When you read a title like Who Can Kill a Child? you instantly think the worst. And when the filmmaker's start their movie off with archival footage of various atrocities and suffering while a somber narrator depressingly tells us about child death throughout history, you're not at all sure what you're getting yourself into. Despite these facts, you should in no way be dissuaded from giving this a look because it's a strongly made, occasionally suspenseful, and impactful story that doesn't pander to exploitation and could easily be compared to Stephen King's "Children of the Corn" story that he wrote a year after this was made.

Released in a cut down form in North America under the title Island of the Damned, and only finally getting an uncut release in the past few years, the story within is quite simple as we meet Tom (Lewis Fiander) and his pregnant wife Evelyn (Prunella Ransome) who decide to visit the small, remote Spanish island of Almanzora due to Tom's happy childhood memories of the location. At around the same time, a mysterious body has washed up on shore all mangled.

Upon arriving at Almanzora, the couple is greeted by some playing children but have the damndest time trying to find anyone else around the village. It just seems that all the adults have disappeared. After spending some time wondering about where the villagers are, Tom starts to explore the village. They're soon visited by an odd girl who just touches Evelyn's pregnant belly and leaves, they witness an old man being beaten to death with his own cane by a girl no more than thirteen, and stumble across a macabre event involving a human piñata.

Seems like the children from Almanzora have become possessed by some unexplained form of evil and they don't take to kindly to their new visitors. This leads to a struggle for our couple to try and stay alive while avoiding the murderous tykes and having to constantly question their morals as to how far they'd be willing to go to harm a child if it means survival. The last twenty minutes contains plenty of "must be seen to be believed" moments delivering some effective shocks along the way before ending with one of the most satisfying, and twisted, endings in recent memory.

Within the genre there have always been films about evil children. There are the hollow-eyed tykes of Village of the Damned, Satan's son Damien in The Omen, and even the no-budget shenanigans of such fare as Beware: Children at Play. There's just something about youngsters having their innocence stripped away and becoming merciless and mischievous killers that seems to appeal to our core. Oftentimes, films within this sub-genre pander to sensationalism and taboos and it's the fact that Who Can Kill a Child? doesn't cater to this that makes it work better than most. Director Narciso Ibanez Serrador (The House That Screamed) has undoubtedly made his youthful fiends exude maliciousness with their bitter stares but he's also given them that harmless child-like attitude by having them treating everything like a fun game - it's pretty unnerving.

In the lead roles, Fiander and Ransome (both veterans of British television), find themselves being upstaged by many of the young cast simply because of the malevolent looks on their faces but they do a decent job of holding things together. Fiander brings some desperation to Tom's plight and is given the thankless task of setting the violent finish into motion while Ransome tends to play just another helpless female victim. I found her to get a little bit tiring, but it seems intentional since Fiander's Tom also seems to show a stressed-out lack of patience towards her later in the film.

Who Can Kill a Child? is one of those films that just comes out of nowhere and turns out to be way better than you are expecting. Having not really seen a lot of exposure prior to its DVD release, and never available uncut before (even though there's not much extreme violence), it's easy to see how its premise could have caused it to gather a bad reputation over the years. If you can get over the subject matter, you'll be treated to an intelligent and tense horror film that is worth your attention. (Chris Hartley, 9/25/11)

Directed By: Narciso Ibanez Serrador.
Written By: Luis Penafiel (Narciso Ibanez Serrador).

Starring: Lewis Fiander, Prunella Ransome, Antonio Iranzo, Miguel Narros.