Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter called the film “low-tech, high-tension”, writing that “The lonely, uncanny and sometimes unthinkingly violent world of childhood is explored with chilling candor and exceptional skill”. Jessica Kiang of Variety praised the performances of the child actors as well as the film’s atmosphere, calling the film “both a satisfying genre exercise and a minute observation of the process by which young children acquire morality.” Sight & Sound‘s Anton Bitel wrote that the film “uses its genre frame to show the connectedness, curiosity and cruelty of its young characters, and also asks whether the inevitable loss of innocence at this age is a slate that can ever simply be cleaned.”