Movie Review: Wicked Little Things

In Wicked Little Things, directed by J.S. Cardone, Karen Tunney is a recent widow and has lost most of everything she has, except for an old family home inherited by her late husband. With few other options she packs up her two daughters and heads for the hills to move into the old family home. Unfortunately for them, the house has sat empty for years and is in complete disarray. Broken pipes, poor electricity, dust and mold, and a pack of hungry zombie children.

Zombie children? Oh yes. Back in 1913 there was an accident at the local mine that killed several children working for the company. Left to die in the crumbled ruins of the mine shafts, the children waited and eventually decided they needed revenge on the Carlton family, who ran the mine. Terrorizing the hillsides, the zombie children roam and eventually target the newly settled and unsuspecting Tunney family.

So a movie full of zombie children. Right up my alley you'd think, yes? For the most part this is in fact the case, but there's a little bit to push through before you get to the good stuff. With slow development and plodding pace we, watch as Karen and her kids make their way to the new house, explore it, and argue with each other, and on and on. While character development is indeed an important factor for any movie, sometimes it's ladled on a bit thick, making it a bit of a swim to get to the other side. Yes, the older daughter is a sassy teen raging against the machine. Yes, the younger daughter is scared of her own shadow and easily frightened. We get all this, but let's cut to the quick. Thankfully, we do get a few nods to the creepy kiddos early on making this trek a bit easier to maintain.

Once we get to the meat and potatoes of Wicked Little Things, the fun picks up dramatically and we're into your standard zombie fare, except this time the threat is a lot shorter. These are not your normal plague or voodoo zombies; this time around we have a group of revenge zombies. Left to die in the collapsed mine so many years ago, the children of the Carlton Mine have come back again and again in an attempt to wipe out the Carlton family tree. The Carltons made the choice to leave them behind, so it makes sense.

Article Author: Casey Criswell

Falling in love with bad horror films at a very young age, Casey Criswell strives to bring back the classics in today's modern age of horror remakes. Armed with nothing but a DVD player and keyboard, he charges into battle with his mighty battle cry …

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