The Innocents

Director: Eskil Vogt
Starring: Rakel Lenora Flottum, Alva Brynsmo Ramstad, Sam Ashraf, Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim
Distributor: Rialto Distribution
Runtime: 117 mins. Reviewed in May 2022
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan

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Rating notes: Strong themes and violence

This Norwegian supernatural thriller is a subtitled horror film about children, who, in the company of other children, discover dark abilities in the forests and playgrounds in which they play.

A family moves into an apartment complex in Norway, and their children become friends with other children during summer holiday-time. While playing together, four children (Ida, Anna, Ben, and Aisha) discover powers that become evident in ways that are not obvious to others.

The film’s direction is deftly handled by Vogt. The film has a slow start, but builds momentum to a frightening conclusion. This is a thriller with extraordinary performances by four young children (as listed above), all under the age of 12. The film turns into a dark morality tale that shows the consequences of paranormal abilities occurring among four young persons.

One of the children is disabled, and playtime among the four children turns sinister as the children learn to display their powers. One child kills, and revenge is taken; another maims intentionally; and another is severely traumatised by what he knows he is doing. The film reminds viewers of the special powers of children in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and there are shades of the supernatural, as seen in Henry James’ The Turn of The Screw. Both these works addressed supernatural powers that became sinisterly evident in unexplained ways. This film does the same.

Vogt’s direction challenges assumptions about the inherent innocence of childhood. The movie asks viewers to suspend conventional beliefs and imagine what might happen if child morality was absent. Vogt pursues his theme relentlessly. At times, one wonders whether cruelty is being shown for cruelty’s sake, and blood is shed both by animals and humans, but the film builds its momentum gradually to show that evil is under strong scrutiny. In playing with each other, the children discover ways to hurt each other and use their powers destructively on themselves, on their parents, on other children, on animals, and on neighbours. As their abilities increase, violence and hurt grow. Objects are moved to injure others, images that are cruel become real, body-parts fracture at a distance – as the minds of people (adults and children) are manipulated. Thought transference and mind control are used, and people die because children are using their mental powers to harm.

The film questions assumptions of goodness in children – raising questions about moral conscience and moral reasoning in provocative ways. Some of the children have reasonably sound moral values about life, while others have moral values that are demonstrably broken. The contrast between different sets of values is skillfully manipulated by Vogt. The film highlights conditions where goodness manifests itself, but also conditions which completely prevent the display of it. This is a chilling movie designed to unsettle. It plays tough with viewer expectations, and it does so by challenging social attitudes in an uncomfortable way.

Horror movies mostly illustrate their genre by comfortably displaying unspeakable acts, perpetrated via the regular practice of evil intent. The horror of this particular movie is that terrible acts are perpetrated unobtrusively by persons general society assumes to be innocent. Also, in most horror films, the unspeakable acts are normally carried out by people, who viewers can accept as demonstrably unpleasant and unworthy. In this film, Vogt’s argument is different.

Laying the motivations of young people aside, the film acknowledges that parental protection itself is not inviolable. Parents, Vogt says, are capable of being uncontrollably violent in what they might do in the name of protecting their own. In its exploration of harm and injury caused by children, this film has important messages to impart about the role and behaviour of parents.