Hive Review
Creepy Canadian horror starring Marvel star Xochitl Gomez
There’s something off about Hive almost straight away. The playground looks normal at first, like completely normal. Bright, colourful, kids running around, nothing out of place. But it doesn’t sit right for long at all. In fact, your entire perception of the playground changes in mere seconds. The film follows Sasha (Xochitl Gomez), who’s babysitting in a wealthy suburb, trying to save up money for college, and quite quickly things start to feel… unsettling. At first its not in a dramatic way, it’s focused more on the smaller eerie details of the town being isolated and quiet. But then it all drastically changes.
The kids. The way the kids at the playground move in sync. The way they all stop at the same time. The way they look at Sasha, for far too long. The way they chant. This tension consistently builds, and I think that’s where the film works best. It doesn’t rush it. It just lets this ominous feeling sit there and get worse.
And the film doesn’t really explain what’s going on straight away, which helps. You’re basically figuring it out at the same time as Sasha and her older brother Marco (Aaron Dominguez). The playground itself does a lot of that work. It should feel safe, but it just doesn’t. It feels controlled, almost staged, like something is slightly off underneath it all. The chanting keeps coming back, and it gets under your skin after a while.
Gomez’s performance is really good here; she keeps the film grounded and does not overdo it. She effectively makes everything she’s experiencing feel much more believable. Her worry, fear, and determination to get to the bottom of what’s going on balance well. If she pushed it too far, it wouldn’t have worked as well. Dominguez brings a different, more responsible yet protective energy, and their sibling dynamic was one of the things that stood out the most. It gives the film something to hold onto when everything else starts getting more intense. That relationship feels genuine and has you rooting for the siblings to make it out together, which adds something human to the film, especially when everything else starts to feel so controlled and unnatural.
There are also moments visually that stand out. The camera follows Sasha quite closely, especially in the house of the child she is babysitting, and it almost feels like it doesn’t fully cut away from her. It makes everything feel trapped, as if you’re surrounded and stuck in a tunnel. The film also takes place during the day. You’d expect darkness to carry something like this, but it doesn’t need it. If anything, the brightness makes it worse. Everything feels exposed. The sound design helps with that too, especially when it drops quiet. That eerie and unsettling feeling, especially in the first act of the film, is not disadvantaged by the daylight at all.
However, it doesn’t fully hold that all the way through. Some of the dialogue is a bit flat, like it’s just there to move things along. And the third act leaves you wanting more. It just loses that engagement. Instead of building on what’s already there, it slows down. The tension falls off, and with it, the atmosphere the film worked so hard to build.
You really feel that because the beginning works so well. It pulls you in quite easily, but by the end, it doesn’t feel like it fully delivers on that. I wouldn’t say Hive is scary, but it is unsettling, especially at the start when everything still feels uncertain. I didn’t fully connect with it, and I don’t think it’s something I’d revisit, but there’s enough there — performances, ideas, certain moments — it just doesn’t quite come together in the end.
★★★
Available to stream on Tubi from 17 April / Xochitl Gomez, Aaron Dominguez, Zenobia Kloppers / Dir: Felipe Vargas / Tubi / 15
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