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The family holiday trip to visit relatives starts out like any other -- mild trepidation between mom and dad about seeing family and frustration flowing from a cranky teenager in the backseat. As soon as Jonah, Elaine, and their three kids are settled in with Elaine's sister, her husband Robbie and their two kids, tension fills the house. But it's not foreshadowing of the children's murderous intent that puts us on edge. Instead, director Tom Shankland captures normal family disharmony. Disagreeing parenting styles, judged career choices, and placated emotions all create sympathy for the children who are thrown into the middle of bickering adults. It's no wonder the kids aren't feeling well.
As the family tension grows, Jonah is rebuffed in his attempts to convince Robbie of his business model, Robbie exhibits borderline inappropriate interest in his teenage niece, and general child neglect, the children inexplicably come down with a flu-like sickness that makes them kill. The Children lives and dies on its ability to create fear of the children and convince us that they are capable of murder. Fortunately, Shankland downplays the early deaths as mere gruesome accidents and slowly builds on the bizarre aspects of the children's psyches.
Though it's a virus that causes the children to do their dirty deeds, Shankland leaves the motivation for their violence open-ended to suggest inherent evil -- that the urge to cause pain isn't something learned through experience, but something we carry with us from birth through emotions like jealousy and anger. The children don't understand consequences or the meaning behind their actions, so they are more susceptible to the virus that lets them act on those feelings -- an idea that is developed through the eerie sense of light-hearted playfulness in the kids' violence. Luckily, The Children doesn't ever dwell on one idea too long. By the time the children become cold-hearted killers, our sympathies have shifted from the now blood-thirsty children to the self-important adults who have lost control.
As the body count rises, Shankland ramps up the intensity. Keeping the gore at bay, this isn't a film that relies on buckets of blood for scares. Most of its fear comes from the true lack of control the adults have over the children or each other. While Shankland certainly delivers the chills with moments like a child playing surgical doctor on her nearly-dead dad and a shocking scene that pays homage to The Shining, it's a testament to Shankland's direction that the most horrifying scene isn't a quickly-cut blood-fest. It's a dinner table scene in which the kids are refusing to eat. It's a scene you've likely experienced around your own kitchen table. But The Children's kids aren't subdued with promises of gold stars and dessert. They refuse to settle down and eat their peas. They react with kicking and screaming so violent it's almost unnatural. It's as if the kids know how little control their parents actually have over them. It's a parent's nightmare, and it's those unnerving scenes that make The Children one of the best horror films in recent memory.
