What’s The Matter With Kids These Days
Another film featuring kid, aliens, gore and a less-than-subtle title appears this week in the form of “There’s Something Wrong with the Children” and while this one does work a little better than “Kids vs. Aliens,” it too eventually succumbs to formulaic plotting and mindless gore. In this one, married couple Margaret (Alisha Wainwright) and Ben (Zach Gilford) head off for a weekend in a remote cabin in the woods with friends Thomas (Carlos Santos) and Ellie (Amanda Crew) and their young kids, Lucy (Brielle Guiza) and Spencer (David Mattle). Both couples are dealing with internal strains in their marriages—Margaret and Ben are divided on the idea of having kids of their own while Thomas and Ellie are dealing with the fallout of a sexual dalliance gone wrong—but are still having a good time when they decide to take the kids on a hike in the woods. There, they come across an abandoned building housing a seemingly bottomless pit that the kids become immediately obsessed with to the point where it almost seems as if they want to jump in. The next day, the kids return to the pit, pursued by Ben who arrives just in time to see them leap in and disappear. Ben is horrified but when he returns to break the horrible news, the kids are already there and seemingly none the worse for wear. However, there is now something strange and borderline malevolent about them but Ben cannot convince the others that there is something wrong with them. Is he having another emotional crackup or is there something indeed off about the kids and if it is the latter, what are they planning on doing to the others?
The screenplay by T.J. Cimfel and David White spends the majority of its first half dealing with the issues of trust, communication and normal parental fears before taking a hard turn in the second to more conventional horror tropes involving malevolent kids, things in the woods and gallons of blood. For my money, the first half turns out to be far more interesting, exploring the tensions among the two couples in a quietly compelling manner that is further boosted by the good performances from the actors. Once the film makes its shift, it becomes increasingly less interesting as it devolves into what feels at times like a weird hybrid of the Fifties favorite “The Space Children” and “The Evil Dead” as director Roxanne Benjamin allows the effects and makeup crews to do their thing without ever resolving the story in a satisfying manner. “There’s Something Wrong with the Children” isn’t necessarily bad—it has been executed with a certain degree of skill throughout—but after the intrigue of the opening, it is just kind of a bummer to see the film settle for the kind of familiar gory final act (constantly goosed by a score by The Gifted is more annoying than evocative) that we have seen countless times before
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