One of the best and most honest portraits of what it’s like to be a kid in a dangerous world. Its young cast is shockingly terrific.
The Guardian May 21, 2022 Harnesses the terrifying malice of bored kids and blurs the line between social drama and out-and-out horror.
Slant Magazine April 20, 2022 The Innocents adopts a slasher-esque vibe that, however airlessly aestheticized, feels lurid for the sake of being lurid.
Sophistication. Depth. And an appreciation for old-fashioned emotion and unexpected heroism. It’s hard to frame The Innocents as a feel-good m...
A clever, engaging and often electrifying feature which straddles suspense and the arthouse in a tight and satisfying way.
That restraint suggests that The Innocents could have been a disaster in the hands of mediocre child actors. Fortunately, that is not a c...
The lonely, uncanny and sometimes unthinkingly violent world of childhood is explored with chilling candor and exceptional skill in writer-director...
Sight & Sound December 7, 2021 …offers, with honesty and not a little discomfort, a cinematic sandpit in which the moral development (or otherwise) of young children can be...
This superior chiller is both a satisfying genre exercise and a minute observation of the process by which young children acquire morality…
The Innocents is a provocative look at the fine razor line between good and evil and the darker side to innocence. The emotional authenticity...
Austin Chronicle August 25, 2022 Vogt brings out the ugliness of childhood… and ramps it up with endless malice that slowly builds to horrific action.
The Innocents is a sophisticated and scary film that shines with authentic anger and unexpected empathy for its creepy kids.
The Guardian May 18, 2022 The Innocents is a nightmare unfolding in cold, clear daylight.
Childhood is hard, and childhood grudges run harder. The Innocents pulls no punches in turning that fact into horror.
Finally, a film for grown-up audiences who are sick of watching superhero movies and feel that cinema has been ruined by superhero movies but, all...
Mesmerizing because of its particular take on the banality of evil.
The acting by the children is outstanding, and Vogt certainly puts an original twist on the hidden-powers trope. But wow, parts of it are tough going.
Irish Times July 16, 2022 Vogt, the Oscar-nominated co-writer of The Worst Person in the World and longtime writing partner of director Joachim Trier, revisits some of the p...
Vogt, with his second feature, has crafted a disturbing and original heart-pounder all his own, uncommonly attuned to the perspective of unsoc...
It resists sensationalism while suggesting that the world of children is far more powerful, morally complex and violent than adults are even aware...
Vogt has crafted a kind of extreme fairytale on the nature of being different, shorn of tidy lessons or happy endings – which may just be...
A complex piece of storytelling, both visually and narratively.
Is it a film about bullying or alienation, or about the extraordinarily powerful emotions of childhood, the things that are often kept secret...
Disturbing, intelligent and held together by a young cast of jaw-droppingly talented actors, The Innocents is a hard film to shake, but a...
[An] uncannily atmospheric movie…