Platypuschow Children Of The Living Dead at time of writing currently has an outstandingly low 2.3 rating on IMDb. It's rare to see something that low but there is a story behind this weak zombie film.Children Of The Living Dead was setup to be the next great zombie film, the stars were aligned as the cast and crew was packed full of legends within the industry and the film had a modest half a million dollar budget.Sadly it wasn't meant to be. Nepotism ran rampant, friends and family were brought in instead of genuine talent and were given offensively high salaries. Morale was non-existent, arguments and creative issues were a daily occurrence and the end result was a terrible film that many have publicly slammed despite their part in it.Tom Savini especially has been vocal, claiming it should have been something special but descended into something he regrets.It has a real Romero feel to it and our antagonist is actually quite good. Sadly with weak looking zombies, terrible acting/writing and a conflicted tone the film is destined to be infamous for all the wrong reasons.The Good: Tom Savini The Bad: Gunplay is laughable Shoddily made Tone shifts Things I Learnt From This Movie:There is nothing to fear but fear itself.....and zombies

Toronto85 Children of the Living Dead is one of the cheapest looking horror movies I've ever seen. Sure, it's low budget, but I have seen better movies filmed on a lower budget then this one. This doesn't even try to be good. The lighting is pretty awful, the acting is terrible, and the story fails to make much sense.In 1987, a zombie attack hit a small town in Pennsylvania. The movie doesn't explain how it happened or if it affected the entire world as well. Abbott Hayes is one of the zombies, he was a rapist in the town sometime before. He is the lead zombie of the movie. Somehow the zombies (including Hayes) were all killed, and fourteen years later all is right with the world. The zombie character Hayes is actually one good thing about the movie, he is very creepy looking. There is a group of teenagers that die in a car wreck. After their funeral Abbott bites them, therefore turning them into zombies. So the story goes that all these years later, a construction crew digs up an old cemetery to build some sort of property over it. They decide to relocate all the bodies to a mass grave rather than another cemetery to save money. When they open the coffins however, the bodies are all missing. Of course zombies start to roam the town again and it's up to a young couple to save everyone.Bad acting usually comes along with horror movies, and most of the time adds charm to them. But in this case, it was just over the top cheese from almost everyone involved. I don't know who actor Philip Bower (Joseph Michaels) is, but he should never act in any move ever again. I laughed throughout all of his scenes. Same goes for most of the cast. Sam Nicotero, who plays the owner of the motel, is an exception when it comes to the acting. He was the only likable character for me. The gore in this is decent. The zombies outside of Abbott Hayes aren't anything special. Nothing we haven't seen before. The major failure outside of acting, is the story. It is never explained how the zombies came to be. One minute there are no zombies, and then all of a sudden night falls and multiple zombies are roaming the town. It just doesn't make sense.I would skip this one unless you are a zombie fanatic. Even hardcore zombie fans will be disappointed. Abbott Hayes is a good villain and the filming location is good for a zombie movie, great atmosphere. Other than that, it isn't very good at all.2/10

Bozo I somehow managed to watch this entire mess of a movie.How? I will never know! The beginning was OK. But only because Tom Savini was in it. That's what gets me. He is credited first. But is ONLY in the very beginning. He dies after a long battle against a very unconvincing "living dead". My question is: Why? Why credit him as the main character? Why kill off the only GOOD ACTOR in the whole movie at the VERY BEGINNING?!? The story was BAD! A guy inexplicably dies in prison and even MORE inexplicably comes back as a zombie.Blah blah blah. I don't like even talking about this trash. The only reason I watched the whole thing was because it was a slow rainy day and I had no money or gas or anything. Besides Tom, there were NO good or even BELIEVABLE performances. The guy who played Randolph was HORRIBLE! His death scene looked more like he was playing a whiny guy in bed than dying.Scenes were so off timed. A lot of times it didn't even show the zombies drop dead, we were just supposed to believe they were dead. Also, in the (lousy) final fight scene, the humans were kicking ass then suddenly were not even able to hold the zombies off hand-to-hand??? When Brad was in his hotel, how was he inexplicably being killed by zombies in the next scene when he was locked in the room securely??? And his door wasn't even open!!!! How could the people kill 2 armies of the living dead but couldn't get a SINGLE shot on Abbot Hayes?!?!?Thank God this was a Straight-to-video release...A lot of theatres would have reeked because of this garbage tainting the screenThe ONLY reason this gets a 2 is because Tom Savini was in it, and he made his scenes worthwhile. He really kicked (lame) zombie ass. WHY DID HE HAVE TO DIE?!?!? 2/10. AVOID!

nvillesanti There is only one word to describe this film, BAD. Indeed the worst film ever made, I don't know why Tom Savini ended up taking part in such a terrible film. I am a fan of George Romero films and when I saw this movie I just wanted to cry. The movie photography is terrible, the dialog is stupid as it can be, the story is boring, and the action… what action? This movie should be banned from all the video stores and never be mentioned again, the director must never make a movie ever again please. For the producer and director… film-making is definitely not for you. Don't ever try this again. If you see this movie in the video store go to the clerk and tell him to burn the movie.