Hive
Directed by Felipe VargasA strict, anxious teenager loses the child she’s babysitting and must brave a sinister force hiding in plain sight among the children in the playground. As her world unravels and her grip on reality starts to slip, she must outwit a world where nothing is as it seems to make it out alive.
Where to Watch Hive
- Dario TibayMay 11, 2026Hive turned out to be more interesting than I expected. It takes a simple horror setup — a babysitter loses a child at a playground — and builds it into a class-conscious creature thriller about children, control, and the people affluent communities quietly treat as replaceable. Xochitl Gomez is strong as Sasha, giving the film a believable centre. She is anxious and strict, but not in a flat way. She is someone who knows the cost of making a mistake. Aaron Dominguez also works well as Marco, her brother, especially once the film shifts into survival mode. The playground setting is the best thing here. In broad daylight, it still feels wrong. The children moving as one, the strange chants, the infected body-horror touches, and the idea of the playground as a hidden organism all give the movie a memorable hook. It does wobble. The exposition can be heavy, and the final act leans into pulpy monster logic that may not work for everyone. But it has personality, and for a streaming horror title, that already puts it ahead of a lot of forgettable entries. A solid, odd little watch.
- jackmeatApril 26, 2026My quick rating - 4.5/10. I thought the trailer looked decent, so I popped on Hive. It opens with a scene that will make you side-eye every playground you ever drive past. Kids are happily going to town with sidewalk chalk, drawing away in total innocence, when a bleeding woman stumbles into frame like she just escaped a much better horror movie. Instead of helping, the little monsters just keep sketching as her fate quite literally gets drawn out in front of her. Broken bones, blood, and an immediate reminder that horror movies have spent decades warning us about creepy children for a reason. Kids are evil. Cinema has spoken. After the credits, Hive shifts its focus to Sasha, played by Xochitl Gomez, a tightly wound, anxiety-fueled teenager who gets dropped off by her brother Marco (Aaron Dominguez) for what should be a simple babysitting gig in one of those rich suburban gated communities that practically screams, “something awful happens here after dark.” The first red flag comes almost immediately when Sasha is given one very specific rule: do not take the kid outside. Naturally, within what feels like five minutes, she takes the kid straight to the park. Scholarship recommendation? Apparently unimportant. From there, Hive settles into a strange blend of suburban paranoia, body-snatcher weirdness, and what feels like a not-so-subtle satire of hive-mind neighborhood culture. The kids at the park are genuinely unsettling, and honestly, they steal the show. Their performances do most of the work when it comes to fright. Victoria Firsova’s Zaley absolutely nails the snobby, unsettling rich-kid energy too, making every scene she’s in feel just a little more off. The problem is that once Hive gets past its strong opening setup, it starts failing pretty hard. The concept itself has some promise, but the film never really explains how any of it works in a satisfying way. The hive force, the infected behavior, and especially the sugar weakness all feel pulled out of a hat. Regular sugar is the weapon of choice here, which raises some deeply important scientific questions. Are we dealing with an alien fungus that forgot to manage its glucose levels? Is this the first horror villain defeated by pantry staples? A lot of the choices feel like writer/director Felipe Vargas had a cool visual idea first and then worked backward to justify it later. Some moments are undeniably stylish, and credit absolutely goes to the direction and cinematography (Carmen Cabana) because there are flashes of genuinely solid filmmaking throughout Hive. Unfortunately, those moments are trapped inside a story that asks its characters to make one baffling decision after another. And wow, these characters make some choices. Horror movie logic is one thing, but Hive often feels like its leads are actively sprinting toward danger as a lifestyle decision. Escape routes appear, logic briefly enters the room, and then everyone collectively decides to do the exact opposite. In the end, Hive mostly survives on atmosphere and sheer weirdness. It’s not particularly scary, the gore is limited, and the story doesn’t land nearly as hard as I wanted. Still, if you enjoy strange suburban horror with creepy kids and a few unintentional laughs, there’s just enough here to keep it watchable.
Hive Trivia
Hive was released on April 17, 2026.
Hive was directed by Felipe Vargas.
Hive has a runtime of 1h 31m.
Hive was produced by Nick Scully, Adam Friedlander, Darren Cameron.
A strict, anxious teenager loses the child she’s babysitting and must brave a sinister force hiding in plain sight among the children in the playground. As her world unravels and her grip on reality starts to slip, she must outwit a world where nothing is as it seems to make it out alive.
The key characters in Hive are Sasha (Xochitl Gomez), Marco (Aaron Dominguez), Mrs. Vaux (Jenny le Roux).
Hive is rated TV-MA.
Hive is a Horror, Mystery, Thriller film.
Hive has an audience rating of 4.7 out of 10.