There's Something Wrong with the Children

Of a blumhouse production this was. Its 2 families going on cabin trip, something is wrong with the kids of one of the couples, its all blurred into some building ruins in the woods that has an endless pit that hypnotize the children, and that screws around with their uncles mental health, that hallucinates and dives into paranoia at any given time...

there are loads of signs and hints to this horror mystery tail, among those are lithium , noseblood and bombdiving and a secret tunnel between the ruins and the huts. Its not much originality in the plot, the rush of scare is forced ahead by the score, more than the acting efforts. They use long stocks of ''one take'' shoots, so its well planned and panned out , but it is not enough.

The script is a real downer, and it ruins the trip for the senior horror geeks, suits better a sofa-tv fanatic with its silky touch. So its just a 5 from the grumpy old man.

The premise of the story is good - not 100% original, but done in its own style with some interesting plot lines.

Viewers are asked to ponder whether there's really something sinister going on, or if the main adult character is suffering with mental health issues. This allows for a few nice twists and turns.

The acting is hit and miss, and it isn't helped by some cringeworthy dialogue. There are some jarring moments that will give some viewers secondhand embarrassment. But if you can overlook these, there's an interesting film that is quite well paced.

The music is different. It's either silent or very loud. I rather enjoyed it but understand why some find it distracting.

This movie (like so many others) had so much potential. The first half of the movie is excellent. It introduces us to our characters and develops them really well.

The premise - although not original - creates some fantastic suspense. The main character Ben knows something is up or rather WRONG with the kids, but nobody else can see it. That was so well done and allowed for some really inventive suspenseful moments.

Then the writers went and threw it all away with rushing into a third act full of the usual horror tropes. The ending was a huge let down.

Imagine if in The Shining we didn't see much of the build up of Jack beginning to lose his sanity, and instead it rushed straight to him trying to kill his family with an axe. That's kind of like what this film does, which is a shame.

I gave this film a 6/10 because I enjoyed the first half a lot. But with better writing and allowing the suspense to continue, this could have been so much better.

The film can also be characterized as psycho horror. Many criticisms are due to the bad acting of the children, but it was not a problem for me in general. The only problem is the very end of the film, which was done "hastily" as if the director had no idea how the film should end, so they did the first thing that came to their mind.

It can be assumed that the film did not have a very big budget, but it deviates from jumpscares and boring horror elements that have already been "used up" through years and years of making horror films. The movie is excellent if you like mysticism, adventure, drama, horror, psychothriller, action. The film has a little bit of every genre. I rated it 7/10 only because of the ending, which in my opinion is the most important for horror films, because I think that in horror films the viewer should not be left to come up with the final event, but that it should be completely clear and determined. I advise everyone who makes horror films to analyze Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, because it is the core of horror as it should have been.

Horror movies in general lack a lot these days. Whether it be a sense of originality, good acting, or genuine spook factor... but it's been a while since I've encountered a movie that lacks this...

There is almost no semblance of a story here. Sure, they gave us a vague background on the characters and it gives us spooky snippets here and there, but... what exactly was the story? What was the plot here? As previously stated, you guessed it... there wasn't one. It kind of blows my mind that this could fully go into production and distributed with such a lack of storytelling. It felt super lazy like someone came up with a proof of concept but had no will or desire to elaborate on anything.

Now, with that being said, it was still a generally entertaining movie. I was intrigued throughout, it just didn't bring me anywhere. I think that said partial success mostly has to do with the acting. I thought the ensemble of the four adults did an excellent job and provided down to earth and relatable performances in a way that I feel like I haven't seen much of. They have a group argument moment at one point and it was *chefs kiss*.

At the end of the day they just wasted some solid potential with lazy storytelling, landing the movie at solidly mediocre. Also a side note, idk what they were doing with the score/sound design... but it wasn't successful... 4.5 rounding up to a 5. As far as the recommendation goes, I'm indifferent.