When I was a kid I felt like there were always movies coming out that had horror elements that were aimed at a younger audience. Whether it was stuff that hit theaters right before I was born like Gremlins and Goonies or movies that came out a little later like Monster Squad, Ernest Scared Stupid and Hocus Pocus, it seemed you could always find something geared towards kids but heavily rooted in horror. I’m not sure if it was just me getting older and no longer being the target audience or if studios actually started to back away from this, but I don’t think we get nearly as many scary movies for kids these days. Sure we still get movies from Tim Burton and every now and then a Monster House or ParaNorman pops up, but these seem few and far between. I’m happy to say that Patch Town, the feature debut from director Craig Goodwill, reminded me of the movies from my youth.

I want to be clear that Patch Town is not a horror movie and isn’t likely to scare any Bloody Disgusting readers. This is, however, a dark fantasy movie that I think would both fascinate and scare a 7-year-old.

Our story follows Jon (Rob Ramsay), a man living in Patch Town but with dreams for something bigger. Jon works everyday slaving away in the local factory pulling babies from the inside of cabbages. The babies are cleaned and then turned into plastic to become toys before eventually being shipped off to become adopted. They’re basically Cabbage Patch Kids and in a way Patch Town is the grim origin story of Cabbage Patch Kids everywhere. Jon himself was once one of these toys, but after his adopted mother grew up she tossed him to the side and he went back to Patch Town. This is what happens with all the toys. Eventually they’re tossed away and return to town where they grow up to work in the factory.

Jon has begun to have dreams of a girl that is familiar to him but he isn’t quite sure who she is. The dreams are of Jon’s adopted mother who has now grown up and has a daughter of her own. The reason Jon doesn’t clearly remember her is that because once a toy returns to Patch Town their memories are wiped clean and they’re assigned jobs in the factory. With his memory returning, Jon wants to escape Patch Town.

The overall plot for Patch Town is fairly simple, but it contains a lot of moving parts that make things a bit complex. While each of these ideas are interesting on their own, the inclusion of so many details tends to muddle things up a bit throughout. Not only do we have Jon trying to escape and find his mother but we also have the ruler of Patch Town, a man simply named the Child Catcher (Julian Richings) who kind of looks like a scary version of Jim Varney, dealing with problems of his own. Much like Jon, the Child Catcher has parental issues, but he’s also struggling with the fact that kids today just aren’t that into toy dolls. Modern kids grow up fast and want adult toys. This is a cool idea to see a kids movie explore, but unfortunately the Child Catcher’s solution is to replace the toy dolls of babies with toy dolls of 6-year-olds. I don’t think it’s the age of the dolls that the kids are losing interest in.

The world Goodwill creates for Patch Town is probably the film’s biggest success. It’s cold and dark, almost feels like an industrialized Sleepy Hollow under the rule of an evil dictator. It truly is a scary, unpleasant place void of any type of hope or happiness. Visually the film does a good job bringing this to life but I would have liked to see more of this world. We really only get to see the factory and Jon’s house which is a shame because it feels like there is so much more to explore in Patch Town.

Overall Patch Town is a flawed film that struggles with plot and pacing. Despite the film’s short comings, it does create an interesting environment and present good ideas. Patch Town is a movie that can be fun and scary for kids and entertaining for adults. In this day and age I’ll take that as a victory.

Patch Town is available on DVD from Kino Lorber on August 11th. Special features include an interview with the film’s director, outtakes and the award winning short that inspired the film.