Movie Review: The Children (2008) Christmas Horror

and disability in horror

Letterboxd review: 5 stars:

I love this movie. It has everything we fear about families: parents having a favorite child; parents fetishizing the magic of childhood; your child becoming unreachable once they become a teenager; a family member trying to go into business with you, especially while you are trying to enjoy the holiday; your relatives trying to discipline your children; uncomfortable sexual tension between unrelated relatives; and being dragged along to a holiday gathering out in the middle of nowhere. Then…

Wonderful British Christmas horror. Very original story. One of my favorites for Christmas, and one of my favorite horror movies in general.

Because this is a movie about entertaining children at Christmas (and, like I said, fetishizing the magic of childhood at Christmas) I have to share a Christmas children’s craft, do I not? I do. Thanks to the St. Nicholas Center, here’s how to make St. Nick’s miter hat. Have fun!

The Children at Rotten Tomatoes

The Children at Internet Movie Database

This movie, like a lot of horror movies, has great knitwear. I’ve been meaning to reverse engineer some of it. I’ll share the patterns when I create them.

As you can see, this is one of the Ghost House movies. I’ve created a list of After Dark and Ghost House horror movies on Letterboxd.

The Children is on my Letterboxd list of disability in horror; being disabled myself, I have enjoyed curating this list, and finding horror movies that have disability as a plot point in a positive way, like this one.