The plot: Over the course of the past five years that I’ve been writing Home Video Hell, I have come across some truly bad movies. It was hard to top the very first film I wrote about—after all, there’s a special kind of crappy reserved for movies featuring Victoria Jackson—but a number of films have done their level best to unseat it. There was the film about a beeper, Elvis From Outer Space, Killer Sofa… the list goes on.
All of which is to say that, while Ankle Biters is quite bad, it never quite hits the special levels of ineptitude reserved for the Pet Graveyards and Dawnseekers of the world. This is likely the final thing I will ever write for The A.V. Club, as it’s my last day, so let’s keep this succinct: Ankle Biters will make you regret watching it, but not so powerfully that it haunts your dreams afterward. Sorry, movie—my dreams are all full up on five previous years’ worth of shitty films. (And some great ones; looking at you, The VelociPastor!)
The plot is simple enough: Laura, a woman dating hockey star Sean Smith, has four young daughters, and one night, the kids stumble upon a kinky sex video the couple made, in which Sean ties their mom up and slaps her around. Not realizing this was all good consensual fun, the little blond moppets start acting out, trying to mess with Sean à la The Parent Trap, only way more violent. (Shoving nails into his apples, dropping spider eggs in his ear—you know, cute kids stuff!) After killing the neighbor girl and letting Sean take the blame, they eventually decide to just kill him, too, though not before Sean is able to take out the ringleader of the girls. Then they drop a rock on his head. The end. Good times! Did I mention this isn’t meant to be a straight-up comedy?
Over-the-top box copy: There are two endorsements on the back of the DVD case, one calling it “a wild ride,” which is semi-fair (it’s not too boring, I’ll grant it that), and the other saying Ankle Biters is “a pleasant mix of horror and dark comedy… as entertaining as it is vicious,” and while the “pleasant” part isn’t true, the rest is completely accurate. It is as entertaining as it is vicious, which is to say, it’s not much of either.
The descent: I’ve made no secret of the fact that I find the unspoken taboo against killing kids onscreen to be fascinating. For whatever reason, it’s been decided that you’re just not allowed to show that; it almost always happens off-screen, even in movies you would swear actually depicted it, like Pet Sematary. So I was curious to see if this one would actually go the distance and keep the cameras rolling when they offed a little tyke. The answer is, “Yes and no.” The actual moment of death? Not shown. But there are some awfully close before and afters.
The theoretically heavenly talent: This is a true labor of love by people who clearly have no money, save for a presumable Canadian film arts grant bestowed upon them, for reasons passing understanding. Given the four kids are played by real-life siblings, I’m not convinced the whole thing wasn’t just an elaborate babysitting strategy. That said, there is a cameo of sorts from Whose Line Is It Anyway? star Colin Mochrie, who pops up for a few scenes as the detective investigating the death of the neighbor girl, and who immediately suspects Sean of being the killer. Steer clear, Whose Line fans!
The execution: While I can’t say I’m going to “miss” writing Home Video Hell, exactly—it’s too soul-crushing most of the time to really enjoy—it does feel a bit like a vestigial tail or something, an extraneous part of myself that I’ll notice once it’s disappeared. So how appropriate, then, to go out on a wet fart of a movie like this—far too ham-fisted to be even moderately effective, but also too baseline competent to come anywhere near so-bad-it’s-good territory. In other words, a stereotypical Home Video Hell entry.
Ankle Biters is shooting for the horror-comedy angle, but largely misses the mark, thanks to shitty execution. It has all the normal hallmarks of a badly written and poorly directed film—clunky editing, dragged-out frames, awkward staging, and molasses pacing—meaning even the occasional successful moment is overwhelmed by the onslaught of mediocrity surrounding it. I don’t enjoy saying that any more than I enjoyed watching it—I always feel bad dumping on something that was clearly made by ordinary folks doing something just for the love of the process—but then again, I never tried to mass-market and release the little home-video movies I made as a middle schooler, so who’s the wiser soul? (Not me, obviously; I chose to watch this.)
Halfway through, the police show up to investigate the disappearance of the young neighbor kid who was babysitting the little girls, only to mysteriously “disappear” during the evening (the kids bind her wrists and ankles with tape, then push her into the lake). One of the girls says, “Why are the police here?” BECAUSE YOU MURDERED SOMEONE, kid, remember? It happened like 10 minutes ago? Maybe the kid genuinely broke character and asked what the fuck was happening in her movie, and they accidentally left it in.
What little mileage the movie gets out of its premise stems from simply pointing a camera at four angel-faced little girls and asking them to look like demons. That contrast doesn’t make for much entertainment value in the long run, but it’s not nothing: Check out the look on their faces the first time we see them drive by their ostensible new father figure:
Similarly, there’s a few good moments borne almost wholly from having a 5-year-old talk like a seasoned psychopath. Credit where credit’s due: Ankle Biters has a solid premise. Even subpar talent behind the camera can’t tank something like this, where one of the girls explains to another why it’s so vital that they kill this grown-up as swiftly and efficiently as possible:
Unfortunately, there’s also a few overt attempts at humor, and they all fall flat. Many of them are of the “let’s do something wacky!” variety, which is always the kiss of death; take, for example, the arrival of Sean’s lawyer, who shows up just as his client is getting booked for murder, and rather than doing anything remotely lawyer-esque, he tries to attack the cop and gets tased. Just another day on the job, barrister, am I right? And when we check in on him moments later, is he upset? God, no. That kind of thing gets his motor running, baby:
Still, there’s one truly excellent moment in all of Ankle Biters, and it comes near the end, when (spoiler alert) Sean finally fights back against these little blond fuckers. At this point, they’ve watched him bite into a nail, had baby spiders crawl out of his ear, framed him for murder, and sliced his Achilles heel open. Surely, he’s had it, no? But Sean keeps being the responsible grown-up long after he should’ve gotten a gun and gone Terminator on his shitty children. Thankfully, once the ringleader is just straight-up stabbing him with a knife in the leg, Sean decides to take action. Too little, too late, but watch him kick this little kid off the balcony, and tell me it’s not at least a touch delightful.
Likelihood it will rise from obscurity: I’ve only seen two of the dozens of films I’ve reviewed for Home Video Hell over the years even approach being rediscovered as a cult classic (Aniara and The VelociPastor, if you’re curious), so the odds are against Ankle Biters, especially given how bad it is. But the above clip of that kid flying off the balcony should at least be a meme, no? Which is probably how this feature will be remembered by those who read it over the years (and I thank you, all of you, for reading and commenting and generally being the great A.V. Club audience of old): a fleeting diversion amid a much larger project, one that—I hope—brought occasional laughter. Ultimately, isn’t that all any of this is? Something to elevate the regular pop-culture discourse in a way that hopefully speaks to those of us who care about it beyond reasonable measure? I’ll miss you guys.
Damnable commentary track or special features? A few. It’s never a good sign, quality-wise, when a director decides a good bonus feature would be an entire other feature film he made, one that presumably never got distribution, who could even say why, business matters are so complicated, after all. There’s also a couple of short films, and a “behind-the-scenes” that literally just consists of lengthy still shots of the kids being coached to say their lines. It seems like making this movie was a lot of fun for everyone involved. I’m glad—making things should be fun! When you stop having fun, it’s time to move on. And with that, adieu, dear reader.