Plague Town (2009)

An arguing American family wander into an area populated by mutant kids with porridge on their faces. Unfortunately this movie has no atmosphere at all except for one scene with a creepy boggle eyed girl in the kitchen.Really I lost interest the moment I saw two small children wrap a piece of piano wire around the fathers head and literally cut his head in half. What the hell was that about? That doesn't even make sense.From there on there's just basically what you'd expect from a film of the inbred local genre but without any real flourishes of strangeness that it needed. Porridge on faces isn't a good substitute for deformity and social weirdness so the whole thing felt a bit flat. I liked the ending though, that at least was creepy and sinister.Really this is mediocre, if you want to watch a film about normal people wandering into the path of inbred weirdos there's about 300 better films to choose from.

Having read some of the other reviews of this film before I actually saw it, I wasn't expecting much. To be honest, some of the acting was stiff, and the dialogue wasn't exactly written by Harold Pinter, but those areas are easily forgiven when weighed against the overall feel of the film. A sense of dread permeates the film due to an excellent sound design, great location shooting, minimal dialogue, and as another reviewer pointed out, not every aspect of the story is didactically explained. The filmmaker has respected the audience enough to 'show not tell', which is a welcome change from poorly written claptrap lining the videostore shelves these days. And the ending was fantastic - true horror leaves you with that lump in your throat as you imagine all of the things still left in store for the protagonists once our involvement in the story ends.

This is yet another horror entry featuring the well-trodden plot line of ordinary folks taking a stroll through the countryside, only to be menaced by odd and ghoulish happenings. As with others of its ilk, this one relies on a familiar formula and features the standard subgenre motifs of pasty faced weirdos, creepy children and malicious townsfolk.As this has been done innumerable times, and with much better results, this one largely falls flat. There are some above average makeup and gore effects, but these are lost in a picture which fails to differentiate itself from a plethora of other "Bad Things in the Backwoods" type films which dominate the throwaway bin at your local video store.

"Plague Town" is a another horror film about murderous children after "Eden Lake" and "The Children".There's a little bit of "Children of the Corn" and "The Wicker Man",a touch of Wolf Rilla's "Village of the Damned" and a dollop of "The Hills Have Eyes" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" all rolled into one.A small group of bickering travelers ends up stranded in a remote rural village.This nameless Irish town has a crop of mutant children who enjoy spilling blood of unfortunate victims.There are subtle hints of paganism in the air as well.Admittedly disfigured albino children look pretty creepy and sporadic gore effects are well-done.Unfortunately the story is pretty confusing and highly derivative.The climax is also a little bit disappointing.Still I enjoyed "Plague Town" and you should too,if you are into indie horror.7 out of 10.