A black cloud moves over a small town, and when it leaves, all people are unconscious – and many (all?) women are pregnant. The children stemming from this “event” have strange psychic abilities (and silver hair), and it becomes clear that they are not willing to let those normal human beings set limits to their own development. One of the fathers sets out to teach them some lessons in various respects.
Easily the worst film in my Carpenter marathon so far – remarkable (as so many of his films) mostly by the fact that the cast again shows promiment names, if probably most not in their prime. Kirsty Alley, Luke Skywalker and Superman – that’s not bad for a hopeless C-Movie. The telekinetic stare of the kids, the emtpy faces and – honestly – very blunt acting wears you out some ten minutes after the silver-haired generation actors first appear. They just have insufficient skills to be scary, it’s like a Superman movie (that must be Christopher Reeve’s inspiration making me think of this) where he only uses his heat glance. A tad boring, don’t you think? Reeve is actually quite good, but the rest of the cast is rubbish, or at least misguided through a script that has nothing to offer but frequently staring children. Did I write about Carpenter’s humour last time? While subversive in “Ghosts on Mars”, goofbally in “They Live!”, it is nothing but absent here.
thomas4cinema 