TCM Underground broadcast Bloody Birthday recently. I wasn’t familiar with before now, even though those “killer kid” movies are a big reason I don’t have kids. (Then again, Bloody Birthday had a spotty release and distribution.)
It wasn’t great, and I didn’t much care to be reminded of all my old pre-teen haircuts and Sears catalog clothes. By now, the “evil lurks in sunny white suburbia” trope is so old you have to remind yourself you’re not watching a latter day parody. (Arnie walked in and asked me why I was watching an Afterschool Special...)
But Bloody Birthday is an interesting curio, which derives most of shocks from the sight(s) of little kids (real ones, a la The Bad Seed, not that pseudo-kid in The Exorcist) killing their friendly neighbors, other kids and even their parents.
A lot of American websites are like, “Showing kids with guns? After Columbine, they’d never make a movie like this today.” Whatever. I still can’t believe MTV hired two women named “Julie Brown” at the same time.
