Wicked Little Things

(2006) **

Recently widowed Karen Tunney is virtually penniless. With little choice she packs up her car, including her two daughters and heads into the mountains where she intends to live in an old family home inherited by her late husband. Apparently not a very good planner, Karen arrives to find the remote home in shambles. The pipes are broken, the electricity is spotty at best, there’s mold and enough dust to choke a horse. Rather than empathize with her mom’s situation, her bitchy teen daughter complains bitterly every chance she gets. Oddly enough this is the same actress I hated as Laurie Strode in the recent Halloween remake.



While adjusting to their new lifestyle, the trio experience the usual ghost sightings/happenings one expects from this sort of film. Eventually we’re given the back-story of the town via flashbacks and we learn that years ago a group of local children were killed at he turn of the century while working in the town mine. Their deaths were the result of the negligence and rampant disregard for their safety by the mining company in charge of the operation. In one scene, for example, we see a little girl lowered in a cage to test the air, rather than using a canary. A despised family owned the mining company and currently owns all the land the town was built upon, including the Tunny home.



The ghosts of the dead children are understandably unhappy with their situation and they appear in the woods at night to quench their ghoulish bloodlust. A uni-bomber-type living nearby tries to warn Karen to stay inside at night but his delivery is so creepy that she ignores him. Meanwhile a relative of the evil mining company arrives in town and begins surveying the land with the intention of building a ski resort on top of the mine where the children died (!). Now the ghost kids are really pissed.



I watched Wicked Little Things in the daytime and my attempts to blot out the sun were pathetic at best. Given the less than optimal viewing circumstances I cannot state for sure whether or not this film is scary. I found my attention wandering throughout, which might be a reflection of the paint-by-numbers, Poltergeist-like nature of the story. Structures built on top of burial grounds have been done to death in horror movies and there’s little left to say on the matter. Wicked Little Things was one of the weaker entries from the 2006 After Dark Horrorfest. Also, children wearing Little House on the Prairie garb are simply not scary. I’ll take a ghost-girl with long hair and wearing a white dress over these Ewoks any time.



Not scary.


Perhaps the scariest image I've ever seen.