At first, Netflix’s latest genre acquisition The Innocents looks like a teen romance, complete with young lovers running away to be together. But then it gets very weird, very quickly, in a very intriguing way.
Revealed today by Netflix alongside an August premiere date, the British series from Hania Elkington and Simon Duric follows the aforementioned star-crossed lovers, Harry (Percelle Ascott) and June (Sorcha Groundsell), as they flee their families to start a life together in London. But problems quickly develop when June discovers that she actually has the power to shapeshift, thrusting her into a strange new world with the promise that there are others out there like her.
It all gets very tense, but there’s an intriguing grounded aspect to how the show is showing June’s shifting – all done through camera cuts and reflections rather than us actually showing a change – that makes the whole thing look a lot more haunting than you might have expected when you first heard “supernatural teen romance.”
The Innocents hits Netflix August 24.