Creepy kids have been a horror staple for decades, but what about creepy parents? There have been some, like Margaret White, but they’re relatively few and far between. However, when I watched the trailer for Children of the Pines, I thought this film had the potential to buck that trend. It seemed eerie and atmospheric in all the right ways, and it looked like it would explore family dynamics in a way we don’t normally see. I just had to check this movie out, and I couldn’t wait to see what parental frights it would bring to the genre.

Children of the Pines was written and directed by Joshua Morgan, and it stars Danielle J. Bowman, Kelly Tappan, Vas Provatakis, Donna Rae Allen, Richard Cohn-Lee, and David Raizor. In the film, Riley is a university student with a rough past. Her childhood was incredibly dysfunctional, so when she got the chance to go away to college, she left home and never looked back…until now.

During her junior year, her parents convince her to return home during winter break and try to repair their fractured relationship, but when Riley arrives, the place is very different from what she remembers. For starters, her mother and father have become uncommonly close friends with her ex-boyfriend, Gordon, and they’ve joined a cult to heal their inner wounds. But weirdest of all, they’ve also taken in two children and started raising them as their own.

On paper, that plot synopsis sounds super interesting, but unfortunately, the execution in Children of the Pines simply doesn’t live up to the premise. Let’s start with the characters. For about the first half of the movie, they’re the stars of the show. Sure, there are a few hints here and there of the terrors to come, but this part of the story is primarily concerned with introducing us to the major players and their somewhat awkward dynamic.

And to be fair, these characters aren’t bad. The performances are decent enough that I didn’t have too much trouble buying into these people, but that’s the best I can say about them. I wasn’t particularly enamored with anybody in this film, so they didn’t add much to the experience. They were the cinematic equivalent of tasteless food that can only take on the flavor of whatever it’s cooked in, and with an opening half like this one, that’s a recipe for disaster.

The horror in Children of the Pines is similarly mediocre but in a different way. While the characters are just bland, the frights are a bit more up and down. To begin, there are a couple of relatively early scenes that are supposed to hint at how sinister this cult really is, but they fall totally flat. You can tell from the score that you’re supposed to get an eerie vibe from these people, but apart from the music, nothing about them is terribly creepy. That mismatch makes the tone feel frustratingly artificial, so I didn’t truly believe that this group was anything to be concerned about.

Then, when Riley finally arrives home and starts to see how strange her parents have become, Children of the Pines misses the mark once again. All of these odd developments–the couple’s unexpected friendship with Gordon, their involvement in the cult, and their new kids–are supposed to create an intriguing mystery that puts you on the edge of your seat, but they end up feeling weird instead, and not in a good way. Even when you finally see how evil this cult really is, it comes across as hokey more than anything else, so I soon started to lose faith that the film was ever going to become even moderately compelling.

Thankfully though, with about 20 minutes left, we finally get a legitimately intriguing turn of events. We learn what the new kids’ deal is, and while I can’t get into specifics, I can tell you that it’s not at all what I was expecting. It made me sit up and take notice, and I became genuinely interested to see where Children of the Pines would go from there.

But unfortunately, my curiosity was extremely short-lived. Almost immediately after revealing its biggest secret, the movie completely drops the ball yet again. Some of the characters have a sinister plan for these children, and it’s not very well thought out. The reasoning behind it has a gaping hole that makes the bad guys seem incredibly stupid and naive, so once these villains played their hand, I couldn’t take them seriously anymore.

Last but not least, I have to say a few words about the way Children of the Pines ends. Again, I’m not going to tell you what happens, but I will say that the story closes on a very muddy note. I’m still not entirely sure what happened, so on top of all that disappointment, the movie left me confused and scratching my head as well.

It’s the final nail in a coffin that was sealed long before that, so I’m sad to report that I wouldn’t recommend Children of the Pines. This film has decent performances and some good ideas, but it fails to build anything interesting on that foundation. It’s just a generic cult chiller at best, so if you’re on the prowl for some good new horror to watch,you’re not going to find it here.