Who Can Kill a Child?

For the first time in North America, Quien Puede Matar A un Nino? (aka Island of the Damned, aka Who Can Kill A Child?) is available on DVD uncut and uncensored. This is an unusually complex and disturbing Spanish horror movie from director Narcious Ibanez Serrador. The film opens with several minutes of newsreel footage highlighting the suffering of real children at the hands of adults. We see images of children being brutalized in Nazi Germany, burned in Vietnam, and starved-to-death in Africa, which is difficult to watch -- and arguably exploitative -- but serves two important functions. First, this answers the film's title-question in a rather potent way. Who can kill a child? We all can. We are all complicit, to varying degrees. Second, it offers a sort of twisted defense of what is about to unfold.

Tom and Evelyn are an average, young, British couple spending their holiday in the South of Spain. As they explore the picturesque, seaside resort town (think Amity in Jaws), some vaguely ominous occurrences give rise to an almost imperceptible feeling of unease. The voice of a newscaster discussing war and, notably, suffering children, rises up faintly from a shop radio. A couple of bodies wash up on shore. Something is not right in this place. When Tom suggests a motorboat excursion to a remote, sparsely-populated island, Evelyn agrees (despite the fact that she is very pregnant).

When they arrive at the quaint little island of Almanzora, Tom and Evelyn discover that it is completely deserted... except for some rather freaky children who seem to do nothing but knowingly giggle to themselves. They also take an unusual interest in Evelyn's pregnancy. In the same spirit as the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this movie builds tension slowly and in broad daylight. The sun and intense heat are palpable. The characters are caught in a very unpleasant scenario and nature is not on their side.

When Tom decides to investigate what sounds like children hitting a pinata with a stick, he makes a truly horrifying discovery. Replace "pinata" with "old man" and "stick" with "long sharp scythe" and you get the idea. Seems the children of this particular island are quite evil and possessed by a psychotic urge to kill adults.

Tom and Evelyn hole up in a Spanish prison to protect themselves from the wicked children bent on hacking them to bits. They are clearly unable to accept the fact that they will have to slaughter these children or be slaughtered themselves. Eventually, Tom's moral compass begins to crumble and, armed with an automatic weapon, he squares off against the hordes of evil offspring. What unfolds is as appalling and disturbing as the finale of Night of the Living Dead.

Story-wise, Who Can Kill A Child? shares much in common with other "child horror" films, most notably Children of the Corn. But in terms of style and execution -- with it's slow, menacing build-up and frenzied climax -- it has much more in common with the man-versus-nature horror films of the 60s & 70s (ie. The Birds, the Australian classic Long Weekend).

The DVD contains a solid transfer, a photo gallery, and two worthwhile interviews: "Who Can Shoot a Child?" (a featurette with cinematographer Jose Luis Alcaine) and "Child Director" (a featurette with Director Narcious Ibanez Serrador).

Who Can Kill A Child? is a 70s horror gem and, like many other horror classics from that era, the ending is bleak. That vague, yet persistent feeling of unease that the film so carefully develops will stay with you. -- Sarah Duda