The Children

A clever, low-budget horror movie destined for cult status by claustrophobic direction that leaves much to the imagination, this British chiller stirs in every memory of homicidal tykes, from Village of the Damned to Barbarella, while remaining utterly unique in flavor. Two middle-class parents spend the Christmas holidays with relatives at a remote country house, where much hugging and New Age family talk isn’t quite good-natured enough to mask the small tensions forming between the adults and their three young children (as when the teen daughter develops a hormonal crush on her uncle). By the next day, the kids are starting to act seriously weird, with small outbreaks of violence escalating into full-fledged murder — a situation made all the worse by the parents’ reluctance to chastise their kids or believe they’re capable of killing.