This “disturbing and compelling” Norwegian film poses the question, “What would happen to little children if they suddenly developed superpowers?” Its answer, said Kevin Maher in The Times, is that they would “do very bad things” indeed. Set on a high-rise housing estate in Oslo over the course of a long, hot summer, The Innocents follows a group of “mildly neglected latchkey kids” who suddenly find they can do anything from “shamanistic spirit-jumping” to mind-reading. The most powerful of these “preteen demigods” turns out to be Ben (Sam Ashraf), a “dead-eyed tyke” who initially uses his new-found skills to fling rocks, but then deploys them to torture his own mother from afar, and hijack the bodies of susceptible adults, in order to use them to commit murder. The premise is of course fanciful, but with no “Marvel-style effects shots, laser lighting or bombastic orchestral cues”, this “chilling” film feels “more Ken Loach” than Doctor Strange.
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