HORROR DADS CONTEMPLATE THE QUESTION: WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? (1976)

The Horror Dads (now armed with a fresh new banner courtesy of fellow HD and graphic genius Greg Ferrara) are back just in time for Halloween with an in-depth, spoiler-insensitive discussion of Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's disturbing 1976 chiller, Who Can Kill a Child?, a.k.a. known as Quien Puede Matar a Nino and Island of the Damned. This is one I avoided for a long time, so unsure was I of the movie's content and whether I would be able to withstand whatever impact it might have. But other than the use of a questionable tactic early on, which the Dads definitely toss around a bit, I was suitably impressed by the movie's style and its seriousness of purpose. As were we all-- no dogfights a la The Mist this time around. But the discussion was fun and thought-provoking just the same. Nicholas McCarthy kick-starts things over at Movie Morlocks thusly:


"A while back when I was anticipating the birth of my daughter, I found myself wondering if my enjoyment of horror movies would go out the window, if I would become too sensitive to the violence in them. I had a standing movie night with a friend where we had regularly watched some pretty crazy stuff and I programmed a series of 'horror kids' movies leading up to my wife’s due date. We watched It's Alive (1974), The Omen (1976) and Who Can Kill A Child? (1976). It was purposely silly to do this, but in a real way, I feared that this would be the last time I could `see' these films clearly. Now I have watched Who can Kill a Child? again, a year and a half later. If I thought I would have a radically different reaction now that I have a kid, I probably should have just remembered that if a film is good, it is worth seeing and thinking about, no matter what it’s about. And this is a great movie."


Join us for our roundtable discussion of Who Can Kill a Child? and find out if the question is a rhetorical one, or not.

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