Apaches

Storyline

Six young children named Danny, Kim, Sharon, Michael, Tom, and Robert are embroiled in misadventures on an English farm in an effort to educate on the dangers to be aware of on farmland. True to the name of the film, the children are frequently playing a "cowboys and Native Americans" type of game and are not minding the inherent hazards on farms; the western influence also frames the narration style of the film. The narrator is Danny, and the story is framed around adults planning a party between scenes involving the accidents the children encounter. In the first scene, Kim decides to mount a moving tractor while the children chase her from behind; when the tractor makes a sharp turn, she falls off and is crushed. We cut to a teacher removing her name from a classroom cubby. The second scene sees the five remaining children playing football and kick the can. Tom hides from the other children and climbs to the top of a fence. He loses his balance, falling into a slurry pit; the other children cannot hear his cries for help as he drowns in the waste. Next we see a teacher clearing his desk and removing his name. Next, the survivors play a game as Apache warriors. When the play concludes, the children retire to a barn where they find a bottle much like a liquor bottle containing a mystery substance, which despite its suspicious odor they decide to mock-toast their victory. All children mimic drinking the liquid, which is most likely a dangerous herbicide or pesticide, except for Sharon, who manages to swallow a small amount. She spits it out and it slightly ill at the time. We then cut to Sharon screaming in the middle of the night in severe pain. Instead of a classroom scene, we then see Sharon's mother clearing out her deceased daughter's room, and hear Danny waxing philosophical about why adults drink. The last children standing - Michael, Danny, and Robert - decide to celebrate their survival with a game of Starsky and Hutch. Michael manages to avoid a tractor accident, but during play manages to crush Robert underneath a heavy metal gate. More party guests start arriving as we cut back to the party storyline. Danny, who has embarked on his own, meets a group of farm workers on a break who allow him to sit on their tractor. While playing at the steering column, the brake is dislodged and the tractor rolls over, killing our narrator. His parents sit in his empty bedroom, and we finally see that the "party" is Danny's funeral. Michael, the only child surviving farm injuries in this film, is Danny's cousin and is present. In his closing narration, Danny states he wishes he could attend the party. The film ends with a list of real children who were killed in farm accidents the year prior to the film's production.