There's Something Wrong with the Children

Play trailer

1:46

There's Something Wrong with the Children

2023

1h 32m

Horror

Mystery & Thriller

Play Trailer

Watchlist

Watchlist

Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

61%

Tomatometer

33 Reviews

27%

Popcornmeter

100+ Ratings

When Margaret (Alisha Wainwright) and Ben (Zach Gilford) take a weekend trip with longtime friends Ellie (Crew) and Thomas (Santos) and their two young children (Briella Guiza and David Mattle), Ben begins to suspect something supernatural is occurring when the kids behave strangely after disappearing into the woods overnight.

Watch on Fandango at Home

Stream Now

Critics Consensus

Conceptually strong but uneven in execution, There's Something Wrong with the Children is a serviceable horror movie that could have been much more.

Read Critics Reviews

Noel Murray

Los Angeles Times

There’s something wrong with the children, all right. The filmmakers can’t figure out what to do with them.

Jan 20, 2023

Full Review

Randy Myers

San Jose Mercury News

Director Roxanne Benjamin never allows Children to overstay its welcome, resulting in a scare package worth seeking out.

Rated: 3/4

Jan 18, 2023

Full Review

Christian Zilko

IndieWire

There’s Something Wrong with the Children punches above its weight by doing all the little things right. T.J. Cimfel and David White’s script is built like a Swiss watch, setting up countless twists without ever wasting a line.

Rated: A-

Jan 18, 2023

Full Review

Grant Watson

Fiction Machine

It is a shame Benjamin did not lean further into these more inventive elements, as it would have certainly made for a more distinctive and unusual movie.

Rated: 6/10

Aug 14, 2023

Full Review

John Serba

Decider

The movie may frustrate the hardcore blood-and-guts audience for taking too long to wind up the plot and not delivering the splatter, but it also isn’t “elevated” enough to tickle the fancy of the A24 dweebs.

Jun 20, 2023

Full Review

Jordy Sirkin

Jordy Reviews It

Though it doesn’t do anything spectacularly different with its setting, in the end it delivers something amusing and reminiscent of cult B movies.

Mar 26, 2023

Full Review

Read all reviews

VITALII H

Another low budget horror, this time with bad acting. Yeah. The kids actually were pretty convincing tho. You gotta give some credit when it's due. So 2 couples went to the forest house for a weekend away, one couple has 2 kids. On the way to their house they decided to take a shortcut and went through some old ruins where they found a pit. Kids after looking at the bottom of that pit started to have a very odd behavior. One adult noticed that something strange is happening with them as if they're no longer themselves. Of course nobody believes in that and kids and doing everything to get on that person's nerves by intentionally sabotaging him and making him look crazy in front of others ... Corny? Yeah... Btw, the movie doesn't answer to the main question and we still don't know what happened to the children but one thing's for sure - they are coming for blood. Flop.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

10/26/25

Full Review

Logan D

Two married couples, one with children, take a weekend trip in rented cabins near an evil cave. Moderately enjoyable film with a great performance from Alisha Wainwright (Raising Dion) to make it more tolerable.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

10/24/25

Full Review

Nathan S

Some moments of suspense but mostly moments of commentary on how things could have been better. Predictable and mostly underwhelming with some pacing issues. There was a solid 20-30mins where it was actually interesting. Wouldn't recommend but also not bad for background noise. Acting wasn't terrible, the kids did a great job being creepy.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

09/30/25

Full Review

Lindsay M.

2.5 might be generous to some, but I enjoyed it as a dumb horror movie!

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

09/29/25

Full Review

Sebastian F

What a weird and dumb horror film. Theres not just something wrong with the children, there's something wrong with this movie.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

09/02/25

Full Review

Metmet x

that's one annoying movie with no proper ending.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

08/26/25

Full Review

Read all reviews

Read More

Read Less

POST RATING

WRITE A REVIEW

EDIT REVIEW

Roxanne Benjamin

Director

Alisha Wainwright

Margaret

Zach Gilford

Ben

Amanda Crew

Ellie

Carlos Santos

Thomas

Ramona Tyler

Park Ranger

The Visitor

21%

19%

The Visitor

Watchlist

TRAILER

for The Visitor

Unseen

88%

67%

Unseen

Watchlist

TRAILER

for Unseen

Torn Hearts

89%

45%

Torn Hearts

Watchlist

Unhuman

50%

68%

Unhuman

Watchlist

Evil Eye

43%

31%

Evil Eye

Watchlist

TRAILER

for Evil Eye

Discover more movies and TV shows.

View More

There's Something Wrong With the Children: Trailer 1

1:46

View more videos

View more photos

Synopsis

When Margaret (Alisha Wainwright) and Ben (Zach Gilford) take a weekend trip with longtime friends Ellie (Crew) and Thomas (Santos) and their two young children (Briella Guiza and David Mattle), Ben begins to suspect something supernatural is occurring when the kids behave strangely after disappearing into the woods overnight.

Director: Roxanne Benjamin
Producer: Paige Pemberton, Paul Uddo
Screenwriter: T.J. Cimfel, David White
Production Co: Blumhouse Television, Epix Film Production
Genre: Horror, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 17, 2023
Runtime: 1h 32m

Most Popular at Home Now