Bloody Perfect: The Kids Are Alright
Isaura Barbé-Brown brings us the next post in her new monthly column, Bloody Perfect.
I’ll admit I wasn’t a perfect child. I was known for sneaking out, bunking school and occasionally thieving a ring or two from Claire’s Accessories. But after watching Ils/Them (2006) it’s clear that I was actually an honest to god saint. You’re welcome mum.
Set in Romania, the film starts with mostly unseen individuals tormenting and murdering a girl and her mother, after they are stranded at the side of the road. The next evening, a French teacher Clémentine (Olivia Bonamy) and her partner Lucas (Michaël Cohen) attempt to spend a quiet evening together in their enormous and remote country house. Unfortunately for them, the same hooded individuals have other plans for their evening... mainly terror and murder and things of that ilk. The couple spend the entire night fighting for their lives and trying to escape to safety only to have any progress they’ve made snatched away at the last moment.
I remember watching this film for the first time and being shaken to the core, which is impressive for a film that has a running time of only 1hr 17mins. It wasn’t because of all the house invader shenanigans, which, although done well, go the same way as most other home invasion horrors, but because of the revelation of who the attackers are, which comes towards the end of the film…they’re children. Not tall bulky teens from a high school movie, but skinny, baby faced pre-teens.
After being separated during their escape, Lucas finds Clémentine being tortured by a tween in the sewage tunnels near their home. Lucas kills the boy, then both he and Clémentine (stupidly) follow a child who promises to lead them to safety, only to be double crossed and lead further into the tunnels. Once Lucas is dead, Clémentine desperately crawls through passages trying to find her way out, with the sound of boisterous and blood thirsty children growing louder behind her. Finally she sees daylight and heads for it, only to find her path to freedom blocked by immovable metal bars and her screams for help silenced by the roar of the traffic on the motorway just outside. As we watch Clémentine beyond the cars, shouts for help unheard, reaching through the bars trying to be noticed, a van goes by and once it’s passed, she’s gone. Dragged back into the darkness and to her death.
This extended final scene, which is followed by the kids emerging from the woods and casually catching a bus (I don’t know why this adds to the horror, but it does), plus the film apparently being based on true events, fills me with cold hard dread and has me quietly thanking the universe for computer games, because god save us all if the neighbourhood kids get bored, in a pandemic no less when they know we’re all home. Sure, the true-ness of the story is disputed, but all my brain understands after that scene is children are out murdering and catching buses after.
Adults committing atrocities is something we are used to, something we expect, but children committing crimes, especially violent ones, even in film, is like a malfunction, a mistake, something our minds can’t process as quickly. We are fascinated and horrified in equal measure, making it an effective but deeply unsettling twist in a tale that we thought we already knew, and it makes it hard to look away, even when the camera stays a beat too long on the grate where Clémentine just was, then wasn’t.
The kids may not actually be alright, but they certainly have my attention.
Isaura Barbé-Brown is a Hackney born and based actress. She studied at AADA in New York and BADA in Oxford. She has written for The BFI, Black Ballad UK as well as The Final Girls/Bloody Women and been a guest on The Final Girls podcast and the Evolution of Horror podcast. She has done talks at the BFI for their Squad Goals event and during their Love season with the Bechdel Test Fest on race in romantic films. Isaura has also been on panels for BFI Future Film, The Watersprite Film Festival and The Norwich Film Festival. Her acting work covers theatre, film, tv and voiceover. She has also written for short film, TV and theatre as well as short stories and poetry. You can find Isaura on Twitter and Instagram.
We've been going independently for years now, and so far have self-financed every single project. In order to do more work, and continue supporting amazing filmmakers in the genre space, we've launched a Patreon.
If you are able to support us and the work we do on Patreon, we'd truly and deeply appreciate it.