Troma Entertainment released Beware! Children at Play in 1989, not as an official Troma film, but as part of their film rights catalog. The movie is about cannibal children.
Yes, evil, demented, cannibal CHILDREN!
To call Beware! Children at Play controversial is an understatement. Lloyd Kaufman stated that when the trailer (JUST THE TRAILER) ran before the Cannes Film Festival screening of Tromeo and Juliet, about half of the audience walked out in protest.
What could cause that many people at Cannes Film Festival to walk out? Aren’t they used to avant-garde films?
Here’s a quick plot summary of Beware! Children at Play.
What’s Beware! Children At Play About?
Childhood used to be about jumping rope and playing hopscotch. But in one little backwoods towns, its now about slitting throats and eating flesh! While visiting Tromaville, the DeWolfe family discovers a terrible secret. God-fearing parents are in a panic as their children mysteriously disappear. Little do they know that the only thing worse than their children disappearing would be them coming back! Lured into a cannibalistic cult, doe-eyed innocents are transformed into mindless killing machines. Parents and children face off in the most stomach churning finale of mutilated flesh to bloody the screen!
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Again, what could have caused the walkout by so many people?
It’s probably the five-minute scene of children getting massacred.
That’s just my guess.
Watch Beware! Children at Play For Free!
Warning: Beware! Children at Play isn’t for everyone. It’s pretty extreme at times, even for a Troma released film.
Want More Troma Movies For Free?
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Beware! Children at Play Reviews
Normally, I would add some trivia about the movie, but there’s not a lot out there. Beware! Children at Play isn’t that well liked, but it’s a “completion piece” for Troma fans.
Instead, I’ll share some reviews about it.
Want to lighten things up a bit?
Beware: Children At Play (1989) – That Was A Bit Mental
This results in a f**king INSANE final five minutes in which numerous children aged five to fourteen are slaughtered in increasingly brutal ways. One gets a pitchfork in the throat and is pinned against a wall, another is stabbed in the back by her mum, while yet another is shot at point blank range with a shotgun and their head explodes. I could only watch in stunned silence, awe and admiration at the sheer balls displayed by the filmmakers as I watched slaughter after slaughter. In the most memorable shot, a villager puts a pistol in an eight-year-old’s mouth and blows his brains against the wall behind him. I’m not even joking. In total, eighteen children are killed in around two minutes. You can see most of these scenes in the trailer below, incidentally.
Most of this is all done cheaply enough that it clearly looks fake, but the fact they’d even have the gall to try filming a whole village of children being brutally murdered in gory detail and not even try to pretend they’re zombies or anything is the sort of controversial decision that stirs a feeling of respect in me for some reason. I could understand that in some people’s eyes these filmmakers are morally bankrupt and the lowest of the low, but to me this is the perfect example of someone taking a genre clearly built around fantasy and pushing it to the limit to show people something they’ve never seen before. Source: thatwasabitmental.com
Beware! Children at Play is available at Amazon and is currently streaming free to Amazon Prime members, if you dare!
As always, thanks to Troma Entertainment and Lloyd Kaufman for making these awesome independent movies available to watch for free!
What do you think?