Presencias del mal

Kate Mandell (Mackenzie Davis) takes on the job of tutoring Flora Fairchild (Brooklynn Prince) at an English estate. She is constantly harassed by Flora's older brother Miles (Finn Wolfhard). Caretaker Mrs. Grose (Barbara Marten) tells her that Flora is haunted by the death of her parents.

This sets up a good moody horror and it has some good actors. After setting everything up, the plot basically stops moving and developing. It feels stuck in place and the story becomes a muddle. Then the movie truly stops in a confused abrupt ending. The style is like an old horror ghost story which is intriguing. If only, the story would flow better than this.

I like horror movies and thrillers, I like modern takes on period pieces and classics, and I like the cast and am a fan of the director's music videos and earlier film work (i.e. The Runaways). So I expected to enjoy this update on The Turn of the Screw. I did not enjoy it, I'm sad to report. There was too little story or suspense to hold one's attention throughout, and that's a shame.

The cast certainly did their jobs -- Finn Wolfhard is no longer the nerdy little kid, and Mackenzie Davis was convincing in her role as a driven-to-the-edge tutor -- and it was visually beautiful throughout a lot of the film. But early jump scares suck a lot of the suspense out of it all. And a distinct lack of backstory/characterization leaves way too many questions about what, exactly, there is to be afraid of in the giant, creaky house. The little girl's fears are left unexplained, at least in terms of being satisfactory; the huge personality shift in the boy is sort of waved away; and the many unexplained deaths in the history of the estate are just confusing. I kept wondering if cuts had been made to the script or in the editing room, because things didn't flow at all and it really affected the atmosphere.

The ending will drive a lot of viewers to yell at the screen. Our half-full opening night theatre did a lot of groaning and saying, "You've got to be kidding me!" as the credits suddenly began to roll. Maybe that finale would've worked better had everything leading up to it actually added up to more...but unless we get a Director's Cut we'll never know. I wish I could recommend this movie. I can't. Not scary, nonsensical, and not enough to be worth the price of admission. -HV

I really wanted to give it three stars, but going over my notes plus how the movie felt - not justified. Positives: Unfortunately, there are none. Except they mentioned Kurt Cobain which had nothing to do w/anything, and not mentioned again. Negatives: Always a sign of cheapness is an opening (twice in this case) overhead view of a car on road. Heavily dependent on the overused, stereotypical, music & sound effects to startle you. Yawn. The usual ghostly apparitions in mirrors, windows, and in background. Very uncreative, and cheap looking. The usual isolated mansion/house w/lots of rooms w/stuff, and usual dark basement. And, a maze garden. A brief scene of a creepy tree which had no bearing on anything. Supposedly scary scenes in which our future victim has portending nightmares, and of course we don't know they're just dreams. Future victim, unfortunately in this genre is female, does not respond intelligently to what's going on. Ending, and alternative ending which was worse, was one of those "viewer decides" could be anything.

It was like watching an hour and a half movie trailer. You get left wanting to know what happens...

There are quite a few jump scares, but the plot is just really thin. There are so many unanswered questions. For example, is Finn really trying to make life hard for the governess, or is he possessed? The ending is just really abrupt, I literally gasped "What?" because I just don't know what really happened in the whole film. The two endings, which one is real? Is she crazy? It is very confusing.