Review of Wicked Little Things (2006) by Craig S — 26 Sep 2007

Directed by: J.S. Cardone.

Starring: Lori Heuring, Scout Taylor-Compton, Chloe Moretz.

A perfect horror film?....Shit no!

A horror film above Hollywood standard? For the most part....yes.

One of the '8 films to die for', I am slowly working my way through them, the only other I have seen is 'The Abandoned', which is thick on atmosphere but terribly bland everywhere else. So far, Wicked Little Things is the better film (obviously). I personally feel this film should have been released wider, especially in a world where Hollywood regurgitates so called 'horror' films onto the mainstream audience. The 'average' has now become a hard hitting low, thankfully Wicked Little Things is above them and should really be the new 'low standard' for horror. What proves to make the film better then it could have been are the visual elements. J.S Cardone proves to be quite worthy behind the camera, sure he doesn't have the pure skill or control like John Carpenter, Wes Craven or Neil Marshall (an odd name to add to that list for now....but you wait), but he manages to impress through a majority of the film by avoiding cheap scares. Sure there are some to be had in the third act (expected for a 'finale' in a film like this) but for the first two acts he really focuses on the atmosphere and draws a slow tension and creepiness from that. On that note, the cinematography is very dark, thick and claustrophobic, the use of shadows and lighting on these kids (pretty decent make-up effects on that note) is impressive. Now this brings me to the script, which is where the film falls victim, but thankfully not all the way. The premise starts off as quite intriguing, in 1913 in a mining town in Pennsylvania, children are used for child labor. When an accident occurs (and the miners show no soul), the mines collapse, trapping 12 children inside, where they are buried alive. Jump to many years later, where a family inherit a new home in the hills of Pennsylvania, one that is handed down by there father and husband who passed away from a long illness. This is where it has both its strong and weak points. Thankfully, the dialogue proves to be more formed than you would expect and the writer does try to develop on them with there loss, but the problem is how terribly cliché and one-dimensional they are. We have the stupid mother who leaves her daughter alone at the wrong times and walks into peoples homes because the 'door is open', the older daughter who clearly has no soul and just adapts to these 'new friends' she finds and tries to be cool around them, the younger daughter becomes fascinated by these zombies and walks off into the woods (surprise), the other teenagers are typical, tough brainless jock, ditsy blond girlfriend and a calm, 'sweet' out of place friend who takes a liking to this 'older daughter'. The list goes on with these characters and its just terrible....thankfully, two of the cast members (Scout Taylor-Compton and Chloe Moretz) don't always fall prey to there characters and they adapt well and show potential (I can see why Scout was picked for 'Halloween'). From there we do have mysterious buildups of these zombies motives, but then it turns into an 'all too familiar' finale that just loves to put the icing on the cake in the most cliché way.

Clearly there are many, many horror films out there that are superior to this film, but the problem is that they are hard to find. When Hollywood's 'standard' horror films are atrocious, its good to see a slightly above average horror film come along and prove to be fun in its terribly cliché way. A film that shows potential for what could hopefully be the new 'low standard' for Hollywood horror films....which would be a start.