08th Nov2017

‘Suffer Little Children’ DVD Review

by Paul Metcalf

Stars: Colin Chamberlain, Ginny Rose, Jon Hollanz, Nicola Diana, Mark Insull, Joanna Bryant, Sharnilla Babjee, Angela Hilton, Nicola Bratley, James Hillis, Ben Woods, Natalie Toubkin, Andre Toubkin, Julie Piper, Zeynup Turan | Written by Meg Shanks | Directed by Alan Briggs

suffer-little-children-dvd

I’m a fan of history as well as movies, so I like to watch films from many eras. In the UK the Video Nasty movies are a treasure trove of films that range from the bad to good and to see what made them so controversial can be an obsession especially for somebody like me. This is why I decided I had to watch Suffer Little Children.

When a mute child turns up at an orphanage at first everything seems innocent enough. When children start to get injured though and the girl starts to get a following, it seems demonic forces may be at work.

If Suffer Little Children successfully came out when it was supposed to, it may have found more success than it ultimately did. Filmed on video, it does have the potential to be something a little different. Now though it is a case of we’ve seen it all before, many times. This isn’t too much of a bad thing, especially when it comes to an older film though, given that this came before horror cinema was overburdened by all the possessed child movies.

Suffer Little Children has s a “fun “story and plenty of blood, and it has a low-budget feel that makes it feel a little different. The problem comes when you look at the quality of the acting, but there is a reason behind this too. The ovie was created as a low-budget student film, and it shows. There is nothing wrong with that when you take this into context, but when compared with other horror films it shows the film’s weaknesses. So, the simple answer to that is of course, understand the movie you are watching.

Putting the acting aside, Suffer Little Children isn’t that bad. It is far from perfect of course, but there is an interesting story and a surprisingly crazy ending that is worth the wait. The problem is that the film tends to lag in the middle of the film and, obviously, the budget limitations start to show: We hear about an accident in a swimming pool, but we don’t see it, which is disappointing. It is understandable with such a low-budget that we don’t see this accident, but it would have been more of a shocking event to see it. It is fair to say that this is a film that does what it can with the budget it has, and as a student film it gets the job done.

When looking at Suffer Little Children I would say that – like many other Video Nasties – it is an oddity that is interesting to see once, but will be forgotten soon after watching it. There are scenes in this uncut version that do show off the reason it fell afoul of the “Video Nasty” frenzy, and of course the fact it featured children and violence.

If you are a fan of the Video Nasty era and/or enjoy finding filmic oddities, then Suffer Little Children is well worth watching. Don’t expect a classic though, that isn’t what this is. It was a student made horror film that did well with its low-budget, and for that it should be celebrated. If anything, it shows budding film makers what could be done with video in the Eighties.

***½  3.5/5

Suffer Little Children is available on DVD in the UK now from Severin/Intervision.

Review originally posted on PissedOffGeek
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