Innocence is a horror film that was released in 2013 and one that has very little horror in it. For the most part, the film is just a straight up drama about a girl named Beckett who is trying to get over the death of her mother. To that effect, she and her father move to Manhattan where she attends a new school called Hamilton where she meets the school nurse, a new friend and a love interest and where everything seems to be just a little bit off. The film was not a bad one, but neither was it a really good one. Almost everything could have been improved in the film, though the acting was probably the only thing that saved it from being a total bore.

There is a moment in the movie, the big one that sets everything in motion, where any fan of horror will know immediately what is going on, what will happen and how it will all play out. The minutiae may not be known as one cannot be expected to know everything about a film before watching it, but when said plot device kicks in, you find yourself giving a little bit of groan because it is so clichéd and overplayed. That particular instance and all that would follow can be blamed on sloppy writing, where technically it was good but instead of delivering something original, instead it just seemed easier for them to borrow every cliché from the past hundred years of horror films. That too, does not necessarily mean that the film was overly bad, just completely and utterly predictable which sucked a bit of the joy out of watching it.

The film also felt overly long. It could have just been an episode of a weekly television series if they had cut it down a bit and thus, that is where the actors come in to save it. There was little tension, no suspense and as such, the picture just sort of meandered on its way towards its eventual and predictable conclusion. Sophie Curtis would play the lead along with Kelly Reilly as the antagonist of the film. Both would do a good job, Reilly especially. At first, you had no idea what role Reilly would play, though you could sort of guess and soon it was realized quickly enough and she would be the only thing to really tune in for.

It would have been nice to have been kept guessing at some point in the film, to have some sort of surprise waiting just around the corner but such as it is, it was okay. It was not good nor great and not bad either, just middle of the road. Innocence was an exercise in mediocrity and at the end of the day, a bit of a shame as much like everything else, it had the potential to be something more.

2.5 out of 5