Blessed Are the Children Movie Review
What would you do with $1,000? Take a trip somewhere? Go on a spree? Well, writer/director Chris Moore decided to take a thousand bucks and make a horror movie about dead babies, or something like that. A strange tale called Blessed Are the Children shows us the deadly toll that one bad decision can take. Did this film leave me in the fetal position or did it leave me crying for a bottle? Read on and find out.
For starters, this movie is just fucking weird. It begins with an employee of an abortion clinic walking out of the office, nothing weird about that, but the two protesters holding signs and wearing angry baby face masks is a bit disturbing. Fast forward from that to an equally disturbing sex scene and off we go! We meet two of our main characters, Traci (Kaley Ball) and John (David Moncrief). After we see these two banging it out, we get to go on a date with them to find out more about them.
John turns out to be a player, and quite a douchebag. He basically tells Traci about the other girls he’s seeing in addition to her, and how he really likes one of them. We see Traci’s disappointment, but she just kind of goes with the flow. Along the way, we meet Traci’s friends, Mandy (Keni Bounds) and Erin (Arian Thigpen). These two girls are fun and contribute a lot of comedic moments to the film. We’re also introduced to a fellow named Ben (Jordan Boyd) who’s another not-so-nice guy. He also happens to be Traci’s abusive asshole ex-fiancé, but is he also a murderer?
Essentially, the main kicker to this film is that Traci finds out she’s preggers from her earlier romp with John. Knowing that she can’t raise a child by herself, she decides to terminate the pregnancy. Once the deed is done, Traci exits the clinic only to find the same baby-faced protesters making themselves known. Ben also finds himself in the parking lot of the clinic but goes unnoticed by anyone else. Honestly, the characters in this film are some of the most annoyingly oblivious people, but that’s what builds suspense, right? Anyway, soon after Traci leaves the clinic, the suspense builds up to the first kill and Blessed Are the Children turns into quite the slasher movie that includes several nods to other horror films such as Halloween (1978), The Strangers (2008), Psycho (1960) and Alice Sweet Alice (1976).
What I enjoyed about this movie is that it starts out as a slow-burn, ‘WTF-am-I-watching?’ kind of story, but then it picks up and once it does, I couldn’t stop watching. Chris Moore’s writing is fun, and although the premise of the story has to do with a touchy subject, it’s not preachy. The exchanges between the characters of Mandy and Erin are natural and entertaining. The blood and gore are pretty substantial, and I think all of you gore whores will appreciate what it has to offer.
The only real gripes I have about Blessed Are the Children are that some of the acting falls flat. For example, the actions and reactions of the final girl are underwhelming, as is the final showdown. The pacing is also a bit choppy in places, no pun intended. All in all, I think you guys should give this movie a chance. Thanks to the good people at Macabre Films and Wild Eye Releasing, you should be able to find this title available on Amazon Prime currently.
