced & directed by Max Kalmanowicz I think The Children is a throughly bad film with very little to recommend it.
Synopsis overview: School bus full of kids in a small remote town passes through some kind of nuclear gas which turns said children into adult-killing creatures (that for some reason have black fingernails).
This movie was actually one of the first ever horror movies that I ever saw, I remember picking this movie up in my local market one day when I was a child, thinking that this was gonna be a Famous five/The Goonies type of adventure movie, because of the front cover and when I got home and popped the video into the player, I was shocked to discover that this was a creepy zombie children killer flick and it terrified me, but also excited me at the same time.The plot = An explosion from a local nuclear power plant , causes a cloud to travel through the town and hit a school bus of local children, which cause them to change and when they touch people they melt them.
Despite the oblivious low budget the gruesome burn effects still look great and the creepy Gothic atmosphere of this movie is also another highlight and also the ending really shocked and stuck in my mind.All in all "The Children" is really creepy and effective and kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time, the kids were scary, the adult cast were interesting and odd, which I loved and it's rare that a horror movie really scares me..
A bus full of school kids drives through a cloud of something from an atomic energy plant and (somehow) come out pale and with black fingernails.
I think some of the things they did were very original and interesting.If it wasn't for the cheesy way the kids die and some of the lesser-rounded moments of acting and dialog, I'd say it's a really good film.
A school bus drives through it, and the cloud turns a couple of the kids on the bus into monsters with black finger nails that go after their parents and burn them to a crisp with just the slightest touch.