Hive (2026) by Felipe Vargas

Director: Felipe Vargas

Year: 2026

Country: Canada

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Supernatural

Plot:

Taking a sketchy babysitting job, a woman looking after a woman’s mischievous daughter soon grows weary of a strange playground nearby that she’s obsessed with, eventually realizing that there’s an evil entity involved with the playground and must race to stop it from affecting the children.

Review:

Overall, this was a fairly decent and somewhat enjoyable genre effort. Among the better factors here involves the strong and somewhat intriguing setup that allows this one to provide a wholly chilling mindset. The whole idea of the cursed playground and the effect it has on neighborhood children who use the area’s children's play area, the more they hang out there, is an immensely likable setup, which manages to set up the kind of mistrustful atmosphere as she can’t trust what’s going on in front of her. As it all works with the series of legends about the migrant workers from the area who know what goes on at the park, the whole vibe of not being able to trust those around you, much less what you see with your own eyes, creates a strong first half with a dark mystery that’s immensely effective when paired with the various encounters with the children. Their syncopated movements, unearthly sound effects, and just plain off-putting demeanor are enough to make for some rather suspenseful moments, especially the random scenes of the kids playing and laughing with no adults around to watch them.

This all works incredibly well and manages to generate some strong moments throughout here, but then the film goes off on a weird tangent in the second half that feels immensely out of place in this kind of story. The reveal of the hive mind beneath the playground and the controlled nature of the public dissent make for a bit of fun at times, when it employs a series of chases and confrontations with the children throughout the underground catacombs, where the whole thing hides out, and it's decent enough. However, the whole thing is so inherently confusing and just plain lacking in any kind of connective themes that there’s just not a whole lot to get invested in beyond the theme of rescuing children since we know nothing about what the whole thing is about, what it actually is, why it targets children and adults, or basically anything about the threat, so everything just feels immensely underwhelming. How they stumble upon things or learn about them just feels awkward, and with the pacing being off since they find out about them too early, it tends to be a factor that holds this one down.

Overview: ***/5

A likable enough if somewhat flawed genre effort, there’s enough to like here that it makes this come off incredibly well for what it is, even though those drawbacks are enough to keep it down overall. Those with an appreciation for this style or approach will want to give it a shot, while most others out there will want to heed caution.