Wicked Little Things (2006)

Something Wicked Thus Way Comes.

A widow and her daughters move into the inherited family home and get terrorised by “zombie” kids from the local Carlton mining disaster that occurred many years earlier.

You know very early from the off that we the audience are going to be asked a lot of as regards character behaviours and rationales. The grieving mother moves herself and her daughters into what can only be described as an isolated pig sty, and right from the off all the warning signs are there for them that all is not well in this part of town.

Story unravels in standard revenge from the grave formation, but the setting is very much in the film’s favour even if the core story is not. Creepy forest, crumbling abodes and the spectre of the mine disaster ready to unleash its secret. The kids themselves are actually ghosts who eat meat, human or animal, so it was a tenuous marketing strategy to be calling it a zombie film.

However, the kids themselves are splendidly ghoulish, pale faced and dark eyed, these very much are creepy kids. Low tone cinematography and gentle pacing help the mood considerably, and cast performances are fine given that the writing saddles them with weak dialogue exchanges and drawn out sequences obviously used to extend the running time. A teen romance strand involving the eldest daughter also just feels like filler.

A modest spooker but certainly watchable enough, atmosphere and location setting ensure this is the case. 4/10