PLEASE DON'T FEED THE CHILDREN Review: Never Trust Anyone with a British Accent

Maybe skip the freshly-baked cookies next time?

Please Don't Feed the Children
Now FASTing on Tubi TV.

In the near future, a virus has affected the entire adult population. Most died or turned into cannibals. The survivors blamed the mostly-orphaned children, herding them into prison camps.

Under these bleak conditions, it's no wonder that young people desperately want to escape. Mary (Zoe Coletti) is typical of the new-generation teens, who must fight and steal to survive. She yearns to escape to another land, and has a map to guide her. One day she crosses paths with Ben (Andrew Liner), who senses in her a kindred soul, and so leads her to meet with his group of traveling companions.

More desperate circumstances prompt this ragtag group to seek refuge in a large, isolated house. Obviously, anyone who's ever seen a horror movie knows that nothing good will come of this decision, especially when a woman with a British accent named Clara (Michelle Dockery) answers the door and "reluctantly" issues them inside.

The "Danger! Danger!" alarm bells are truly clanging at this point, but the kids proceed inside and that's when they learn for the first, but not the last, time that one should never eat freshly-baked cookies proffered by a polite British woman in the middle of the night.

Directed by Destry Allyn Spielberg, in her feature directorial debut, from an original script written by Paul Bertino (also his first produced feature screenplay), Please Don't Feed the Children starts strong and remains highly-charged throughout. For a first feature, it wisely sets the balance of its narrative in and around the property where Clara lives, thus empowering Spielberg to embellish the picture with good framing and shot selections.

Director of Photography Shane Sigler and Production Designer Kai Boydell do excellent work creating evocative yet creepy lights, shadows, and furnishings that speak directly to the mysteries behind Clara's increasingly menacing and mysterious presence.

Performances by the younger cast members, especially Zoe Coletti, are quite good. Michelle Dockery chews the scenery with relish, which befits her character, while Giancarlo Esposito's presence, though quite limited, is effective.

As might be expected, Destry Allyn Spielberg's directorial debut feels like a first feature, yet it's promising nonetheless. (It's also good to keep in mind that her father had the benefit of working in television for years before making his feature debut, while the younger Spielberg has only made a couple of short films.)

Putting aside the director's family name, Please Don't Feed the Children is a solid, if lighter, horror thriller that turns its familiar surroundings sideways to make it more intriguing; it doesn't spare the blood, either.

Inevitably, watching any movie on a FAST service disrupts the narrative flow of the movie. The same can be said, of course, for watching on ad-supported broadcast or cable channels. (Or, for that matter, reading anything on any ad-supported film site, such as Screen Anarchy.) It's the nature of the beast.

Happily, the ad breaks were infrequent during my viewing today, and came at the end of scenes, instead of the middle. No ad break I saw lasted for more than one minute, composed of two 30-second ads.

Obviously, it's not ideal, but, in this case, and many others, it provides a free and legal means to see a movie that is not otherwise available.

Now FASTing celebrates independent and international genre films and television shows that are newly available on legal FAST (Free Ad-supported Streaming Television) services.