Children of Sin – Desperate to be Shocking
Director: Christopher Wesley Moore
Writer: Christopher Wesley Moore (Screenplay)
Starring: Cami Roebuck, Meredith Mohler, Christopher Wesley Moore, Jo-Ann Robinson, Faith Stanley, Lewis Hines
Plot: After being sent to a sinister religious retreat by their stepfather, two siblings fight to escape in order to save their mother from harm’s way.
Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Children of Sin starts when abused and pregnant Emma (Mohler) and her gay brother Jackson (Hines) are seen as sinners in the world by their stepfather Robbie (Buchwald) and are sent to a religious retreat to be reformed.
Once the pair join the others on the retreat, they learn the darker sinister methods shown by Mary Esther (Robinson) who seems to get more pleasure out of punishing the residents, then helping.
Thoughts on Children of Sin
Thoughts – Children of Sin is a horror film that looks to bring a real subject of the religious retreats to fix the problems the parents believe are sins in the eyes of the lord, only for the location to offer a much more dangerous environment, as the person running the location, has a much darker side to her motivations. This is a horror that will end up not making as much sense as the story seems to think it will, as the punishment the leader wants to put on the victims, doesn’t seem to offer enough in the way of options, the kids are just normal people, never do anything wrong and don’t seem to stand a chance of escape the eyes of the sins they are meant to be doing. This isn’t helped by the performances which don’t convince, with some slow awkward running motions that don’t feel anywhere near as intense as the scene presents itself to be. This is a horror that wants all the shock value it never earns.
Final Thoughts – Children of Sin is so caught up in the desperate attempts to be shocking, it fails to get the basics of horror right.
