The Turning

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.

Complete waste of time. I was close to walking out but I was hoping it got better. The ending confirmed that I should have walked out.

I'm irritated I lost precious time to go see this train wreck.

"The Innocents" (1961) is an ambiguous ghost story with the magnificent Deborah Kerr in the lead role. "The Nightcomers" (1971), with Marlon Brandon, explains the behavior of Flora and Miles in "The Innocents". Unfortunately, "The Turning" is a poor remake of "The Innocents" without any explanation of the original story. The conclusion is ridiculous (or inexistent) and never provides the ambiguity of the original film to the viewer. The performances are not bad but the screenplay is terrible and forgettable. If the viewer seeks out an explanation for the story, reads the plot and reviews of the original film to understand the plot. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Os Orfãos" ("The Orphans")

Note: On 11 December 2024, I saw this film again.

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.

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