Children of the Living Dead

Rating:
Summary: The worst, avoid at all costs!
Review: Being a big 'Living Dead' fan, and seeing Tom Savini's name on the box, I bought this title immediately. Starts off well, but about the time Tom buys the farm, the movie goes bad, really bad, UNBELIEVABLY BAD. The rest is a hodge podge of sillyness that Ed Wood would envy, INCLUDING styrofoam headstones in the graveyard (you know, the ones that you can buy at Halloween for $10). Awful, just awful film.

Rating:
Summary: But its a zombie movie!!!!
Review: This movie really isn't that bad, i was quite entertained by it. OK, some of the story and dialog was bad, but as a whole, it has some nice levels to the movie, different time periods. A lot of movies have that, but for some reason, it kept me interested and a bit shocked.
The make-up/FX were nice, acting bad, plot loose, music/score cool, and an ending with no justice. A set-up for a sequal.
I give Children of the Living dead 4 worthy stars because if your a slight bit interested in horror/zombie movies (well, your reading this), you should see it. Yea its not the best zombie movie you'll see, but you will be interested. Better than a lot of other horror movies out in the past few years. Recommend you pay close attention to the first half hour, then light up, have a drink (or four), let the movie unfold and enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Worst Zombie film ever!
Review: As a fan of zombie films I was hugely disappointed by this film. Just awful! If you're a fan of living dead films - keep away from
this. The storyline was ridiculous, the zombies were not scary, and the acting was just terrible. I've seen many low-budget Romero ... films with stupid plots and bad acting (and enjoyed most of them in spite of those challenges) but this one was no fun and a complete waste of time. The only good part was the beginning with a good zombie hunting sequence reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead - other than that - this film should be avoided by zombie film fans.

Thank goodness the DVD version has Spanish subtitles. At least I got to practice some foreign language skills. If it weren't for that, viewing this would have been a COMPLETE WASTE OF MY TIME.

Rating:
Summary: 1 star for a few good ideas...
Review: and because I couldn't give zero stars. Ha ha. This film is BAD. Just like almost all the previous reviewers have said. It's not a sequel to the original Living Dead trilogy, but it DOES try to make you think that it is, mentioning how everything started with the Venus Probe crashing to earth and releasing radiation...The film starts out good, though obviously cheap, with Tom Savini kicking butt. His sherriff sidekick unfortunately gives away the fact that Tom is going to be the only good actor in the bunch. Everyone else is awful. The camera work is terrible too! What's with all those close-ups?! These actors were waaaay too unattractive for all those extreme close-ups. The zombies looked pretty lame too, but radiation zombies are among the few things that scare me so I still found them a bit creepy. The head zombie didn't seem all that intelligent to me, except when you consider how long he had remained hidden somehow. There wasn't really any point to his character though. And as for the plot, well, it was practically nonexistent. It goes like this: The film starts out several years ago. Tom Savini is killing zombies, he finds a bunch of kids in a barn, sends them away, and is killed in the barn by a zombie who was once a psychotic serial killer. The zombie kills Savini. End of all chances of this movie being good. We are taken into modern day, when the kids are young adults. Apparently only one of them has any memory of the existence of zombies. While the film throws hints here and there that it is somehow related to the classic film Night of the Living Dead, it clearly is NOT a sequel. In this film the zombie incidents have been neatly covered up. As a matter of fact, it even seemed to try and link itself to the Return of the Living Dead movies, mentioning an attack in the '80's as well. Anyway, the zombie plague returns now, since the serial killer/zombie has been hiding ever since, and has decided now is the time to start infecting again. This might have been enough of a plot, except that some mess about a car dealership gets mixed in too, and sort of messes everything up. It's all pretty stupid. I can't say the atmosphere was hopeless, the low budget and cheap quality of it all could have added some horror if the script and acting had been good. Let's not forget how good some other cheap horror films have been in the past, such as the original NOTLD. So as for the good and bad of this film, Tom Savini's small part, the potential that was there before anyone started writing or filming or acting, and the mixing in of an Ed Gein type character were all good. Everything else was bad. I only hope someday another Living Dead film worthy of the genre is created.

Rating:
Summary: Thank God that Romero did not get involved!!!!!
Review: John Russo, Bill Hinzman, and Tom Savini should be ashamed of themselves for putting out such a stupid, contrived, utterly worthless (movie). George Romero's skin would crawl at this film if he were foolish enough to see it. What were they thinking? John Russo is already a has-been in the horror world, and Hinzman's only real claim to fame is being the original Night of the Living Dead zombie, but Tom? Why? You did such a wonderful job doing the remake. Why flush your reputation as one of the best and brightest in horror by appearing in this (...)?
This movie has not a single redeeming feature. Not a one..
The amaturish camerawork was simply flat and unexciting. The direction nonexistent, and the actors could only be called that with one's toungue firmly in cheek. There was no solid plot to the film at all. It jumped around over the space of about 11 years, and each time it did, it got more ridiculous. The characters were so flat, and so badly acted, that it was impossible to feel any suspense. The zombies, the ones you really want to see, are poorly made up, and shot even worse. You could almost see the price tag on their (...)make up kits.
Even the lead zombie, a poor attempt at making a villain if I have ever seen it, is flat, unscarey, and absolutely stupid.
(...)

Rating:
Summary: Not as bad as people say
Review: I,unlike some other people,enjoyed this movie.True,it comes nowhere near the likes of Night of the living dead or Dawn of the dead,but it does have good atmosphere like these two suberb films.Also,some people are right about some of the things in this movie.The acting is terrible,except for suberb acting from Tom Savini and the guy who plays the crooked contracter.The makeup effects aren't the greatest,but decent.This movie does have a few bright spots,particularly the female lead played by the beautiful Jamie McCoy.It's a damn shame we don't get to see what she's got hiding underneath that shirt.In fact,there's no T&A at all in this film which is why I'm giving it 3 stars and not 4.All and all,give this movie a chance.It's really not that bad.Really.

Rating:
Summary: I THOUGHT I DIED AND WENT TO HEAVEN WHEN I SAW THIS MOVIE
Review: ON THE SHELVE AT THE VIDEO STORE.THEN WHEN I WATCHED THE FIRST TWENTY SECONDS,I REALIZED IT MUST BE HELL IM IN.I WOULD RATHER WATCH YOKO ONOS MOVIE ABOUT THE HOUSE FLY A15 TIMES A DAY ,THEN HAVE TO SIT THROUGH CHILDREN OF THE LIVING DEAD.(...)

Rating:
Summary: Who is responsible for this mess?
Review: This movie makes no sense from one minute to the next, from begninng to end.

The first part of the film follows random characters who all die, then we jump ahead a few years, then follow some more characters and they all die and then we jump ahead a few years and so on. We are one hour into the movie before it finally settles on some meaningless story about a guy building a dealership.

There is absolutely no story or plotline from one scene to the next, no character development or structure. If they had made it all up as they went along it couldnt have been this bad.

The dialogue is the most laughably atrocious first-grade drivel I have ever heard. I can't tell if the acting is bad or not as the actors are struggling to get through the horrible writing. The writer Karen Lee Wolf gave herself single card credit as Producer, and as Writer plus made a cameo in yet another meaningless scene. Why anyone would give Karen Wolf money for her script is beyond me, (oh yeah!) except that the Executive Producer's last name is 'Wolf'.

Worst of all was that they added in dialogue over most of the scenes, adding dialogue which looked different than that recorded on location, so it looks like a Godzilla movie.

The camerawork is okay, but its the lighting that is so bad---flat in most places, or with night scenes lit up like Shea stadium.

The makeup effects are fine, similar to DAY OF THE DEAD but they way they are lit is horrible, at one point it looks like they are shining flashlights in the zombie's faces. Not sure if Karen Wolf was operating camera but from the looks of it I wouldn't doubt it.

Lousy almost nonexistent music and edited together horribly with no rhyme or reason or sense of coherency.

John Russo and Karen Wolf also did the horrible NIGHT OF THELIVING DEAD 30th anniversary. Do not let either one of these people near a movie set ever again!

Rating:
Summary: Horrible!
Review: Oh my, this movie is terrible! I rented it the other night along with some other horror movies, and I just now was watching it. After 20 minutes or so I realized that the plot was going nowhere and turned it off. It starts with a bunch of cops standing in a field picking off zombies with rifles, handguns, machine guns, etc. Then as soon as someone spoke, I became suspicious of the quality of the film. The story then takes you 15 years into the future and it took me all of five minutes to come to the conclusion that this is an amateur movie at best. I know nothing of any of the actors or the director, but this MUST be their first movie. The only thing I liked in what little I watched was the lead zombie, Abbot Hayes. I thought he was pretty cool looking, but he was more gruesome than scary. Maybe if I watch the entire thing there might eventually be a plot, but I doubt it. Even if you are an avid collector of zombie movies, I wouldn't recommend buying this waste of a movie.

Rating:
Summary: Children of the Living Dead
Review: What a horrid film. And actually, it wouldn't have been too bad if I wasn't expecting it to have something to do with NOLD. It should have been called something unrelated. I didn't care what happened to the characters. I was glad to see them knocked off. And at the end when Dave the restaurant guy walked in and said "not again" like it was just another day, how complacent. Abbott was a laugh (I thought it was a spoof of NOLD at first and was laughing and then realized that the writers really thought they were creating a SCARY movie (oh, I'm scared). The only good actor was Tom Savini and the crooked construction worker. When I saw Abbott after the 15 years had past that's when I thought it was a spoof. I just didn't like it. (...) There should be a zero rating. I'm giving my DVD to Goodwill, maybe someone can make a windchime out of it.