An expectant couple’s intimate weekend turns to terror as they discover their secluded country inn is a haunted maternity home where infants and mothers were murdered.

During the 1930s there was a place, in the region of Nova Scotia, which helped future single mothers with the heaviness of their pregnancies without a male support. These women, housed by a family of two, had been pregnant by men who traveled from port to port or young men who still did not feel responsible to become parents. Everything seemed to be right in this place of moral and physical support. However, in 1992, a woman who had survived the hands of the twisted couple, decided to pen a book about her life in this house. In reality, the place was a front for auctioning babies; only healthy newborns with a “good” physical appearance, according to the owners’ standards. If the baby didn’t meet their standards, their faith was sealed and they were buried in a wooden box for dairy products. This, in short, is the infamous story of the Butterbox Babies.

The Child Remains (2018) is the confabulation of events subsequent to those that occurred in the gloomy Canadian case. The film begins in the 70’s with a woman giving birth to a girl. The midwife decides the baby does not meet the expectations of the bidders and, therefore, decides to end the infant’s life. The mother is poisoned and her body is buried in the backyard forest. Once this scene is over, the story jumps to our time to continue with the main plot: a married couple decides to spend their weekend at a bed-and-breakfast Inn to celebrate the wife’s birthday. As the days go by, the couple begins to realize that the place is not as beautiful as it seems and there is a great dark secret that the innkeeper hides.

Although the film is slightly inspired by true events, only the main idea is taken for the development of a new story. A story that tells the facts as if no one had discovered the women shelter’s business. To the movie adversary’s misfortune, one of our main characters is an award-winning reporter who is also pregnant and is willing to go all the way to expose it all for the sake of her career and her baby.

The dialogue fits the performances, and they’re good, but not wonderful. It could be better but once it’s all mixed into one it helps a lot to keep the viewer entertained during the first two acts. Although sometimes the characters of the married couple are tedious (the woman is foolish and the man is incredulous), it can not be denied that it maintains the profiles of the typical formula for the creation of a thriller.

There are only two big problems with The Child Remains: the audio and the climax.

In moments the audio is terrifying, as in horribly mixed. The actors’ voices often get lost with the background noise and the soundtrack. This is a detail that wasn’t carefully fixed, and it should have since the actors in this film tend to deliver theater performances.

As for the climax, and as it has been mentioned before, the story is entertaining but slow during the introduction and development. But, at the moment that the ropes begin to get tied, metaphorically, the speed of the narration increases. And, something that should not be mentioned because it can be an element that changes the opinion of some viewers, there’s a baby demon or ghost that makes an appearance. The animation is so poor, and unnecessary, that it makes you appreciate the moment when Ally McBeal sees a baby dancing.

The Child Remains is definitely not the greatest thriller of all time, but it will keep you entertained while you research on the side the macabre true story that inspired the film.