There’s Something Wrong With The Children Ending Explained- Imposter Insects And The Perils Of Parenthood

There’s Something Wrong With The Children wants you to question your perspective. Can you trust what you see and think? Upside angles, dutch angles, and rotating frames assault you as you try to figure out what is happening in the latest Blumhouse film available on MGM+ and VOD everywhere. Something is very wrong, and it has nothing to do with too much sugar and not enough discipline. Instead, this predictable but still creepy film manages to forage new ground in the cabin in the woods/creepy kid space. Here’s everything you need to know.

Young couple Ben(Zach Gilford) and Margaret(Alisha Wainwright) have gone to a cabin in the woods with their friends Ellie(Amanda Crew), Thomas(Carlos Santos), and their two kids. Margaret wants children of her own sooner rather than later. Ben has reservations based on mental health issues, and what happens in There’s Something Wrong With The Children doesn’t help matters. Almost immediately, there is tension among the group. Margaret and Ben see their diverging paths, and Ellie and Thomas are trying to shrug off the aftermath of an ill-fated foursome. The group goes hiking and finds some ruins with a deep hole. The kids are intrigued by the hole and begin acting strangely long before things take a decidedly weird turn.

That night Ben and Margaret agree to keep the kids so Ellie and Thomas can rekindle the romance. The kids act strangely, but nothing warrants a call to their parents until they go missing the next morning. Ben tracks them down at the ruins and watches as they willingly fall into the hole. Ben returns to the house to tell Margaret and finds the kids alive and well. In disbelief but hoping for the best, his worst fears are realized when the children begin acting strangely and, later, highly aggressively. What happens to the children, and are they even children anymore?

We’ve seen this kind of film before, and while writers T.J. Cimfel and David White do introduce a back half explanation that is interesting, nothing is very surprising. The kids aren’t themselves, and they are trying to kill everyone. Why they are doing it is the fresh angle. In the final act, it becomes clear what went into the hole is not what came out. These children are not human anymore. Whatever is in the hole took the original children and replaced them with imposters hell-bent on death and domination.

Lucy is the first to vocalize what happened to them. She tells Ben they ate bugs, and now they are different. Later, Spencer, in a delightfully menacing fashion, fakes his own death to isolate the group further. The kids can sink their teeth into their new roles with the four adults fractured. Like a parasite that invades the host and takes over, these children are insectile now. Finally, in shadows, we see what Lucy really looks like. It is a giant grasshopper or praying mantis-type creature that is much stronger and more homicidal than the human children they have replaced.

On a planet where humans are grossly outnumbered. At nearly 200 million to one, they have the numbers. New insects are being discovered constantly. Would it be that far-fetched to think one would be able to duplicate us? Like in 1997’s Mimic, only more effective, these bugs have developed the ability to lure humans to their nest, infiltrate their brains, replicate them, and feast on their dead bodies. Lastly, they unleash the new creations into the world to infect more people.

It’s an economic life cycle that a lot of known insects employ. Lots of animals and insects have the ability to camouflage themselves. Usually, this is done to protect themselves from predators, but the cuckoos do it to invade nests and take over resources. They drop eggs into other birds’ nests and wait for them to hatch. Cuckoos typically hatch before the eggs that are rightly in the nest and kick all the others out, effectively killing them. It’s a cruel little trick that is very effective. There are also a handful of insects that cannibalize each other. The young are allowed to eat the flesh of their mother. It’s a vicious little indignity that would make anyone think twice about having children.

By the time the film hits its climax, you know everything there is to know. Ben was right. There is something wrong with the children. These new versions of the kids are deadly. They attack their parents and chase Margaret. Meanwhile, Ben returns to the hole and gets sucked into the same madness as the kids. He also returns changed, and not even a machete to the neck affects him for long. The children and Ben try to kill Margaret, and she is able to drive away, but that’s not the end. The trio of Ben, Spencer, and Lucy can’t be killed that easily, and their insect wings allow them to get to most places in a hurry.

In the final moments, the three join hands, and Maragaret guns the engine. What happens after the film ends? We don’t know. We know the girl at least has wings like a grasshopper, so presumably, the trio who stands in the street in front of Margaret as she tries to drive away could fly over the car. But, on the other hand, they might also now have the tensile strength of many insects, and with hands clasped, the truck will crash into them, killing Margaret.

There’s Something Wrong With The Children plays on our fears of becoming parents and creepy kids. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent, and when your son and daughter begin acting like freaks, I can’t say I blame anyone for choosing to forgo that life. Where The Prodigy went the supernatural angle, The Innocents took a more realistic approach, and Nicole Kidman’s Birth delves into the emotionality of death and taboo, Blumhouse’s movie dives headlong into creepy crawly body-snatcher territory. It isn’t a home run, as the kids far outshine the adults, but if you are a fan of murderous kids with enigmatic smiles, you could do worse.