So much average

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

All the children in the world suddenly convulse and fall into comas. Nobody can have any more kids. Ten years later, all the coma kids suddenly wake up and attack.That's the premise. Lots of possibilities here but each one is somehow squandered. The religious angle of 'Laying of Hands' could be interesting. The ending could definitely be better explained. The act of 'Laying of Hands' is too cheap and where did that little kid come from? The generational angle is done the best. How do you expect the parents to fight against their own kids? Even here, the emotional punch is limited by 2nd rate filmmaking. The most disappointing are the chases. Like '28 Days Later', these guys are fast. That is great but it's shot with such lethargy. None of it is exciting or scary. This has so much potential, but delivers nothing. Letting them fire weapons is giving the coma kids too much power. Also it makes no sense when you consider they're trying to 'Lay Hands' on you.

There was a lot missing in this movie. A lot of things go unexplained and that really bothered me. It had a good started, but never capitalized on what it started. The big mystery of why the kids start killing people seems to hinge on a page in a diary that they find. However, it doesn't fully explain why all of this happened in the first place or why kids under the age of nine. It also never explains what triggered them to just wake up after 10 years.I started to wonder what happened. Why would a writer do that and then I found the web site www.spreadingtheplague.com It is a site run by the writer/director and it explains a lot. If you watched the movie and wondered what was up with all the unanswered question you should check out the site.

The first third of this movie holds a lot of promise. Children of the Damned meets Night of the Living Dead, not a bad premise, eh? Well, this corpse doesn't walk ladies and gentlemen. It just lies there rotting. I'm giving it a 4 because the first third did hold a lot of promise and also because the rest of the movie is so bad, you and your friends can have a good time picking it apart.Plot (including spoilers) All children 9 & under fall into a coma. Twice a day, they go into grand mal seizures. This occurs for 10 years. The economy falls into, and recovers from, a depression. People are rioting in some countries because the governments want to put strict controls on pregnancy... they don't want any more comatose bodies sucking up public funds. Insurance no longer covers pregnancy. You get the idea.The main character is released from prison, supposedly for killing a man in a bar fight (the reason for the fight is never discussed) and returns to his hometown to patch things up with family and ex-wife. He walks into town with a copy of "the Grapes of Wrath" in his back pocket.Well, it turns out the all the comatose children have been actually doing calisthenics when they have seizures and are in great shape. They all come back to life, eager to kill.There is one great scene where a character climbs up a laundry chute chased by the kids... nicely done. Unfortunately, most of other scenes are totally predictable or just crap (usually both).The hero & friends run around trying to survive in typical zombie survival fashion. Several subplots are set up, only to die in the dust. You can really tell that there must have been multiple people involved in the script because it is scattered all over the place.Anyway, on pure chance, one character finds a diary for the local priest (who we also see killed at one point by the kids). The last entry in the diary describes a dream the priest had before leaving the faith two years previously (it also resembles a bible passage).SPOILER At the end, he dies, she dies, everyone dies but for two characters. The hero & the heroine. They end up surrounded, but the hero... using the chanced upon diary entry, sacrifices himself for everyone else (ala Christ). It turns out that the children absorb the souls of people they kill. If people are scared or angry when they get killed, the children absorb that knowledge and emotion. They learn to sabotage car engines and how to operate heavy fire-arms. By being a willing sacrifice, the hero lets his noble personality traits get absorbed into the kids and they stop their killing spree.The movie ends with the heroine at a farm house seeing the children in the fields and smiling. One of the child "leaders" has a copy of "Grapes of Wrath" in his back pocket.Yeah. Crap with delusions of religious symbolism. Some things to note: No T&A. I'm sorry, but if you're gonna make a crappy zombie movie (or something resembling a crappy zombie movie) could you at least throw some naked breasts in there?!? Geez! btw - Zombie Strippers? Yeah. They did it right. :)The Barricade. Okay, the kids barricade a road leading out of town. The hero's vehicle is non-functional. He tells people to help bring down the barricade... but in a pan shot, you can see a very clear gate that everyone could simply walk through.The priest. He leaves the church two years ago and is still living in what appears to be a catholic church? His diary is still there? Come on!

You have all probably seen this before. No, you have seen this before. If you have seen Village/Children of the Damned, there is no difference. A few hours vs. 10 years. Same thing.Once the children come out of their coma, then it is more 30 days of Night as they are zombified (not zombies as they never really died) and they start killing off everyone.The violence escalates as they learn to anticipate and use weapons.I thought James Van Der Beek did a fairly good job, and I also liked Ivana Milicevic. Tom definitely redeemed himself as everyone could certainly empathize with his actions that sent him to prison.