The Innocents (2021)

Excellent & Gripping but Gruesome Scandi Supernatural Drama - The Innocents review by PV

I was transfixed by this. The writer/director Eksil Vogt also wrote the best ever film about drug abuse OSLO 31 August and also THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD, and often screenplays about disability and blindness.

OK so it is overlong, and another fault is some random events, acts and characters. They could've been cut imho. Some seem just so random (no spoilers), just added to make the film longer, pad it out. It makes the film sag a bit - there is enough mysterious power misery and gruesome violence without that random stuff.

No explanation is ever given for the mysterious powers and the supernatural thing, so it lacks logic there in a way the MIDWICH CUCKOOS (original 1960 version) does not. I found that frustrating.

The child actors are brilliant here, esp the main girl, and the entire thing is SO Scandinavian with a collective block of flats. Just about gets away with tickboxing ethnic characters too, though some boyblaming & manbashing maybe.

Very gruesome rather than scary, and some may dislike that; I find it brave and no doubt UK TV would give it a big trigger warning. It is a film, so fiction and no animals or children were harmed SO it is fine. Some may think the violence too extreme or gratuitious.

BUT Was was transfixed by it and genuinely did not know how it would end. LOVED the soundtrack too, the use of silence.

4 stars