No, seriously, I really like this movie. It gives me the creeps and makes me feel uncomfortable. That's hard to do. I think a great double feature to show kids would be this and "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea." Well, maybe not for kids but for people like me who were so young in the 70s as to have very nearly only sense memories of the time. Compare this to the treacly "Stand by Me" and the infantile "Goonies." I don't mean to suggest those are bad movies, but they don't treat kids or childhood very seriously. "Stand by Me" over-sentimentalizes and "Goonies" shrouds it in childish escapism (which makes it a very fun movie). There was a brief shining moment, now long past, when a significant number of adults gave youth credit for being human. This movie is flawed in many ways but it is a disquieting exemplar of a sadly missed philosophy of the arts of and for adolescence.
Review of Bless the Beasts & Children
