THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE CHILDREN
US, 2023, 92 minutes, Colour.
Alisha Wainwright, Amanda Crew, Carlos Santos, Zach Gilford, Briella Guiza, David Mattie.
Directed by Roxanne Benjamin.
A small, quite effective, horror story with sinister children (and memories of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and the various film versions).
Two couples go on a holiday, one couple without children intentionally, one couple with two children. They are friends and seem to get on well. One morning they go on a track and discover a cave with a sinister well. The children see a green light.
On the domestic side of the drama, there are themes of friendship, suspicions, infidelity, confession, reconciliation, the unmarried couple offering to mind the children for a night while the other couple has time together. The children disappear. The husband goes searching, especially of the cave, seeing the children, falling into the well. The rest of the film is a blend of tension between the couple’s, especially the husband who is on medication for some kind of mental problems, the couple as parents distraught about their children – and then the children returning, and behaving in a sinister, tormenting manner.
The plot becomes grimmer as it progresses, the husband interacting with the children, the well, falling in, the green light, then the behaviour of the children towards their parents, the husband confronting his wife, inviting her to join the sinister existence with the children.
Effective in its way.
- The title, and its fulfilment?
- The holiday, the holiday house, the couples, one unmarried, the other with children, friendship? The countryside setting, the forest, the cave, the well? The musical score?
- The introduction to each couple, the unmarried couple, careers, work, the bonding, decision about children, desire or not? The couple with children, devotion to the children, the tension within the marriage, the wife and her affair, the husband’s discovery, resolution, reconciliation?
- The night, the unmarried couple looking after the children, the morning, the children disappeared, the husband going in search, to the well, seeing them die? Being distraught, returning, the news? The reaction of the married couple, angry, attack?
- The children reappearing, their eccentric behaviour, a catalogue of mischief, malevolence? Their ages, characters, tormenting the adults?
- The husband, going to the cave, his fall, the shining light, becoming one with the children? The return?
- The children, the reaction of their parents, the wife and her grief, the husband offering his life?
- The surviving wife, her husband, his menacing her, with the children, driving off, this standing on the road – and a sinister future?
