Review: The Turning

Mackenzie Davis accepts a position as a governess for young orphan Brooklynn Prince at the large family estate. Soon Prince’s troubled older brother Finn Wolfhard turns up having been expelled from boarding school. Wolfhard quickly unsettles his new governess with creepy and insolent antics, though long-serving family housekeeper Barbara Marten stands up for the boy. She seems intent on ruling the roost even while Davis is around. Then Davis starts having unsettling experiences of the more ghostly kind. Could the house be haunted? Joely Richardson has a small role as Davis’ mentally unstable mother.

 

Gothic, ghostly tales tend to be my kind of horror outing, and this adaptation of Henry James’ classic The Turn of the Screw from 2020 is in the tradition of “The Others” and more closely the classic 1961 Deborah Kerr film “The Innocents” (the best adaptation of James’ tale to date). I’m surprised that it doesn’t get much love online, because director Floria Sigismondi (a veteran of music videos) and adapters Chad and Carey W. Hayes (scribes of “The Conjuring” films) have to my mind done a pretty solid job here. I didn’t even mind that it was modernised and Americanised. It still plays much the same, really. Also doing fine work is cinematographer David Ungaro (“Mary Shelley”), it’s a damn good-looking film, foggy and doomy and gloomy – right up my alley (even if I’d prefer an older period take on the tale). Yes it’s a tad underlit at times even for a horror film, as are the perils of digital cameras. However, for the most part it looks outstanding and not particularly indicative of music videos (though I’m not surprised the director did videos for Marilyn Manson).

 

The director is smart enough to get us off and running relatively quickly – within 20 minutes actually, the spooky shit has already started. That’s a sad rarity for a horror film these days I find. Most of the performances are pretty good, with “Stranger Things” kid Finn Wolfhard perfectly cast as the smug little shit home from boarding school. He’s capable of showing a certain likability/charm at times too when the script demands it, but he sure does convince as creepy in the darker moments. He gets downright uncomfortable at times with Davis. Young Brooklynn Prince is good too – cute as a button actually, and that’s rather clever to differentiate her from her more outwardly troublesome on-screen brother. Mackenzie Davis might not be the first person you’d think of for this role, but she gives a nicely measured performance. That’s not an easy thing to do given the trajectory her character goes on here. I think the fact that this is a more modern take on the tale (it’s set in 1994) probably helps sell Davis in the lead. The one performance that is slightly overpitched comes from a needlessly bitchy Barbara Marten (who did several episodes of “The Bill” and “Casualty”), who is just a tad obvious for my liking. I suppose there’s an overall familiarity here as it’s been done a zillion times – whether officially or unofficially connected to Henry James – but for me it worked well enough to recommend, if a touch overdone. It’s not exactly the scariest film in the world, but there’s one genuinely creepy bit involving a disembodied hand that absolutely isn’t Thing from “The Addams Family”. Yes, it’s probably the most overtly supernatural moment in the film, but creepy is creepy, and that shit’s creepy. Other supposedly scary goings-on in the film were less interesting to me.

 

A solid, not especially earth-shattering adaptation of a Gothic classic. Mostly well-acted, mostly well-shot, and mostly effective. I’m not sure why critics have been so harsh on this one. It’s pretty good, and shows that not all music video directors make for hack filmmakers (though I wasn’t a fan of the director’s previous “The Runaways” which I found unconvincing and miscast). I would’ve liked something a little more subtle and ambiguous, but overall I was entertained by this occasionally unsettling, very atmospheric film. Give this one a go, it’s far from perfect but it does its job solidly.

 

Rating: B-