We had to get out of the Museum of Schlock without the Goose Lord and his gang spotting us otherwise Waldo was going to die. Unbeknownst to everyone but myself was a secret passage leading from the basement to the sewers. By selecting a certain song from a jukebox player in the corner, our escape route would be revealed.

That song is “Seventeen” by Winger.

— To be continued.

This week’s movie is 2008’s The Children from director Tom Shankland. If there’s a cinematic equivalent to screaming children running around in a department store while their parents are checking on their snapchat, it’s this movie. And the children in this movie are English too which means I’m going to have an extra hard time understanding the words that are coming out their mouths. On the plus side, The Children takes place during the Christmas holidays so it doubles as a Christmas movie.

Somewhere in rural England, a woman named Elaine (Eva Birthistle) is visiting her sister, Miranda (Eva Sayer), over the holidays. In tow are Elaine’s teenage daughter, Casey (Hannah Tointon), whose father is not in the picture. Elaine has two children, Paulie (William Howes) and Miranda (Eva Sayer), with her current husband, Jonah (Stephen Campbell Moore). Upon arrival they all greet Miranda and her husband, Robbie, and their two young children, Leah (Rafiella Brookes) and Nicky (Jake Hathaway). They exchange gifts. Casey looks bored out of her mind. Jonah and Robbie talk about the global economy. Miranda comments about how bad a vegan she is.

It’s about this time I feel like I could murder these people, but not to worry, plenty of murders will happen in this movie. Little Paulie has caught a bug. He pukes after they first arrive, but Elaine attributes this to car sickness. But this isn’t any kind of virus. This virus warps the minds of the children it infects, but first they scream in pain really loud and I can only imagine what this sounded like in a theater with full surround sound. 

Little Paulie stares at his sleeping parents in the middle of the night which is off putting as we know he’s acting off. One of the things that puts all of the adults in peril in this movie is that they don’t see their little children as potential psychopaths when it’s clear to the audience that’s what they’ve turned into due to a virus that seems to only affect the minds of children. I guess they never watched The Crazies. 

These are some clever kids. While Robbie is playing outside with them, Paulie pulls a wagon of gardening tools directly in the path of a sledding Robbie. This effectively scalps Robbie and Casey discovers a grisly scene not too long after. Still, the adults don’t suspect the kids had anything to do with it. The whole thing was just a freak accident. Jonah calls for an ambulance, but it may take awhile to get there.

Things go from bad to worse. There’s an eye gouging for those of you sensitive to that sort of thing. Anyway, Happy Holidays from all of us at the Museum of Schlock.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, episode 575, episode 596, episode 597, episode 598, episode 599, episode 642, episode 643, episode 644, and episode 645) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.