There’s Something Wrong With The Children Movie Review

The director for the smash horror hit, Southbound (segment Siren) has released a modern scary movie called There’s Something Wrong with the Children for 2023. Already on the back foot with a premise we’ve seen a thousand times before with favorites like Puppet Masters, The Host, or even The Faculty, There’s Something Wrong with the Children begins with a much smaller group of humans.

Two couples head out for a lazy weekend retreat together located in some kind of wilderness. Along for the ride is one of the couples, Thomas and Margaret’s, two children Spencer and Lucy. The title begins with the location it needs to allow for some rhetoric between the two groups over whether or not having children are or aren’t a good thing. Margaret also happens to be the kid’s aunt, but she and her husband Ben have drawn their lines in the sand for not needing to have children to fulfill their lives.

Horror Movies With Creepy Kids

Despite loving the cast featured in this trope-flipped alien takeover narrative, the film almost falls apart as soon as the action starts. There is no need to fear whether this review will spoil the movie. It’s immediately obvious by both title and opening that the writers T.J. Cimfel (Crawl to Me Adaptation) and David White (Intruders) decided to let the cat out of the bag as soon as possible. However later, I will go into detail about the ending of the film.

The script relies on the follies of the adults in the group. There is plenty of drama between the two couples. As the four adults gossip and whisper amongst themselves, and head out for a hike the kids become particularly enamored with a large hole they find in some inconspicuous completely obvious, and scary ruins.

As they all scrutinize a very deep hole, Lucy and Spencer take a vigorous interest in something at the bottom. While Ellie and Thomas fight about not getting too close Ben and Margaret talk amongst themselves. Lucy and Spencer teeter dangerously near the edge. Before disaster strikes the children get whipped away from the hole. They decide to head back outside but, Spencer, again can’t keep himself away. He almost walks over the edge. While the group showers Lucy with attention due to a sudden bloody nose, Spencer suffering from the same affliction goes unnoticed. He is carried away over the shoulder of his father.

Everything that’s happening it’s just in your head”

Quote from There’s Something Wrong With the Children

There’s Something Wrong With The Children Forgets To Think

And this is where all the good work in the first quarter is left to squalor. After Ben and Margaret babysit Lucy and Spencer for the night they awake to find both kids missing. Ben heads out to the ruins and sees the children fall into the hole. But before you can say “mental Illness” Ben’s already reaching for his mood stabilizers when he returns. This is before suddenly seeing the two kids coming out of their parent’s cabin alive and well. I have no issue with the old “nothing someone who’s had a mental breakdown says can be believed” line. However, the rest of the logic is left as questions that make no sense.

Along with an open ending, There’s Something Wrong with the Children seems to veer off into a conversation about the joys of having children. Somewhere between the hole only choosing certain people to hypnotize into a changeling-type scenario, the kids go to a lot of trouble just to get the aunt in their corner. it would make so much more sense to have had the original couple sidle up to their own hosted children and take over the world. Instead, the filmmakers decided to play hide and seek (and not very well) with the couple who had no kids in the first place.

There’s Something Wrong With the Children is rated

2.5 kids who play dead but aren’t out of 5

There’s Something Wrong With the Children Streaming

What’s Wrong With the Children is streaming on:

• Director Roxanne Benjamin
• Writers T.J. Cimfel and David White
• Stars Amanda Crew, Zach Gilford, Briella Guiza