Claire (Kata Kuna) arrives at her new job, a summer camp in the middle of the woods in nowhere. USA, only to realize the camp is deserted - and yet when she phones the camp's number, she's told she's right and invited in. However, the camp is actually as deserted as it looks, if not abandoned even, and overall appears to be a rather depressing affair. But Claire's not one to give up tht easily, and she goes through the place's files and calls some of the parents of the kids that are supposed to be at the camp according to application forms - but finds out these forms are from 15 years ago, and the kids in question have gone missing. Claire also finds a drawing book with very disturbing images about children with black eyes, and she finds an SD-card, and on it finds the head of the camp (Bill Oberst jr) talking directly to her, revealing some of the place's secrets - and nothing he says is very comforting. And Claire has no means of getting away since her car has spontaneously broken down ...

As with many of director József Gallai's movies, The Black-Eyed Children is a found footage movie - even if there's no apparent reason for telling this story from that perspective. And no, I'm not a fan of that approach to the genre as such, but one has to hand it to Gallai, despite the mostly handheld camerawork he knows how to get rather beautiful and very moody shots that make the best out of the very atmospheric locations while the editing properly paces the move and avoids too much filler material. And that all said, the story of the movie as such is properly scary and is brought across effectively, also of course thanks to a solid performance by Kata Kuna, carrying the movie rather beautifully, and a scene-stopping performance by the always dependable Bill Oberst jr at his creepy best. So simply put, pretty cool genre entertainment.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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