It’s not often anymore that we get horror movies about the horrors of domesticity. Films like “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Stepford Wives” turned the idea of domestic bliss in to an absolute nightmare, and “There’s Something Wrong with the Children” carries on that fine tradition. It’s a very creepy evil children flick that also works as a deeply embedded allegory for impending parenthood that sparks a slick sense of humor about itself. Director Roxanne Benjamin’s film is another one of the more intelligent horror entries of 2023 so far, as it uses the idea of impending parenthood as an absolute waking nightmare.
When Margaret (Wainwright) and Ben (Gilford) take a weekend trip with longtime friends Ellie (Crew) and Thomas (Santos) and their two young children (Guiza and Mattle), Ben begins to suspect something supernatural is occurring when the kids behave strangely after disappearing into the woods overnight.
Much of the film revolves around Ben, a man facing mental illness who witnesses first hand what happens to young Spencer and Lucy after they all take a trek in to mysterious ruins at the end of a wooded path. Much of the catalyst for the events revolves, unironically, around adult irresponsibility as most folks with common sense wouldn’t have taken the road that these people do. A lot of exposition is set up to focus on unfulfilled relationships, marriages in turmoil, a looming divorce and themes about family dysfunction. Benjamin’s movie is based a lot of ambiguity and props up a lot of plot elements that are never quite clarified for us. Is Ben really losing his mind? Are his frustrations as a partner to his wife leading to his own mental breakdown?
Are the kids really becoming psychotic? Are they acting out as a means of tormenting the adults in the face of a potential break up? What I love about the film is that while it does uncover a lot by the time the movie closes, there’s also so much left in the dark for us to posit our own theories. What is the Shiny place? What was in those ruins? Have there been other people that have visited it? “There’s Something Wrong with the Children” watches a lot like a late seventies horror flick in the vein of “Who Can Kill a Child?” and “The Children”; it fully embraces the tropes from the aforementioned killer children movies. It helps that the performances from Briella Guiza and David Mattle are disturbing; suffice to say they steal the movie from the adults in their often sadistic turns as children gone rotten.
There are a lot of twists in “There’s Something Wrong with the Children” so it’s tough to really explore the narrative without giving too much away. Suffice to say, I was immensely entertained from minute one and Roxanne Benjamin really has a tight grip on suspense and building terror while also commenting on the pressures of parenthood and domestication. If you love the sub-genre that begat “Beware! Children at Play,” then “There’s Something Wrong with the Children” will satisfy your appetite.
Available on Video On Demand Platforms and Digital January 17th.