The Turning (Review)
I was Definitely Turned Off By The Turning.
I haven’t actually read The Turning of the Screw, so I can’t speak to if The Turning is a good adaptation of the novel by Henry James. If it is, I have to say that James wrote a really boring story. Outside of the aesthetic, I’ve never thought that gothic horror necessarily translated well to the big screen. Some directors who have definitely nailed gothic horror in the past, but more often than not they turn into melancholy haunted house movies. That’s exactly what The Turning inevitably becomes as it tries unsuccessfully to add a psychological element to the “horror.” However, it does a poor job of getting inside the character’s heads. That being said, I felt like I was going a little crazy watching it. So, there’s that…
A young governess (I use the term loosely since The Turning is set in the 90s) named Kate (Terminator: Dark Fate’s Mackenzie Davis) gets a job working for a pair of orphans. Arriving, she’s introduced to little Flora (The Florida Project’s Brooklynn Prince) and not so little Miles (Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard) living an enormous mansion under the care of their elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Groes (Barbara Marten). Once there, Kate soon discovers that there is not only something strange about the children but also about the enormous mansion she is staying in. She starts to doubt her own sanity as visions of spirits torment her, unseen by anyone else. Is she really in danger or is her mind playing tricks on her?
Writers Chad and Carey Hayes have plenty of experience writing pretty good horror movies, such as The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2. There have a few not so good horror movies under their belts as well, but nothing compared to The Turning. The film is more off-putting than creepy, especially as it tries to transform Wolfhard’s Miles into a manipulative and predatory male. He comes across less like a villain and more like a little dog desperate to prove how tough he is as he taunts Kate. There’s more to the story than just Miles being a privileged brat, but it’s so convoluted that by the end of it you’re left struggling to figure out the point of the whole thing. Sure, there are some elements of psychological horror with Kate questioning if she’s going insane or not, but what’s the point of asking those kinds of questions if you’re never going to actually answer them. In the end, that part of The Turning feels more like a cheap trick than an effective storytelling technique.
Director Floria Sigismondi fails miserably when it comes to the horror aspects of The Turning. There’s never any real sense of dread because the stakes never seem to rise. Kate starts to doubt herself and has a few bad dreams, but it’s never clear if she or the children are actually in any real danger or not. Instead of showing the walls closing in around Kate and her slowly starting to doubt herself, she just wakes up crazy one day. There’s no build-up at any point, which is an essential aspect of horror. Audiences aren’t scared of the ghost jumping out from the closet, they’re scared of the moments leading up to it: the slow approach to the closet door; the terrible scratching coming from within: the doubt on the heroes’ faces as they wonder if they really should open that door. Most of The Turning is just Kate wandering around, ignoring huge red flags (such as a lovely art installation made by young Flora featuring the decapitated heads of Barbie dolls). More than that, though haunted house movies only work if there is a sense that the characters are trapped in them. Kate’s reasons for staying even when things start to hit the fan are flimsy at best.
The only good part of The Turning are the casting choices of Prince and Davis. Prince seems like a natural as the young girl who doesn’t seem to think there’s anything strange about her living situation. Flora dances along, turning everything into a game while creating this sense that there’s a secret she’s hiding. Davis seems perfect for this sort of gothic horror, because of her incredible silhouette and grace. You can easily picture her with a candelabra, ascending a dark staircase with her translucent white nightgown flowing behind her. There’s a very old-world sense of femininity to her that is tempered with a dash of 90s grunge (ie: Docker boots). Davis carries it well, but not even she can manage to carry The Turning.
There was never one point where I felt anxious or scared during The Turning. Throughout it, my mind tried to cling potential twists that would justify sitting through the film, something that would make it a genuinely interesting horror movie. The ending proved to be more disappointing than I could have imagined. The only thing that The Turning manages to do is continue the trend of terrible horror movies released during the month of January (The Prodigy, The Grudge, etc). It’s a painfully boring film that will leave you regretting that you wasted your time with it.
