User reviews

George Pavlou is a peculiar filmmaker. He only made three movies. His debut - "Underworld" aka "Transmutations" (1985) - was somewhat interesting, as it was based on a Clive Barker short story. His second film is a true guilty pleasure amongst many horror fans and yet another adaptation of a Clive Barker story, the creature feature "Rawhead Rex" (1986). To put it bluntly, "Little Devils: The Birth" (1993) is a worse movie than the aforementioned two titles and was accomplished on a much smaller budget, which shows. But somehow Pavlou's third effort didn't turn out a complete failure as well. It's along the (budgetary) lines of independent horror pulp like, let's say, Michael Krueger's "Mindkiller" (1987) and Frank Henenlotter's "Brain Damage" (1988). Though Pavlou's film is mixed with a pretty dumb form of comedy and is more along the vein of movies like Tina Hirsch's "Munchies" (1987) and John Carl Buechler's "Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College" (1991).

A wacky scientist discovers some puddle of red mud from hell in some tomb on some graveyard. Nevermind what it is exactly or how it got there in the first place. Fact is, the dude collects samples of the demon mud, takes it home to his apartment, becomes under the influence of it and starts sculpting little red demonic critters. Soon they run amok, armed with miniature flamethrowers, machine guns or arrow projectiles; first in the building, then in the neighbourhood. The first half of this heap of low budget nonsense is pretty horrible. The attempts at comedy in the screenplay don't work at all and the acting is below par. Not to mention that the whole thing looks cheaply shot, obviously. But still you can sense the filmmakers tried to make this peculiar mix of elements work and the characters that are introduced are rather likable as opposed to annoying. Nevermind that the script features plot holes the size of Tokyo and doesn't bother to explain anything.

I expected this flick to be a 3/10 affair all the way through, but the third act picks up on silly miniature demonoid fun. There's about seven of those little red rubber animatronic devils running around, and they all get melted or blown up in one way or another. And the climax features a humanoid demon with even more silly make-up effects. In the end, you've been watching a nonsensical horror comedy, a full-blooded B-movie for sure. By far not a good film, of course, but it manages to have a certain charm at some moments. If you dig Charles Band's more recent 'killer dolls' movies or if you're about 8 years old, you'll probably have some fun with "Little Devils: The Birth".

Russ Tamblyn, Stella Stevens, and the titular creatures make "LITTLE DEVILS: THE BIRTH" (1993, Pavlou) worth the time. I haven't seen it for a few years but I remember the second half being very entertaining; much like "FIEND WITHOUT A FACE" (1958, Crabtree) and "MOSQUITO" (1995, Jones) one might spend an hour wondering whether the film will take off only to have edge-of-the-seat entertainment for half an hour.

During the end credits Russ Tamblyn is enjoying a beer with Mark Price and then he sums it up, with the only good line in the film: "I feel like I've just made a B-movie!"

Had he said F-movie the irony would have worked.

And had it NOT been for the charm of veteran star Tamblyn and a weird career move by Stella Stevens as a horny landlady, this low-budget stinker would have NO redeeming qualities what-so-ever.

The biggest laugh comes from the title "The Birth". Like anyone would ever bother making a sequel to these "Little Devils"?! Gee..wiz...

In the beginning of the movie, you have a few hopes for that it will be interesting to watch. After about twenty minutes, your hopes are gone. Completely. This movie is silly, one of all the bad movies that mixes comedy and horror. It doesn't even seem that the writer had the intend to be serious with this film...

Don't see this movie.

There's nothing really new in "Little Devils".

The effort in watching the movie is not repaid, even with the best efforts of some of the cast.

There's apparently a troubled past behind the making of this movie. This explains a lot. It wouldn't have taken much more effort to get the devils quite decent for example. Perhaps the point was the poor model-making skills of the character and thus the look? The effect though is poor, sort of like a cheapened down version of Gremlins - the devils even die is a similar fashion pictorially.

The story?

Loner Lionel finds some magical mud or such and makes the titular creatures. The movie then entirely switches to his downstairs neighbour, trash romantic fiction writer Ed. That stays the case for the first two thirds of the movie. The last third is passable but only just.

It does not save the movie.

Utterly unsure of any real movement / motive / plot but I may have missed it somewhere.

It needs to be said that the final (pre-credits, see below) scene is awful.

There's some okay moments with two side characters (landlady and doctor) stealing the acting credits, such as they are.

Lastly, if you follow the ride through then stick around for the credits as there's a final scene that plays out entirely behind the credit-roll. Bit odd. There's a nice few paragraphs of script here though that I liked.

Not recommended,

I loved this movie i thought it was great. As you might know if you read my comment on demonic toys, i really like low budget horror movies that have virtually no plot and is all about the gore. The devils are great they run around with flamethrowers laughing there demon heads off as they mercilessly burn their victims. The victims are a typical bunch of losers from the mad scientist to the sex maniac land-lady the latter by the way you will be glad when she gets it. I have to say though i found the devils to be cute & funny with their glowing red eyes and their mischievous laugh, this could just be my twisted sense of humour but still. Anyway i recommend this to other fans of low budget horrors you WILL enjoy it!

I think that you should leave this movie alone. Come on even if it was a wacky idea could you come up with it? I happen to know the director and the producer, very well in fact. But that still doesn't make my comment biased. i think you need to give this independent movie a chance, not everyone has millions and millions to spend on stupid Hollywood flicks. think about what they had to do to make it and in a weird cult way you'll see it's pretty cool. So please watch through this movie again and make an honest opinion. I saw it and liked it. And I know other people who have seen and liked it as well. So I say, do watch it and then make up your mind.

Unfairly neglected, George 'Rawhead Rex' Pavlou's animated 90s B-Horror has plentiful Full Moon/Charles Band vibes throughout, and cannily plays it strictly for laughs. This agreeably boisterous Canadian Creepshow stars statuesque, Stella Stevens, Marc 'The Gate' Price, Nancy Valen and, Russ Tamblyn who fearfully find themselves bloodily besieged by a heavily armed mob of dwarfish, death-dealing gargoyles, these rampaging, red-eyed rapscallions inexplicably hell bent on their destruction!

Little Devils is unabashedly silly, and certainly knows it, and, winningly, some of the humour is intentional! I kinda' dug on the sprightly slimy shenanigans, and more forgiving 'Puppet Master'/'Ghoulies' fans just might get a diminutive kick watching the murderous mayhem of these malefically mud-borne Little Devils!! Marc Price and Nancy Valen are genuinely likable homunculus hunting protagonists, and screen veterans, Stella Stevens appear to be having a blast with all the B-Movie buffoonery! While derivative, and undeniably hokey, Pavlou's gallopingly gloopy schlocker 'aint no dog!!! I'm ardently hoping for a slinky Blu-ray restoration with gratuitously extended landlady scenes!!!!