One of the most powerful things about horror movies is their ability to examine heavy topics in a way that distracts you from the topic. It isn’t that they don’t want you to know what they are saying but that the filmmakers are wise enough to know that the best way to examine something, something powerful, is not to SCREAM it but to say the thing and keep saying it until it’s heard.
This is the case with CHILDREN OF THE PINES, a film with hints of folk horror that wants to examine family trauma and the way its legacy influences the rest of our lives.
CHILDREN OF THE PINES follows Riley, a young woman estranged from her parents but begrudgingly going to their cabin to see them. Riley looks back on her childhood with pain and regret, her father having been an emotionally abusive alcoholic and her mother his enabler. Riley stops at a nearby diner before heading to see her parents and runs into her ex-boyfriend, who, while there is still a connection, is tenuous and she is not happy to hear he has maintained his relationship with her parents. At the family cabin, her parents are strange, acting as if there is no rift and no issues. Riley’s frustration at her parents reaches a fever pitch as her own trauma starts to bubble up but things take a strange turn when her parents introduce her to two children that are staying with them. Two children she has never heard of before. Two children that don’t seem to have parents. Two children…that are hiding a secret that will change all of their lives.
There are higher goals than scaring your pants off with this film. This is a movie about a damaged family and broken people, but at the center of the film is a compelling mystery. A mystery that gets a bit of a short shrift when all is said and done.
The film takes a bit to get going, and it struggles to find its footing as we get several different tracks of information that don’t necessarily make sense. Indeed, the more that is shown about a retreat the parents took, the more confusing the film gets. I like the idea of what they are doing – the parents are at a retreat that will help their marriage if they wholly commit to the process. It’s what the retreat is though that gets confusing. It’s an interesting mystery, and I can see why it’s in the film, but truly, the film is strongest when it lets the core characters do their thing without interruption.
Again, I get it. I get why it’s there. It’s meant to deepen the mystery and to reveal what is going on but I think the parents or the ex-boyfriend could have handled that. We needed to be as in the dark as Riley is so that when the film’s story coalesces we are taken completely off-guard.
The acting is very awkward in the beginning of the film but as it really gets going near the end it’s very strong, with the standout being the actress playing Riley. Riley is a LOT over the top as a character, but it works because of the actress. The character teeters on losing the viewer though as she’s just angry at all times.
As uneven as the film is for most of its runtime, the climax is very strong and honestly creepy. There are some really great ideas in the film, I just wish they had been fleshed out a little better. Even with the ending, it’s interesting but left me asking more questions than anything else.
While the film is uneven, it’s definitely interesting and has some really neat ideas in it. The film won’t be for everyone but for fans of slow-burn thrillers with a hint of folk horror, it’s worth a look.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13308864/
2.5 out of 5
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