Review: There’s Something Wrong With The Children
What if there’s something wrong with the children? Bratty kids can drive their parents crazy. But that pales in comparison with what they may do to other adults. Like when a class targets a hapless substitute teacher at school. The next day, no kid will confess to anything.
Kids can also be useful for evil schemes, like drug dealing. No one expects or suspects that children are acting out of genuine malice.
Baking In the Conflict
In There’s Something Wrong With The Children, Blum House sets out to make a super-small cast horror film in a woodsy location. The recipe to make this work is unsurprising: sprinkle in conflict and keep it simmering until the pot is too hot to touch and starts to boil over. Screenwriters T.J. Cimfel and David White build and maintain the necessary pressure by grouping the flawed characters in a setting that nurtures antagonism.
Two friendly yet very different couples rent cabins for a get-back-to-nature getaway. Ellie (Amanda Crew) and Thomas (Carlos Santos) have two kids, a pre-teen and a grade-schooler. Margaret (Alisha Wainwright) and Ben (Zach Gilford) are not having kids right now. This weekend trip may be a chance to rekindle the flame for one couple. But for the childless Ben and Margaret, it could be a chance to get used to the idea of becoming parents.
The first night is a blur of wine, beer, and smores.
But when we travel to an out-of-the-way place surrounded by nature, it often brings on reflection. For the adult campers, with all the drinking and nothing to do but talk all night, too much tea gets spilled, and the relationship between the couples starts to splinter.
Another polarizing element is a stone structure the group finds deep in the woods. Inside there is a deep shaft that seems out of place and dangerous. The children are fascinated with this light-emitting hole and must be pulled away, with their noses suddenly bleeding.
Just like a classroom turning on a substitute teacher, the kids, now controlled by an evil spirit, deftly exploit the perceptions and weaknesses of the adults. And in the remote woodlands, these flawed adults only have each other to rely on.
Throwback Style
While some contemporary concerns creep in, There’s Something Wrong With The Children recalls the low-budget horror of the 1960s and 70s, relying more on drama than bloodshed and CGI. The film fits in with executive producer Jason Blum’s vision of small-cast, minimal location, low-budget horror.
Director Roxanne Benjamin previously collaborated with the writing team of Cimfel and White on V/H/S/ Viral (2014). The atmospheric music by film score team The Gifted is a deliberate throwback, echoing the weird, riffy soundtracks of Italian horror of the 1970s.
The writing propels this engaging story, setting a dark mood and then building it by constantly replenishing and boosting the conflict. That child actors Briella Guiza and David Mattle are legitimately scary raises the level of this effective small-cast horror.
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Originally published at https://popshots.news on February 27, 2023.
