Innocence

Writer-director Hilary Brougher's heavy-handed adaptation of Jane Mendelsohn's 2000 YA novel is a ploddingly paced, utterly ridiculous supernatural saga. Beleaguered teen heroine Beckett (Sophie Curtis) suffers one nightmare experience after another. First, she's forced to move to Manhattan after her mother drowns in a surfing accident off Montauk. And then when her dad, renowned author Miles Warner (Linus Roache), enrolls Beckett in a prestigious Riverdale prep school, a classmate suddenly commits suicide by jumping off a building—landing right in front of Beckett. The school's pill-pushing psychiatrist thinks that Beckett is traumatized (duh), but things get much worse after Beckett discovers that the creepily youthful-looking faculty and alumnae have formed a strange cabal to prey on virginal students, ritually drinking their blood in order to stay young and beautiful. Sexy school nurse Pamela Hamilton (Kelly Reilly) is the most predatory, quickly targeting Beckett by dating the latter's father. Fortunately, Beckett has a couple of friends in whom she can confide, including rebellious Jen (Sarah Sutherland, Kiefer's daughter) and Tobey (Graham Phillips), who teaches her how to skateboard. In some bizarre fashion, this melodramatic gothic stupidity ties in with Lamia, the queen of Libya who—in ancient Greek mythology—became a child-devouring demon. Not recommended. (S. Granger)