THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE CHILDREN (2023)

Studio:     Epix/Blumhouse
Director:    Roxanne Benjamin
Writer:     T.J. Cimfel, Dave White
Producer:  Paige Pemberton, Paul B. Uddo
Stars:     Alisha Wainwright, Amanda Crew, Carlos Santos, Zach Gilford, Briella Guiza, David Mattle, Ramona Tyler

Review Score:

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Summary:

A woodland getaway turns terrifying for two couples when something supernatural seemingly possesses their children.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Accompanied by their children Lucy and Spencer, Ellie and Thomas join their friends, fellow married couple Ben and Margaret, for a woodland getaway in neighboring cabins. While hiking, the six of them explore a ruined building in the forest. Inside the ruins, Lucy and Spencer begin suffering nosebleeds after being entranced by a strange shine at the bottom of a deep hole.

Back at the cabins, Ellie confides in Margaret that her marriage has been awkward ever since she and Thomas participated in a drunken foursome with another couple. Meanwhile, Ben and Thomas discuss whether or not Ben and Margaret can ever see themselves having children of their own.

To give Ellie and Thomas an evening alone to be intimate, and to give Ben an experience caring for kids, Margaret volunteers to watch Lucy and Spencer for the night. The next morning, Ben and Margaret are distressed to discover the children went missing.

Ben finds Lucy and Spencer standing entranced over the hole in the ruins. Ben is shocked when he watches the two siblings suddenly jump into the hole. Ben becomes even more shocked when he returns to the cabins to report the children’s apparent deaths only to find Lucy and Spencer playing outside.

Ben confronts the children about where they were. With a smirk, Lucy responds cryptically.

Ben tells Margaret about seeing Lucy and Spencer dead at the bottom of the hole. Margaret assumes Ben merely hallucinated due to his ongoing mental illness, which he treats with lithium.

Lucy and Spencer continue acting oddly, but only Ben sees their threatening misbehavior. Ben becomes physical with Spencer after seeing him preparing to poison Thomas with Ben’s pills, which prompts Ellie and Thomas to react angrily. Ben explains what he witnessed in the ruins. The accusatory encounter ultimately culminates in the two couples fighting over Ben’s mental illness, the exposed secret of Thomas and Ellie’s infidelity, and Margaret’s reluctance to have children with Ben.

Lucy and Spencer continue privately taunting Ben. A struggle between Ben and Spencer over a fireplace shovel ends with Ben inadvertently striking Spencer in his stomach. Spencer dies. With another smirk, Lucy points at Ben when her grieving parents ask what happened. Thomas reports Spencer’s death as a murder.

To prove his assertion that something supernatural replaced Lucy and Spencer, Ben insists on showing Margaret the bodies he saw at the bottom of the hole. Margaret reluctantly accompanies her husband back to the ruins. To Ben’s surprise, the hole is empty. After pleading that Ben needs to accept reality, Margaret leaves Ben at the hole, which later glows for him.

Back at the cabins, Lucy insistently attempts to lure Margaret into the forest. Thomas storms outside to separate them. While Lucy takes Thomas into the woods instead, Spencer spontaneously reanimates on the couch inside where his mother mourns.

Margaret enters the other couple’s cabin. Following a search, Margaret finds Ellie slaughtered from a bloody attack by Spencer. Margaret barricades the door to protect herself from the boy. She then sees Lucy silhouetted as an insect creature.

Margaret flees outside as a park ranger pulls up in response to the murder report. The children attack the park ranger.

Margaret hides under a car. She then calls Thomas’s dropped cellphone so its ringtone draws the children away from her.

Ben returns to the cabins, but Margaret realizes he too has had his personality transformed. The two of them struggle until Margaret embeds a machete blade in Ben’s shoulder. Margaret tries to escape outside, but Lucy and Spencer capture her.

Lucy and Spencer drag Margaret to the ruins along with Ellie and the park ranger’s bodies. Playing possum, Margaret waits until the children throw the two corpses into the hole, then uses the opportunity to push Lucy and Spencer into the hole with them.

Margaret returns to the cabins where Ben confronts her once again. Having survived Lucy’s attack, Thomas suddenly tackles Ben so Margaret can drive away.

After getting away, Margaret stops her vehicle to give herself a moment of recovery. Ben walks into the center of the road holding hands with Lucy and Spencer on either side. Margaret floors the gas pedal to speed toward the trio.

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Review:

95% of “There’s Something Wrong with the Children’s” first half-hour is spent on getting to know Ben and Margaret and their fellow married friends Thomas and Ellie.  With Thomas and Ellie’s children Lucy and Spencer along for the trip, the two couples are getting away from the routine rigors of everyday life by vacationing where characters commonly go for a horror movie hideaway: neighboring cabins in remote woods.

Aside from the two kids experiencing an entrancing encounter over a deep hole in some strange ruins, it’s an otherwise uneventful affair in the beginning.  Over a couple of beers, Ellie confides in Margaret that her marriage has been awkward ever since she and her husband dared to dabble in a drunken foursome with two other friends.  Ellie and Thomas aren’t the only ones hiding something hush-hush.  Ben has been dealing with mental illness for some time.  While the women giddily gossip about how exciting the affair was for Ellie, her less enthusiastic other half talks to Ben about whether or not he and Margaret will ever have children of their own.

Being “of a certain age” myself, I appreciate fictional film folks who reflect similar stations in life.  Even if slasher after slasher hadn’t soured me on countless co-eds and juvenile jocks stressing over high school concerns like social media drama or crushes cheating on them with a rival, I’ve passed the point where teenage troubles are relatable, never mind no longer being intriguing.  For me, it’s refreshing to see adults discussing sex in the context of how it impacts a mature relationship, or how kids can complicate romantic dynamics by necessitating compromise and selflessness.

I can appreciate such scenes because they’re comparative to conversations that take place in my own social circle among friends who are married with children.  By that same token, I can hear such mundane musings at any backyard BBQ or over a catch-up coffee.  They don’t exactly make for hot topics to hook viewers into a horror story.  Instead, they’re dealbreakers for impatient people bored by ordinary backstories building these characters, and building them in excess of 30 minutes at that.

A bigger dealbreaker is “There’s Something Wrong with the Children’s” dearth of sustained suspense.  Lucy and Spencer can’t shake the spell cast by the shiny hole in the ruins.  After sneaking away for another visit, the siblings return “different,” except Ben is the only one who sees their bizarre behavior, leading him and him alone to suspect they underwent a terrible transformation.  The kids privately push Ben to his breaking point, ultimately triggering a blowup that causes the two couples to explode in accusatory resentment.  Eventually, of course, everyone else realizes the truth too late.  A couple of bodies start dropping in blood pools, and that’s about it.

So in addition to being a cabin in the woods chiller and a creepy kid thriller, “There’s Something Wrong with the Children” uses Ben’s mental condition to throw an “is he or isn’t he crazy?” element into the mix.  The only thing setting this movie apart from every other one that’s employed these same tropes is that it’s the husband being gaslit by his disbelieving wife for a change instead of the other way around.  And, like the slim pickings for tension, that’s about it.

“There’s Something Wrong with the Children” would be more kindling for the undying fire of forgettable fright films, and maybe it still will be, if not for professional performances from appealing actors.  In large part due to frequent collaborations with Mike Flanagan, Zach Gilford has become a familiar face in horror.  His understated charisma makes most of his characters almost instantly likable, or at least able to hold your attention, which is enough to keep Ben compelling as a lead.  Alisha Wainwright and Amanda Crew are also very good, collaborating to create a believable bond between Margaret and Ellie that reads as real.  It’s just that their strongest scenes stem from delivering “This Is Us”-style drama while the horror half of the film only has them running, hiding, or putting pensive looks of consternation on their faces.

As economically compact as most straight-to-streaming scares from Blumhouse often are, “There’s Something Wrong with the Children” is made well enough.  The genre simply doesn’t have any imperative use for a new take on old setups when the only twist is swapped gender roles.  Mature themes and a quality cast might win more enthusiastic “mehs” from some audiences, although others are more likely to tune out to the tepidness.

Review Score: 50

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