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.

When I saw the title of this film I was immediately intrigued. I saw the cast list and knew I had to watch it when I saw Zach Gilford was in it. I loved him as Matt Saracen of course but also enjoyed him branching out into the film industry and the horror genre. He was very good in Midnight Mass!

As the film starts the cinematography was well done and the acting seemed pretty good. The couples played as couples well and the children were believable as brother and sister.

This is where the good of the movie ends. I was severely let down.

If you like films that give you absolutely no explanation for what happens, this one is for you.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

The couples are staying in cabins in the woods to get some quality time together away from their busy lives in the city. We don't hear much about the history of the couples but eventually it's revealed that Ben (Gilford) struggles with mental illness, specifically mania. The other couple reveals that there is distance between them due to a sexual encounter they had with two other friends.

Ben leads the entire group into the woods to adventure down a path and just see what's out there. They come across an old abandoned brick building with no signs, no leftover equipment, nothing at all to indicate what it used to be. They find inside this building a deep hole/well that captures all of their attention. The children seem exceptionally caught up in it, even going trance like as they look into it. The boy refers to it as "the place that shines."

From there, we go on this crazy adventure where the children are definitely no longer children, they continually play on Ben's mental illness and are able to get him isolated from the group because the rest of them believe he just means harm to the kids. The kids speak in weird hisses and clicks, which is soon revealed to be the language they now speak because these are truly not the same children.

The kids get each adult alone individually and then try to kill them so they can bring their bodies back to the hole and dump them in, where they would presumably be revived as one of these imitation people.

Eventually, through a shadow, you learn the children have became for lack of a better word, big bugs. You never see the creature physically. You never learn why it's there. You never learn how it came to be there. You never learn what the building is or was. You never learn a single thing. The kids turn into bugs and attack the adults and try to change them as well. That's it.

I give it a 4 for some decent acting and cinematography but that's it.

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.