Brian Hamilton on Innocence

Horror movies work best when their subject matter hits close to home for the audience. Some of the most effective horror flicks are the ones with the least barriers between the audience and the action. Innocence spends the majority of its run time trying to establish a connection with its audience to this effect, but fails spectacularly. It has all of the boring things that are necessary to make a suspenseful film, but none of the payoff. The supernatural horror-thriller is currently in limited release.

Innocence follows a high school girl named Beckett (Sophie Curtis) as she navigates her new private school. After the death of her mother in the opening scene, she and her father relocate to Manhattan to start a new life. At this new private school, she meets new friends and starts dating while coming to terms with her loss. However, this school is harboring a supernatural secret that Beckett believes could have lead to the death of a student very early on in the movie. She decides to investigate. On paper, the plot seems trite and overdone yet still has the potential to be exciting. Make no mistake - Innocence is a mess. It’s script is a paint-by-numbers outline of a screenplay that deserved another few drafts at least. The plot moves forward at a steady pace enough that the movie isn’t flat out boring, but Innocence is so lackluster that it’s hard to find a reason to continue watching.

I had no interest in the juxtaposition between the supernatural elements and Beckett’s personal journey. In my opinion, that’s where a movie of this “everyday horror” subgenre is made - having a relatable protagonist is the best way to impact the audience. However, Beckett’s journey isn’t interesting. It’s certainly relatable, but almost to the point of becoming cliched. Watching her attitude change as she becomes closer with her boyfriend and further from her father doesn’t inform any of the rest of the movie. It felt like a waste to spend so much time on lackluster personal scenes that don’t affect any of the major plot points. The movie’s performances are decent, with Linus Roache as Beckett’s father, who is dealing with his wife’s loss in his own destructive ways, and Graham Philips as Beckett’s boyfriend Tobey. The movie spends so much time on the romance between Beckett and Tobey, but it still feels forced and unnecessary. I attribute this to a lack of chemistry between the young actors.

In the world of horror movies, there are very rarely new genres or topics to explore. Scary movie cliches are so pervasive that they’re parodied constantly. This doesn’t mean that modern horror movies aren’t good, but that they have all of the baggage of everything that came before them. Innocence, however, is one of the most derivative movies I’ve ever seen. It strikes a rare balance between doing absolutely nothing original and not understanding what it’s being cliche about. It was almost as if Innocence didn’t understand that it was, at its core, a horror movie; it spends as much time as possible away from scary elements that as the movie comes to its bizarre conclusion, the audience is confused and doesn’t understand what just happened. The movie is less than the sum of its parts.

I was extremely disappointed in Innocence. I was hoping for the movie to become scary or compelling, but it relies on cheap scares and trite dialogue that doesn’t add up to anything satisfying. There’s so little identity or consistency involved that its plot has absolutely no room to breathe. Maybe it would have been a little more enjoyable with even the slightest bit of forethought and consideration. I can’t recommend Innocence to anybody.

Grade: F

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