Review of Kids (2011) by Brandon H — 14 Dec 2008

Larry Clark has made a horror film for adults--KIDS, as its sensational title intimates, is as lurid and demented as any film you are likely to see. It used to be teens who sought and were susceptible to the cheap exploitative thrills, gore and nudity lacing B-movies; adults, too old to fall for magic tricks, condemned their depravity.

Here now is something else entirely; a film that scares only those comfortably in middle-age. Relaxed and privileged adults, who for years have raised families and first-borns, find themselves uncovering an insurrection--anyone around the age of these young menaces knows the theatrics are all exaggeration--drenching the film in their own kind of special effects: profanity, drugs, violence, rock music, and an overabundance of carnal knowledge.

There are fabulously camp images scattered throughout--one, of four or five of these creatures in a mild orgy, shows them writhing like larvae; another, of all the children spread out asleep after a rowdy night, depicts them laying over one another, like a nesting swarm.

This is reverse-exploitation; where parents and adults stand in shock and fear of the wild fiends they've unleashed. Almost works as a warning against procreation; having spawned children recklessly, their progeny have formed against them--learning how to reproduce themselves, they set out in a mission to multiply and rebel--Clark lets it seem like this is the new generation, and his underground of viral sexuality and teenage wreckage is as frightening a dystopia as we've seen on the screen.

But like Wells' tripods; these creatures' livelihood may prove toxic; HIV, here a substitute for oxygen, turns the monsters lifeforce--fucking--against them. The film hardly allows for sympathy for such stock characters--are we to assume the virus is the only way to stop this rampant beast? Whatever the message; Clark has created as atavistic and anarchic a film as ever--dark, dark, black; he's reached unexplored depths of depravity and wickedness.

The writing may not be top notch--but Clark knows how to tame his subjects and film them with a lascivious leer. The last line will make adults ponder and worry about what exactly they've created; perhaps there are things lurking just beyond their knowledge.

Clark has gone beyond just making a dirty movie; he has made something genuinely dangerous.