When 'killer kid' movies hit big with American audiences in the seventies, exploitation giants American International Pictures released a trimmed down version of Narciso Ibanez Serrador's Who Can Kill A Child under the more acceptable title of Island Of The Damned. The film has retained a cult following ever since, though this disc from Dark Sky Films marks the first time that the film has been released on DVD in North America. To say it's an anticipated release in the eyes of Euro-Cult fans is probably a bit of an understatement - thankfully, the wait has been worthwhile.

After a grisly opening credits sequence in which we're bombarded with real life footage of starving and malnourished children we're introduced to Tom (Lewis Fiander) and his pregnant wife Evelyn (Prunella Ransome), a married couple from England enjoying their vacation together in sunny Spain. Things get a little chaotic when a crime spree in the area results in a few corpses pilling up so they decide to spend the rest of their time in Almanzora, a more remote island just off the coast, figuring that the crime from the mainland won't have much effect there.

Shortly after their arrival at the picturesque village, the couple notice that there are no grown ups and the inhabitants are made up of a small group of young kids. Tom and Evelyn decide to investigate, to try and find out what happened to the adults that obviously once lived in the town. What they find is shocking, disturbing, and completely unexpected.

Directed with plenty of style by Narciso Ibanez Serrador, the same man who directed the excellent The House That Screamed in 1969 (also known as The Finishing School), Who Can Kill A Child? is one of the few 'killer kid' films that plays completely straight. Let's face it, the genre is full of entertaining movies but many of them are guilty pleasures - not so with this film. The very title of the film implies the film's central theme, that of morality in regards to defending ones self against children. Not many people would be willing to raise arms against young kids, even with their own lives in danger. This is what makes the movie work, as it is something that at least most of us can relate to... very few of us out there would ever want to hurt a kid, end of story. This makes the finale all the more chilling, particularly because we're never told why the children have behaved they way they do in this film, it's simply left to our imagination just as it is in George A. Romero's original Night Of The Living Dead.

The film might move a little slow for some tastes but those with just a little bit of patience will be rewarded with a very well made film. The performances are uniformly good across the board with Ransome doing an extremely good job in her part. The cinematography from Jose Luis Alcaine is top notch and it does a very good job at capturing the sun drenched Spanish locations and the desolate feel that the script evokes. A few truly disturbing set pieces will no doubt upset the queasy or easily offended but the film never goes so far as to feel tasteless or base. This isn't a happy film nor is it always an easy film to digest but it works extremely well and fans of smart horror films should very definitely give this one a look now that it's readily available domestically.