- Directed by Roxanne Benjamin
- Written by T. J. Cimfil, David White
- Stars Amanda Crew, Zach Gilford, Briella Guiza, David Mattle
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtYQB4r8Jew
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A group of friends on a weekend cabin trip begin to suspect something supernatural is at play when the kids behave strangely after disappearing into the woods overnight. There’s Something Wrong with the Children is the latest horror film from Blumhouse Productions. Available to buy or rent on digital now. This film is not rated.
We enjoyed this one. It’s creepy and unsettling without everything being clearly explained, which worked just fine. It builds steadily, with things just getting worse and worse.
Synopsis
We watch two children, Lucy and Spencer, playing tag as the credits roll. Adults Ellie, Thomas, Ben, and Margo are all on vacation together with Thomas and Ellie’s kids. There’s a thunderstorm, and the two families split up for the evening to their own neighboring cabins.
The next morning, they all go hiking and Ben gets them off the trail into the woods. They soon come across a huge abandoned building, and they all decide to explore. Suddenly, the kids are gone, and the adults hear a scream. The kids found a nest full of dead birds. Then they all come across a big deep hole in the ground. Lucy and Spencer call it “The place that shines” and both start pointing at it. Spencer tries to jump in, but Thomas stops him. They all go back outside.
When they get back to their cabins, both kids take a nap, which is unusual. Elle tells Margo all about the four-way she and Thomas had with some friends that didn’t go terribly well. Ben and Thomas talk about why Ben doesn’t want kids yet.
Ben and Margot volunteer to take the kids for the night so that Thomas and Elle can have some sexy time, but the kids start acting weird before going to bed. Finally left alone, Ben and Margot talk about having children themselves. They don’t really finish the conversation because she gets too high. We see that he takes medication, so you know where that’s going.
The next morning, Margot goes in to wake up the kids, and they’re gone, along with their shoes. Ben goes back down that path looking for them. He goes back into the weird old building and finds them there standing over that pit again. The two kids jump into the bottomless pit. Back at the cabin, Margo reports that the kids are there. What?
Everyone is happy except Ben, who knows what he saw in the buildin. He did see that, didn’t he? He talks to the kids, but they seem to communicate with each other with clicks and sounds, like insects. Both kids have nosebleeds and act creepy around Ben.
Ben tells Margot what he saw. “I don’t think that’s them out there anymore,” he says. She doesn’t believe him. She reminds him of his episodes that he takes medication for. “This isn’t that,” he insists and then goes in to take his lithium.
The two kids start tormenting Ben, because they know that he knows. Ben states that the kids are trying to kill Thomas, and he looks like a crazy person in the process. He tells everything that he saw to the kids parents, and they tell him to shut up. Elle and Thomas blame the other couple for not being parental material, which launches a big fight. Margot actually slaps Elle in the face.
Everyone goes back to their own cabins, and the kids sneak in to talk to Ben. they argue, and there’s a choking incident with Spencer, who apparently dies. Lucy blames Ben and soon everyone else does as well.
Ben sticks to his story and tells Margo about it again. He thinks something took their place and their bodies will be at the bottom of that pit. The two of them go back to the pit, but the kids’ bodies aren’t there. He starts making crazy excuses, and Margot really thinks it’s in his head now. She leaves him there and walks back to the cabin.
Margot runs into Lucy on the way back, and Lucy wants to show her something in the woods. Thomas interrupts, and she wants to show him something in the woods now. Margot goes inside, but both Elle and Spencer’s body are gone. She starts to freak out because no one is around.
Then Margot finds Elle, who bleeds to death right in front of her. Margot sees Spencer, walking around as if he hadn’t been dead for hours. Margot sees the shadow of a giant bug outside– no, that’s just Lucy, who wants to play a game again.
Margot runs outside and there’s a park ranger out there. “It’s the fucking children” Margot insists. The ranger goes inside the house to check things out. Something grabs her from behind, and there is much screaming.
Margot gets in the car, but soon spots Ben outside and goes after him. For some reason, he doesn’t want to leave anymore. He talks about the shining thing in the pit; he’s seen it. He wants all of them to be together as a real family now. Ben is not Ben anymore.
Ben attacks Margot, and she chops him with a machete. She runs outside, and the children get her. They drag her back to the pit. First the kids throw in the park ranger, then Elle, then they come for Margot, who’s awake and playing dead. Instead, Margot pushes them both over the edge. \
Margot walks back to the cabin and runs into Ben again. Thomas comes out of nowhere and tackles Ben as Margot speeds away. Before long, she sees Ben, Spencer, and Lucy standing in the road. She aims the car right at the trio, speeds up and screams as she plows right into them all…
Commentary
Other people’s kids are just weird, right? Almost as bad as parents.
The chittering between the kids, the repeated shots of the bug-zapper, and Spencer talking about “Dead bugs” make it clear that the entities are somehow insect-related, but it’s never clear exactly how.
The cinematography and soundtrack are especially noteworthy. The acting is fine, the kids aren’t bad actors, but it’s a fairly by-the-numbers evil-children storyline with a side-helping of a guy on drugs who may or may not be hallucinating.
We were entertained overall.