There's Something Wrong With The Children (2023)

phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2023

There's Something Wrong With The Children

IMDb Info

Release Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 32m
Country: USA
Language: English, Spanish
Genre Tags: Horror, Mystery
Plot Summary: A family takes a weekend trip with longtime friends and their two young children, but, they suspect something supernatural when the kids behave strangely after disappearing into the woods overnight.

Poster - Title Card

phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: This was fine. It needed a lot of tightening up. Set up was good, but the middle dragged on far too long, before wrapping up far too quickly. I didn't need an explicit explanation of what the weird stuff was, but it really threw a bunch of things at the screen near the end without really engaging with any of it. I liked the synth soundtrack, though, even if it was very heavy-handed.

Outside Reviews:

Brian Tallerico
2 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

Instead, "There's Something Wrong with the Children" hurtles into a final act in which you realize that Santos wasn't ever given a character, and you don't care enough about Ellie or even Ben to be concerned about what happens to them. Perhaps knowing the imbalance in the ensemble, Benjamin shifts the protagonist role to the best performer in the film, Wainwright, who has to play concern, terror, and abject grief as she believes her husband has completely, dangerously lost his mind. She's the best thing about "There's Something Wrong with the Children." I started to hope she would jump into the mystery hole and respawn in a movie that knew what to do with her.