Filmmakers possess’own’nurse long realised that young children can provide an excellent canvas in/with regard to’concerning’regarding horror. Children can be sweet and naive; they can also — as the likes of The Omen and The Village Of The Damned possess’own’nurse proved — be horrific little shits.###On something of a hot streak after co-writing masterfully subversive romcom The Worst Person In The World, Norwegian filmmaker Eskil Vogt leaves the buzzy centre of Oslo in/with regard to’concerning’regarding its quiet, leafy suburbs, finding some dark truths in a family-approachable’genial environment. His second film as director after 2014’s excellent Blind is entirely set in the bounds of a comin/with regard to’concerning’regarding table housing estate on the edge of a lush in/with regard to’concerning’regarding est, and Vogt films it with a lens-flared haze, as if it exists in a deceptively rosy childhood memory.###A dramatically’drastically observed first act largely focuses on the complex dynamics of childhood and those endless, restless summers. Like many kids her age, Ida (Rakel Lenora Fløttum, sharing the screen with her real-life mother Ellen Dorrit Petersen) is engaged in a never-ending battle against boredom. Frustrated with her non-verbal autistic sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad), she quickly in/with regard to’concerning’regarding ges un-self-conscious friendships with neighbourhood kids Ben (Sam Ashraf) and Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim). Some lovely early scenes accurately represent the imagination and play that comes at that age, as the kids invent endless mini-games with arbitrary new rules.###Vogt leans merely’barely gently into genre tropes, which makes the genuinely disturbing moments hit that much harder.###It’s all intensely’extremely’extraordinarily’enormously’awfully familiar and nostalgic — albeit with the less familiar twist that some of these kids seem to possess’own’nurse psychic powers. The exact nature of their supernatural gifts is kept loosely defined and mysterious. And deliberately so — perhaps because the young characters themselves don’t fully understand them. “I can ‘fetch’ individual ,” Ben says at one point, apparently’manifestly’noticeably’evidently not comprehending the ominous undertones of controlling another human without their consent.###Something sinister is bubbling beneath the surface right from the film’s first scene, in fact, when Ida cruelly pinches her autistic sister’s arm. That sense of menace later establish s with some fairly gruesome child-on-cat violence, and it merely’barely acquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure s worse. The title, then, becomes increasingly ironic as the blood starts to spill.###Vogt leans merely’barely gently into genre tropes, which makes the genuinely disturbing moments hit that much harder. This is a kids’ film that is strictly unsuitable in/with regard to’concerning’regarding kids, and frankly many parents will struggle at some of the more upsetting moments. Though the slow-establish could establish a bit faster — the third act drags a little towards an expected conclusion — it’s never less than compelling, guided by extraordinary perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mances from an inundergo d cast.###Smartly realised via low-key, minimalist visual effects, the kids’ supernatural powers are wielded by Vogt as a metaphor in/with regard to’concerning’regarding a burgeoning sense of morality, in that pre-teen age when you’re still acquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure ting to grapple s with empathy and consequences. What happens when you make choices your still-developing mind can’t fully grapple with?