... there are reasons to love this film and reasons to hate it. Killer kids make for a splendid horror ingredient - most horror films use kids as characters placed in peril and not as the mischievous, cunning weasels that most are. That being said, this cult film, shows the kids gleefully killing adults by a number of methods - even by use of piranhas. However, like most cult films, there are moments that are handled quite unprofessionally. This film is great display of incompetence on the editors part. Although this film is set over the course of a couple days, there is no continuity, time frame wise. At one point in the film the sun is shining while moments later it is dark. The next scene, sun shining after darkness, makes the viewer feel as if we've been introduced to a new day, but we haven't. Also, the scene where Joan McCall sits beside her boyfriend on the kitchen floor is a classic display of editing ineptitude. While she is sitting next to her boyfriend, her father is killed outside, in a barn, but Joan is shown the entire time of her father's killing in the kitchen yet somehow knows that her father is dead without setting foot outside. There are things like this that don't entirely ruin the viewing experience to show you why this is of cult status.
VIOLENCE: $$$$ (You will get your money's worth! The kids are quite resourceful when it comes to killing folks. We have a fatal car accident, a hanging, a beating with the employ of various items found in a barn, a burning, a slit throat, a spear impalement and death by piranha. You won't be letdown in the violence and gore departments - if that is your thing).
STORY: $$ (The story is really quite weak. Five troubled kids survive a car accident and venture off to a secluded estate operated by the Naziesque Papa Doc (Gene Evans). With there innocent appearance, they weasel their way into the house and begin to systematically kill the residents).
NUDITY: $$$ (There is a love scene with Joan McCall and her boyfriend Rick - who shows quite a bit of man backside. Leif Garret's mother Carolyn Steller has a catfight with McCall in which her robe opens giving the viewer gratuitous nudity. We also get another look at M. Steller when she is the recipient of the piranha infested bathtub).
ACTING: $$$ (Nothing Oscar-worthy here by any means, but there are a few shining lights. The kids are led by Tierre Turner, who does a marvelous job as a military obsessed tot only being out-shined by Leif Garret's future drag-queen character. The three girl really didn't do that great of a job as the two boys clearly outshine them. The adults are led by Dukes Of Hazzard's Sorrell Booke, who plays Papa Doc's adviser, trying to get a promotion but unable to confront Papa Doc about the issue. Carolyn Steller is brilliant as the manipulating Lovely - she fits her name perfectly too).
VIOLENCE: $$$$ (You will get your money's worth! The kids are quite resourceful when it comes to killing folks. We have a fatal car accident, a hanging, a beating with the employ of various items found in a barn, a burning, a slit throat, a spear impalement and death by piranha. You won't be letdown in the violence and gore departments - if that is your thing).
STORY: $$ (The story is really quite weak. Five troubled kids survive a car accident and venture off to a secluded estate operated by the Naziesque Papa Doc (Gene Evans). With there innocent appearance, they weasel their way into the house and begin to systematically kill the residents).
NUDITY: $$$ (There is a love scene with Joan McCall and her boyfriend Rick - who shows quite a bit of man backside. Leif Garret's mother Carolyn Steller has a catfight with McCall in which her robe opens giving the viewer gratuitous nudity. We also get another look at M. Steller when she is the recipient of the piranha infested bathtub).
ACTING: $$$ (Nothing Oscar-worthy here by any means, but there are a few shining lights. The kids are led by Tierre Turner, who does a marvelous job as a military obsessed tot only being out-shined by Leif Garret's future drag-queen character. The three girl really didn't do that great of a job as the two boys clearly outshine them. The adults are led by Dukes Of Hazzard's Sorrell Booke, who plays Papa Doc's adviser, trying to get a promotion but unable to confront Papa Doc about the issue. Carolyn Steller is brilliant as the manipulating Lovely - she fits her name perfectly too).