Creepy Children in Horror Movies

Don't Go To Sleep (1982) is a very hard movie to get a hold of. There is no DVD release yet for this movie, but there are copies floating around the internet. This was a made for TV movie and let me tell you, this scared the crap out of me back in the day. What a creepy ass movie this was.

The movie is about a family of four, the parents and their two children, who move into a new home and try to start their life over after the death of their oldest daughter Jennifer, which resulted from a freak car explosion. The two other young kids, who happened to survive the car explosion, are Mary and her brother Kevin. The house that the family moved into belongs to Bernice, which is Mary and Kevin's grandmother. Everything seems fine at first but the terror begins when Mary starts hearing her deceased sister Jennifer calling for her from underneath the bed. Of course it turns out that Mary's parents don't believe her and they even blame her younger brother Kevin for scaring Mary. Little did they know that Kevin was indeed an innocent bystander and the voices that Mary was hearing might actually really be coming from her dead sister Jennifer.

Things get even worse from here and the ghost of Jennifer now actually becomes visible to Mary. Jennifer's ghost becomes Mary's new playmate, and there's nothing or nobody that will stand in their way because Mary will make sure of that. After a few days of hanging out with her deceased sister, Jennifer tells Mary of a new plan that she has. She tells Mary that she must kill her family off one by one, or else they can no longer be together. Mary, scared to loose her older sister again, decides that this plan might just be a good idea and from here on is where things start becoming very deadly. Mary's family start slowly dropping like flies, but in the beginning it's not really visible to who is really killing them. And here's where the question lies...is Mary the one actually killing her family off one by one, or is it really the ghost of her dead sister Jennifer?

This movie was very eerie. There is no violence or anything like that, being that it was a made for TV movie, but the things that they suggested I'm surprised that they got away with that much. The acting isn't the greatest, but what do you expect from a made for TV horror movie? It was good enough for what it was and it never gets too unbearably cheesy. The voices that came from underneath Mary's bed were scary as hell, and Jennifer's ghost was truly spine tingling. The story was also very well told, and what's even creepiest out of the whole thing was the ending that left me sleeping with the lights on (of course I was younger at the time), but it still packs a punch.

This movie is very hard to find and as I said it isn't officially released on DVD yet. If you really want to see this movie just look around for a copy on the internet, but good luck finding it. The only reason why I have it is because I bought a copy from a horror convention, and luckily it was very good quality. Anyways, you should really try to see this movie.

If you haven't seen this yet then you're totally missing out. This is one of John Carpenter's best!


"The story follows private investigator John Trent whose specialty is insurance fraud. He is called in by a publisher to investigate the alleged disappearance of the phenomenally popular horror novelist, Sutter Cane. Having vanished with his most recent novel unfinished, Cane's publisher asks Trent to retrieve the work at stake. Trent thinks the whole thing is a publicity stunt but agrees to take the case.

Trent, accompanied by Cane's editor, Linda Styles, eventually tracks the writer to the remote New England town of Hobbs End, previously thought only to exist in Cane's stories. There it soon becomes clear that the wall between fantasy and reality has blurred."


This film pays tribute to the work of horror novelist H. P. Lovecraft. I just love anything that deals with Lovecrafts's work, he has so much that's going on with his stories, all the key elements(along with many great creepy characters), that make a horror story get the well worth attention it deserves.

This movie is heavy on atmosphere. I'm talking about drenched in, all out, spooky ass atmosphere. Like I have said in another review, one of the most important key elements in a horror film is definitely the atmosphere. There are many creepy characters in this as well...a disfigured and angry police officer, a ghostly old and pasty faced man riding a bicycle, deformed and demonically evil little children, an old creepy woman who sprouts creature-like legs while chopping her husband up with an axe, and lots and lots more! This movie is just completely insane. It's an all out fun film to watch. The ending in this is completely brilliant too. It totally blew my mind.

In the Mouth of Madness is a spooky and darkly atmospheric fun film to watch. If you're a horror fan and you haven't seen this one yet, you must get your hands on it as soon as possible. Even if you're not a horror fan...to anyone who hasn't seen this movie, Watch it Soon! Great film!

Other Reviews:

"In the Mouth of Madness combines excellent screen writing and superb acting with the psychosis of Lovecraft and the brilliant direction of Carpenter to create memorable psychological horror."
- Best-Horror-Movies.com


"In the Mouth of Madness made me sit back and say "Wow, this guy is amazing." The music, the monsters, the story, the ending-the film is just a genuinely solid movie all-around."
- Oh, the Horror!


"Another awesome film by Sam Neil and a great story by John Carpenter."
- Obscure Horror


"Man, oh man! The movie that kept me up at nights for a year, the movie I foisted upon my friends knowing all the while they'd never appreciate it like I do, the movie people keeps saying "Huh?" to when I tell them my favorite films."
- The Cavalcade of Schlock


"This was a great movie. I love these kind of what-if movies. I mean, what if what we read was real or somehow the line between fiction and reality was blurred? What if reality was just what everyone agreed upon? What is reality, anywho? All these questions are raised in the film."
- Fatally Yours


"In the Mouth of Madness might be one of the best things that Carpenter has done to date."
- Evil Dread

This isn't one of the best horror movies out there, but it sure is an extremely entertaining well made for television film. I first saw this movie when they premiered it on Showtime around the Halloween season back in 2000. I had heard of this film months before they aired it, which got me even more psyched to see it, and I even did a little research on it. From what I've heard this movie was based on the actual 1949 case of a Maryland boy which inspired "The Exorcist", and everything that I read on the computer showed that this was indeed
true. So for anyone out there who wants to get an idea of what really happened on the actual case, I suggest you go and see this movie.

The True Story:

"It began in Maryland on the evening of January 15, 1949, when 14-year-old "John Hoffman" and his grandmother heard strange scratching and dripping noises in their house. No explanation could be found for the noises, which stopped after ten days, only to be replaced by mysterious footsteps and drumbeats. After John's Aunt Dorothy suddenly died, the poltergeist-like phenomena increased - with John's mattress shaking violently, food flying through the air and furniture falling over. John and his parents tried to communicate with the poltergeist, which at the time claimed to be the spirit of Aunt Dorothy.

Then, in late February, livid red marks emerged on John's skin, taking the shape of actual words. After neither physicians nor psychiatrists could find anything wrong with John, his parents, although Lutheran, consulted a Roman Catholic priest. His recommendations of prayers and holy water only seemed to aggravate John's condition. John's mother took him to St. Louis, hoping things would calm down. But the manifestations intensified. "Father Lawrence," a Jesuit priest, came to visit John in St. Louis, saying prayers over him and pinning two crucifixes under his pillow. After he left, one crucifix propelled itself across the room and the other moved to the foot of the bed as the bed shook violently.

On March 16, the Archbishop of St. Louis gave Father Lawrence permission to begin the formal rite of exorcism. During the first night of the ritual, marks appeared on John's skin 30 times -- including the word "Hell" and a portrait of a Satanic visage. The 45-minute ritual was performed several times a night over the next week. John's responses became increasingly rabid, including screaming torrents of profanity and foreign words, violent seizures and uncontrolled urinating. With the parents' permission, John was converted to Catholicism. But his responses to the rituals only became worse. The disturbances suddenly stopped on March 26. Father Lawrence believed John's possession was over.

However, they began again on March 31, with John's behavior during the rituals getting even more violent. "I am always in him," the demon said through John's lips. After more days of no progress, Father Lawrence read about an 1870 case of possession that provided a key to exorcising the demon. On the night of April 18, he forced John to wear a chain of religious medals and hold a crucifix in his hand during the exorcism ritual. When Father Lawrence commanded the demon to declare itself, John exploded in a violent spasm of amazing strength, needing five men to hold him down. At 11 p.m., John suddenly interrupted the ritual by shouting, "Satan! I am St. Michael. I command you, Satan, to leave his body now!" After then enduring the most violent spasms yet, John uttered, "He is gone" and suddenly returned to normal, breaking into a smile."

William Peter Blatty, then a student at Georgetown University, read about John's story in the newspapers. The story stuck with him and 20 years later he fictionalized it to create "The Exorcist."

The acting in this isn't all that great and this movie doesn't come close to being as good as The Exorcist, but trust me, this is a very entertaining and edifying movie. This film has R rated material but mainly for subject matter alone, don't expect any gore or anything like that. Also, don't watch this and expect anything like The Exorcist either because you will be disappointed if you do. Understand that this was made for television and it does have the occasional made for TV cheese, but it's always fun to watch and yes, there are some truly creepy ass moments as well. You should definitely see this movie, it's very well made and plus it's very interesting to see what actually happened to the real boy. I recommend it.

Salem's Lot is an atmospheric creepfest directed by Tobe Hooper(The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and written by horror master Stephen King. Actually this one is up there with one of the most atmospheric horror films I have ever seen. Some moments in here are also creepy as fucking hell(the little boy floating by the window, the evil guy in the rocking chair, and a group of vampires slowly lurking in the cellar). Salem's Lot comes close to being the ultimate vampire flick and it is definitely without a doubt one of them. The atmosphere alone in this movie is enough to give you the goosebumps, throw in one of the scariest vampire's to ever be put on screen, you got yourself one truly chilling movie.

This movie is almost flawless. The acting is unbelievably good, the script is perfect, and the cinematography is beautifully dark and shadowy. Perfect movie for a dark and stormy night.

Every horror fan needs to see this movie. I hate it when people complain how slow this movie was. Salem's Lot is at a perfect pace. Everything comes together beautifully, and any faster this movie wouldn't have worked as well as it did. The slow built up in Salem's Lot just spends all it's time building on character development, which is perfect, cause now that we've become acquainted with all the characters we become a part of the movie more so then if we knew shit about anyone. It lets us understand Salem much better and it's people as well, almost making us feel like a part of the town, therefore scaring us a whole lot more. Good thing too is that everything here is very believable and it never becomes too cheesy for a single moment. And don't expect any gore, this was a made for TV movie. Besides it didn't need any at all.

I do have one complaint about this movie though. It is a 184 minutes long...It should have been 484 minutes long, lol. I did not want this movie to end! That's how good it was!

Yes indeed. Creepy and truly atmospheric. I highly recommend this movie to any true horror fan out there.