What's the Matter With Kids Today?

Welcome to the Annual February Shortening! In honor of the shortest month on a blog written by a short woman, all posts are devoted to stories about vertically challenged villains. If you, reader of any height, have your own mini-horror to share, do so in the comments and I'll include you in a final post roundup as the calendar changes!

Quick Plot: It's a double date cabin vacation for two couples at very different points in their respective relationships. Thomas and Ellie are in a bit of a rut after a half-successful night experimenting with an open relationship (their weird little children Lucy and Spencer being weird little children aren't helping). Slightly more carefree Margaret and Ben continue to waffle on whether they want to be parents, particularly with some of Ben's mental health history.

These problems are nothing that a little nature hike couldn't fix, right? The group discovers a strangely alluring, incredibly deep cave that seems to have a particularly strong effect on Spencer. The next morning, the babysitting Ben awakens to discover the kids have gone missing. He tracks them back to their favorite new spot just in time to watch them both leap to their deaths. 

Or not.

Though Ben (and the audience) witness their odd suicide, Lucy and Spencer immediately appear back at their parents' cabin in a perfectly cheerful, none plummet-off-a-cliff mood. Ben is relieved, but his peace quickly curdles when realizes the kids aren't quite all right. 

You might even say, THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE CHILDREN.

We get quite a few more plot twists in the script by T.J. Cimfel and David White, all handled with great energy by director Roxanne Benjamin. For the first 45 minutes or so, there's some deeply unsettling tension. Is Ben cracking under the effects of lithium, or are his friends' children pure evil? And ultimately, which makes a more interesting movie?

For me, There's Something Wrong With the Children chose the wrong path, though I don't mean to imply that it doesn't fully work. The stretch where Ben (Zach Gilford, who's spent enough time in horror to know how to convey disoriented terror) and by extension, we are full on edge wondering how far these little monsters will go is incredibly tense. Granted, I'm a mark for homicidal minors, but personal preference aside, it's great stuff. And what follows is...fine. 

I won't spoil the last act or ultimate reveal. Much like with her first feature Body at Brighton Rock, Roxanne Benjamin nails a unique kind of tone that takes small human awkwardness into wickedly dark and funny territory. That feeling roars for There's Something Wrong With the Children's first hour, but once the main game is revealed and the plot kicks into cat-and-mouse chase, the surprises just aren't there.

High Points

I appreciate how much time and specificity is spent in defining both couples' current conditions, and perhaps more importantly, the four actors' skills at making their characters work as human beings even before they're running for their mortal lives

Low Points

The more you start to think about the nature of the actual villains and their specific decisions, the more some of There's Something Wrong With the Children's details start to become very, very fuzzy

Lessons Learned

Powder puff is girl's football for girls that don't want to have it called football

Generally speaking, it's better to get in a car than under it

When hanging around evil children, always drink out of sealed containers (actually, children are pretty gross even when not evil so apply this lesson to all manners of life)

Rent/Bury/Buy

At barely 90 minutes, There's Something Wrong With the Children feels like a brisk but swerving ride. For me, it was just one of those cases of a movie taking a turn in a different direction than my instincts, but that doesn't mean I'm the barometer on what kind of story we should have had here. It's enjoyable, but it also misses out on being great. Still worth a watch (currently streaming on Amazon Prime and MGM+, which allegedly is a real thing).