I know the Tubi originals tend to have a bad rap. Sometimes, they deserve them. In this case, Felipe Vargas’ Hive was a pleasant surprise. It didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it had some cool ideas. There are killer kids, infected wounds, and playground murders. All things the genre could use more of. While the dialogue wasn’t strong, the story was interesting and I’d highly recommend it to B-movie fans. Hive follows a baby sitter who gets more than she bargained for when she takes a job in Coral Grove. Let’s dig into the deets.
An interesting story goes a long way
Stories surrounding babysitters are interesting because they are the perfect setup for various scenarios. A stranger goes to another stranger’s house to watch their child. What could go wrong? Fortunately for horror fans, anything can go wrong. Michael Myers or Art the Clown could show up. The babysitter could be dangerous. The child could be evil. The house could have poltergeists. Hell, someone unexpected with nefarious intentions could knock on the door and attack the sitter and kids. The story could go either way!
Hive delivers a plot that involves deadly children under the control of another creature. Often murderous children are linked to the devil or evil like When Evil Lurks. If they aren’t partying with the devil, then they are possessed or influenced by spirits like The Exorcist or Sinister. They could also be infected like Cooties. There are a few kids who were born that way like Rhoda from The Bad Seed, Henry from The Good Son, or the kids from Eden Lake.
Hive incorporates a creature that is able to control the children when needed and then release them from that control. This allows for the children to jump back and forth between typical bratty behavior over to homicidal youths. Usually once the kids are touched by a negative force, they progressively become more evil or erratic. The back and forth keeps the audience guessing during the first act. The kids are unsettling from the start, but the journey to the “why” is interesting to follow.
Getting diversity right and wrong
On top of an engaging story, we have diverse characters. I love that the babysitter isn’t a white high schooler, which is typical of the genre. Sasha (Xochitl Gomez) is a pre-med (YES to women in STEM) student, who was accepted into the school of her dreams, but she can’t afford to go. Sasha feels very relatable, because she’s trying to get to the next dollar to make her dreams happen. She has to go into a very white space and present in a way that is palatable to the affluent residents of Coral Grove. People would likely call the cops on you for standing in their neighborhood.
While the POC characters are mainly limited to service jobs, they are the characters with the most weight. Many of the other characters are puppets of the creature. Unfortunately, the only Black character with a name and lines, is unceremoniously killed off. Of course Black characters are allowed to die in movies, but it still stings when the only Black character is killed in a movie.
You Don’t Have To Tell Us Everything!
Although the story was interesting, the exposition was out of control! I would have loved to learn about the creature, the characters, or neighborhood through visuals or simply letting the plot unfold. Most of what we learn comes directly from character lines that don’t sound natural. This makes many of the lines feel clunky and unnecessary. We learn about the relationship between the siblings Sasha (Gomez) and Marco (Aaron Dominguez) in this way. Their family’s financial status, we hear through conversation (more than once!). We also hear how the residents of Coral Grove behave from Marco (Dominguez) and Darius (Thulani Nzonzo), who have been working in the neighborhood longer than Sasha. We could have worked in negative interactions with the other neighbors instead of laying it all out verbally. The performances are serviceable, but they don’t do the dialogue any favors.
Creep Factor is Cranked to the Max!
While the conversations are heavy-handed, the unsettling aspects of the film are played just right. There are moments when the children are simply playing and out of nowhere they snap to violence. The use of eerie chalk drawings was a refreshing take on the typical evil drawings that children create in horror movies. The colors are bright and give off happy vibes, until you take a closer look at the images. Also, it’s on the street and out in the open, just like the horrors that persist in Coral Grove. The violence often takes place in broad daylight in full view of any residents who are paying attention, which adds to the eeriness.
The kiddos were creepy as hell! Outside of being murderous, they were manipulative. Zaley (Victoria Firsova) weaponizes her position over Sasha when she’s not under the control of the creature. She fully embraces her class by treating her babysitter like “the help”. She disappears outside and threatens to use that against Sasha, although it wasn’t her fault. The children in Hive remind me of Children of the Corn with the way they group up and take down their targets with objects from the environment around them. If the kids had crushed someone with a house, it would have fit right in. The kills feel a bit playful with the use of playground equipment. I haven’t seen that many people get taken out on or around Merry Go Rounds, and I want more. I loved that Hive turned slides and tunnels into death traps.
A Top Tier Tubi Movie
Ultimately, Hive is worth the watch if you are scrolling through Tubi, looking for a movie to watch. The first act does a great job of pulling viewers in. The story keeps them engaged, at least until the true threat is revealed. The third act isn’t held together as tightly, but the ending is satisfying enough. Hive was a good time and a step up from the other Tubi horror movies I’ve seen. Hive reminds me of how the Netflix originals looked around 15 years ago. Now they are making movies that are fit for theatrical release. Tubi might make the same journey if they can keep improving the quality of their projects.
