There’s Something Wrong with the Children, the new supernatural thriller from Blumhouse, follows Margaret (Alisha Wainwright, Raising Dion) and Ben (Zach Gilford, The Purge: Anarchy) as they spend the weekend at a cabin with their longtime friends Ellie (Amanda Crew, Silicon Valley), Thomas (Carlos Santos), and their two children Lucy (Briella Guiza), and Spencer (David Mattle). As each couple deals with personal challenges in their respective relationships, the seemingly perfect weekend is marred by friction. But when the kids exhibit weird behavior after seeing a vast, strange structure in the woods and ultimately vanish, the tension turns to terror.
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While There’s Something Wrong with the Children falls firmly in the horror category, Wainwright was attracted to the duplicity of the genres in which it focuses. “What I loved so much about it was that it didn’t initially read like a horror film,” said Wainwright.” The first few pages kind of felt like a buddy rom-com, where we were like, ‘What’s going to happen with these couples?’ Then all of the sudden, it turned and became this really creepy situation that devolves into a full horror. I really liked it, and Roxanne liked what I was thinking for the character. So, it just kind of worked out. And as they assembled the whole cast, everyone just got along so well. It was really great chemistry as a group, so it made the film that much more enjoyable.”

Relationship Issues in There’s Something Wrong with the Children

Blumhouse/MGM+

The film initially focuses on the relationship woes of the two couples, adding a layer of tension on top of the horror element. “I think that Ellie’s marital issues from the very beginning when you meet their characters, and Carlos is a little stiff with her, you’re like, ‘Oh, geez, what’s going on with these guys?’” said Wainwright. “I think if you’ve ever been on holiday with family or friends, you do occasionally have that one friend couple that you could just tell them they’re not having as great time as everyone else. So, it’s very authentic.”

Margaret and Ben face their own relationship issues as the film opens. For Wainwright, the draw of the character of Margaret was that her persona was a bit of a façade, with more to her below the surface. “Margaret is kind of like that aspirational cool woman,” she said. “She wants everyone to think that she’s leading this very fun life, in which she gets to travel. And she wants her friend to think that she’s living the best life ever. What you realize is that it’s not really the life she wants to live. She’s just kind of forcing herself to believe it’s what she should be doing. So, on the surface, she seems like someone who kind of has it all together.”

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Margaret and Ellie are meant to be very close friends, a connection Wainwright felt with Amanda Crew as well. “Amanda’s just a delight,” said Wainwright. “Her and I bonded almost immediately. It’s kind of funny, because I’ve worked on projects where you don’t necessarily hit it off with people who are supposed to be someone who you know very well, but you can still play it because it doesn’t really matter what’s happening behind the scenes. But Amanda and I personally just kind of really took to each other. We talked a lot about like life philosophy and work things. We talked so much about what it’s like to be a woman in the industry, so we had a lot of camaraderie in that way. The scenes where we’re playing these kinds of gossips together, drinking wine, weren’t that far of a step from how we just are. Since the film wrapped this time last year, her and I are still friends, I’m friends with everybody, but it’s convenient that Amanda and I don’t live that far from each other.”

The film was directed by Roxanne Benjamin, who also directed the horror film Body at Brighton Rock and produced the horror anthology films V/H/S, V/H/S/2, and Southbound. Wainwright was impressed with Benjamin’s even-keeled nature as a filmmaker. “Roxanne is such a calm, cool, collected director,” said Wainwright. “I can just imagine how stressful it must have been to make this film, and I never got the sense of it from her. It was actually the producers, that seem stressed. But she was just a very calm person, and she was able to trickle down that energy to all of the departments and the cast. So, everyone just had a sort of relaxed energy about them, which is a delight when you’re shooting a film that’s a little stressful and high energy. You want to be able to decompress when you’re not rolling. She was very cool and very open to collaboration. She had a lot of really interesting ideas and interesting shots. She’s also very communicative, so I always felt like I knew what was going on.”

Leave Those Kids Alone

While the grown-ups are the focus of the film, the horror element hangs on the two child actors, Guiza and Mattle, with whom Wainwright was very impressed. “In my career, I’ve worked with so many child actors, and I will say that it can, it can get a little hairy sometimes, she said. “But I think it’s two things. It’s the kids themselves, but it’s also that these kids had great parents on set who were able to help keep them focused. They’re also really sweet kids and very smart, and they take their jobs so seriously. I’m like, ‘I’m not as professional as they’re being right now.’ It’s really nice to see when kids can take to the industry so well and have these great parental figures help keep them in line and focused. It made my job really easy.”

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Despite starring in There’s Something Wrong with the Children and the supernatural series, Shadowhunters, horror isn’t Wainwright’s first choice of genre. “You know, in books that I read and in films that I watch, I would say my number one preference is a psychological thriller,” said Wainwright. “I like the stories in which your main character doesn’t quite know what’s going on. They can’t even trust themselves. They don’t feel reliable. So, it was nice to read the script and see the Ben character go through something like that. It does feel like a psychological thriller from his point of view. In general, I really enjoy being kept on my toes in a film. One of my favorite directors now is Ari Aster. His films like Hereditary and Midsommar are not scary in the way I’m traditionally frightened in film, but they’re scary because they almost implant themselves in my head. I’m thinking about the movie long after it finishes.”

There’s Something Wrong with the Children is available on VOD and digital on January 17th and will stream on MGM+ on March 17th.