TL;DR: A babysitting job turns into something deeply wrong with a group of kids who don’t act like kids at all - strong start, solid performances, but it loses its nerve by the end, but worth a watch for the first half alone.
The Kids Are Not Right
Let’s just get straight to it, the kids in this film are the main problem, and I mean that in the best way possible, as they exist in a way that feels completely wrong - they move together, stop at the same time, stare like they’re waiting for something, and they chant - which is the kind of thing that would be terrifying in real life, because it makes no sense at all.
The playground scenes are what carry a lot of the film, as that should be the safest place in the entire story, but it ends up being the one you trust the least, and every time it cut back there, you will probably be bracing for something to go wrong, even when nothing actually does.
Xochitl Gomez who plays Sasha is pretty good here, with no over-the-top screaming or dramatic breakdowns every five minutes, which I appreciated, but she actually reacts like a normal person would - confused, worried, trying to make sense of things instead of instantly jumping to conclusions - which I have to say is a treat in itself, and if she had gone too big with it, the whole thing probably would have fallen apart.
Her dynamic with her brother Marco, played by Aaron Dominguez, is another highlight, as he brings a more serious energy to it all, ad that relationship ends up doing a lot of heavy lifting later on when the story starts wobbling.
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Daylight Horror
One thing I didn’t expect to work as well as it did, the fact that most of this plays out in broad daylight, with no hiding in shadows, and no cheap tricks with darkness - everything is right there, clear as day, which makes it worse in some ways.
The camera also sticks close to Sasha a lot, which gives the whole thing a slightly boxed-in feeling, like there’s no real escape even when she’s outside, so it doesn’t cut away as often as you’d expect either, so you’re stuck in moments longer than is comfortable, and there are also stretches where the sound just drops out or goes very quiet, and those moments work really well, as while it’s not trying to make you jump every five minutes, it just wants to sit there, letting the situation sink in.
The Build-Up Is the Best Part
This is where the film really shines, the slow build. t takes its time, and for a while, I was completely on board with that, because the tension keeps stacking, piece by piece, without rushing to explain anything, and I liked not knowing what was going on, as it made everything more engaging because I was trying to figure it out alongside the characters.
And when it works, it really works, even in the moments where nothing major was happening, but you still feel uncomfortable just watching Sasha walk through a house or stand in that playground.
But, it doesn’t keep that momentum.
Somewhere in the final stretch, the film just slows down in the wrong way, and not even in a deliberate way, but in a “we’re not sure how to land this” kind of way - the energy drops, and the tension that had been building starts to fade, and while the movie certainly has good things going for it, it felt a bit underwhelming by the end, like it ran out of ideas right when it needed them most.
Final Thoughts
This had had me fully locked in for the first half, maybe even more than that, and then just slowly lost me by the end.
It’s not a bad film, there’s clearly a lot of good here, especially in how it builds tension and how the main performances hold everything together, but it does falter a bit the longer it goes on.
Still, I can’t ignore how effective those early scenes were, as the kids alone are enough to make it worth watching, because that kind of quiet, controlled weirdness is much more interesting than the usual loud, predictable horror.
Hive is certainly watchable, and for a Tubi original, it definitely stands out as one of the better ones, alongside Lowlifes and Match, that I have personally watched.