Review: PLEASE DON’T FEED THE CHILDREN

For some, Please Don’t Feed the Children, the feature directorial debut of Destry Allyn Spielberg — daughter of filmmaking luminary Steven — may arrive carrying much higher expectations than it deserves. It shouldn’t. Even if the elder Spielberg’s influence hadn’t long since metastasized at a molecular level in the bones of the entire entertainment industry, a nepotism accusation invariably means less than the sum of the creativity generated by the access, funds or opportunity granted to the famous-surnamed aspiring artist. And thankfully, there’s plenty to thrill and intrigue in what’s on screen here in this film (which hits Tubi today) beyond its credit block.

Set in a near-future wasteland where children are rounded up as the asymptomatic carriers of a devastating zombie outbreak, Please Don’t Feed the Children stars Zoe Colletti (The Family Plan) as Mary, a young woman on her own looking for an escape route to Mexico. After crossing paths with Jeffy (Dean Scott Vasquez), a pre-teen, self-described “master thief,” Mary joins his siblings and friends to investigate a secret tunnel intended to usher orphans like them past omnipresent military patrols to safety. Before they arrive at the location of the tunnel, however, a gunfight breaks out with a convenience store clerk during a stop for supplies and Ben (Andrew Liner) is wounded. 

With authorities closing in on all sides, the group flees to a remote country home in search of medical supplies. There they encounter Clara (Michalle Dockery), who’s awaiting the return of her husband, a cop, but she agrees to mend Ben’s gunshot. Grateful but mistrustful, the group decides to steal her vehicle and resume their search for the escape tunnel. But they quickly discover that the woman’s cheerful demeanor conceals deeper secrets, realizing that they must band together to escape a fate that promises to be worse than getting turned over to the local militia for quarantining.

As similar as many aspects of this story are to other, recent undead-themed projects (in particular The Last of Us