Norwegian film “The Innocents” is a dry but undeniably dark and intense supernatural horror story revolving around several little kids. Although I am your average seasoned moviegoer, there are several moments which actually made me cringe a lot during my viewing, and I must tell you that this is definitely not for kids even though the movie mostly sticks to its young characters’ limited viewpoints.

At first, the movie focuses on the problematic relationship between a young girl named Ida (Rakel Lenora Fløttum) and her non-verbal autistic older sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad), who have just moved into a drab suburban apartment complex neighborhood along with their parents on one summer day. Because she is usually expected to take care of her older sister during their parents’ absence, Ida is often annoyed with Anna, and the opening scene shows Ida impulsively committing a little cruel thing to Ida when their parents are not watching.

When she is spending some time with Anna at a playground outside their apartment building, Ida happens to meet and then befriend a boy named Ben (Sam Ashraf). Because he is a loner just like her, Ben willingly shows Ida his little private place in a nearby forest, and he also demonstrates a certain special power of his. He is actually capable of telekinesis, but Ida simply thinks it is just a trivial magic trick, and there is a little amusing moment when she innocently attempts what he just did in front of her.

However, it does not take much time for her to realize that her new friend’s ability is not a magic trick at all. When Anna is approached by a neighborhood girl named Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim), they somehow form a psychic connection between them, and it later turns out that Anna has a telekinetic power just like Ben. Thanks to her supportive connection with Aisha, Anna can actually speak a bit, and that certainly delights her parents.

Without wasting any time at all on explaining the supernatural abilities of its several young main characters, director/writer Eskil Vogt’s screenplay handles their circumstance as straight as possible while they come to show more power along the story. As his power seems to grow day by day, Sam also comes to show more of his dark sides fueled by his harsh domestic environment, and that surely unnerves Ida more. She already knows how cruel and vicious Sam can be (There is a horrific scene early in the film which will repulse any cat-lover out there), but then there eventually comes a point where she and the other two girls must draw a line between them and Sam.

As Sam comes to emerge as the antagonist of the story, we are served with a series of chillingly disturbing moments happening in the middle of the mundane daily background. Besides his growing telekinetic ability, Sam somehow finds a way to control the minds of others, and this certainly threatens Ida and the other two girls more than before. At least, Anna seems to be a powerful match against him for now, but she and Ida often find themselves limited by their parents, who do not have any idea on what is really happening to their kids even though they do care a lot.

While reminiscent of similar genre flicks such as “The Chronicle” (2012), the movie takes a relatively more subdued approach to its supernatural elements, but what is gradually culminated under Vogt’s skillful direction is often tense and compelling enough to hold our attention. The low-ley depiction of its several young main characters’ supernatural abilities seems rather plain and simple on the surface, but it is more dramatically effective than expected thanks to small visual/aural details to notice. As a result, the expected showdown moment around the story works with considerable intensity and suspense even though it is silently unfolded in the middle of another ordinary day in the neighborhood.

The four young main cast members of the film are all commendable in their unadorned natural acting, and, considering those truly disturbing moments in the film, I can only hope that they were thoughtfully handled throughout the shooting. As the center of the film, Rakel Lenora Fløttum is believable in her character’s desperate struggle with the increasingly dangerous situation around her, and there is a little poignancy in how Ida comes to bond with her older sister much more than she ever imagined. While Sam Ashraf, Alva Brynsmo Ramstadand, and Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim hold each own place well in the film, a few adult performers in the film also leave some impression at the fringe of the story, Ellen Dorrit Petersen has her own small moment when her character tactfully asks a few serious questions to Ida later in the story.

On the whole, “The Innocents” is a bit too dark and disturbing for me at times, and I still wince as recollecting some of the most unpleasant moments in the film, but it is worthwhile to watch at least for its admirable technical aspects including mood and performance. Vogt, who previously made a feature film directorial debut with “Blind” (2014), has been mainly known for co-writing several films of Joachim Trier including “Oslo, August 31st” (2011), “Thelma” (2017), and “The Worst Person in the World” (2021), but “The Innocents” shows that he is also a talented filmmaker with his own genre playground to explore, and it will be interesting to see what he will do next after this striking genre piece.