Roxanne Benjamin’s “There's Something Wrong with the Children”

There's Something Wrong with the Children (2023)

Half-baked b-movie horror that fails to get started until the last third would have benefitted from stronger direction and a script that made better use of its first two acts

With some genuinely scenes in its third act, it’s a shame that more care wasn’t put into making use of the opening acts to lay the groundwork for what comes next. Instead, the introduction feels like filler, introducing the characters well enough but the atmosphere is flat and uninteresting with elements that seem to contradict what comes later in the film.

Other elements also hinder the film from the opening titles with incongruous music to an eerie green glow that’s anything but eerie. It also compares badly to other horrors with children from Eskil Vogt’s “The Innocents” and Lee Cronin’s “The hole in the Ground” to Kyle Edward Ball’s “Skinamarink”. There’s a nineties American television sheen here which detracts from the atmosphere and immersion with some bland cinematography and grading.

Overall, a half-baked b-movie horror with some effective sequences that languish in an unfocused, weightless story