The Turn of the Screw
The Turn of the Screw
| 30 December 2009 (USA)
The Turn of the Screw Trailers

A young governess, Ann, is sent to a country house to take care of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Soon after her arrival, Miles is expelled from boarding school. Although charmed by her young charge, she secretly fears there are ominous reasons behind his expulsion. With Miles back at home, the governess starts noticing ethereal figures roaming the estate's grounds. Desperate to learn more about these sinister sightings she discovers that the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of her predecessor hold grim implications for herself. As she becomes increasingly fearful that malevolent forces are stalking the children the governess is determined to save them, risking herself and her sanity in the process.

Reviews
Hellen

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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CommentsXp

Best movie ever!

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Intcatinfo

A Masterpiece!

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Taha Avalos

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

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Leofwine_draca

The BBC have a long tradition of adapting literary ghost stories at Christmas time and THE TURN OF THE SCREW is their effort for 2009, yet another adaptation of the Henry James chiller condensed into a TV film running time. I wonder why they bothered? This is flimsy, light weight stuff, neither scary nor sufficiently interesting to capture the attention, and probably the worst ghost story they've ever made (at least until the much-tinkered O WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU featuring John Hurt came out).Perhaps fearing that the story has been done to death in the past, the scriptwriter updates the events to WWI, but for no reason – it alters the story in no way. Sadly, for a ghost story, there's no spookiness either, unless some lame flash cutting to supposedly frightening faces and figures is your idea of the utmost in terror. The mostly theatrical cast seem ill at east in front of the cameras, with the lead, Michelle Dockery, particularly unappealing as the fragile governess caught up in the sinister events. This feels low budget and lacking in the extreme, as if they got half a dozen cast members into an old house and filmed it quickly without much effort. To be frank, it's a real chore to sit through. Stick with THE INNOCENTS!

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TheLittleSongbird

I like ghost stories as much as the next person. Turn of the Screw had all the components for at least a watchable 90 minutes, as its source material is so good, so suspenseful and so delightfully ambiguous. What a disappointment. Even on its own terms, Turn of the Screw was close to disastrous. In fact, the only redeeming quality was the excellent Sue Johnston, she is very believable as the sympathetic foil.If you want a great adaptation or film of the story/book, look no further than The Innocents with Deborah Kerr, a terrifying and unforgettable film that succeeds on its own merits too. This version of Turn of the Screw is a poor adaptation of the story, the atmosphere was empty and dull, also the ambiguity that made the story so unnerving is dumbed down. The dialogue is also very stilted, and doesn't flow very well from one scene to the next, while the story starts off well but becomes a series of disconnected scenes. The pace is another problem too, like the atmosphere it is uninteresting and profoundly empty.The production values didn't do much for me either. The photography was good, as was the scenery and house, but the costumes felt like they came from another period. The music is nothing memorable, probably the most memorable moment of sitting through this was my dad saying "somebody crucify those violins!" Though amusing at the time, I see his point, they were very shrill and overbearing. The acting was poor. Johnston was very good though, but Michelle Dockery no matter how hard she tries looks too modern and any genuine fright she tries to convey feels forced. The children fare no better, the characters are written so poorly that I had trouble engaging with them and their situation.So all in all, a big disappointment. Back in 2009, like the other reviewers here(all of whom I agree with completely), I was looking forward to this more than any other programme(even more so than Cranford and Poirot actually, to be honest both were much better too), but like 2010's Whistle and I'll Come to You it was the biggest disappointment of the festive season. 2/10 for Sue Johnston. Bethany Cox

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Conspirator Slash

I hated the 20's costumes, this just NEEDS the fancy Victorian clothing! Also, automobiles? Stupid frame story? And using Voice Of The Legion, one of the worst horror tropes? No match to The Innocents - that was perfectly creepy and beautiful (Miles could have been prettier, but otherwise everything as it should be).Here? Meh. Adding random new characters was unnecessary.Music - can't even recall it. Go for the opera if you want the REAL music of this, also, Britten understood a lot more than this movie's director. It was not just about *possessing* children. It was more, at least in the case of Quint/Miles.

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jc-osms

I first read Henry James' chilling ghost story at a young age and have seen different versions of it both on stage and film and so was very keen to see this latest version put forward by the BBC in their winter season.The key to the story, in my opinion, is the doubt on whose truth here is real. Indeed when I first read the novella in my youth, it never occurred to me that the ghosts weren't "real" and not possibly a figment of an over-emotional young woman's imagination. Re-reads and re-viewings of the piece have brought me round to this, I think, intended more ambivalent (and ultimately satisfying) interpretation so that I was disappointed that that this high-production-value version seemed to cleave so much to the former viewpoint, i.e. that the malevolent spirits were real - this evidenced by the ghosts "appearing" in the imagination, for example of the young doctor who attempts to understand and salve the troubled mind of the disturbed young governess.Another source of confusion and disappointment was the transposition of events to post-First World War England. If the lead character had been a young man, just back from and possibly their mind affected by the war, then a case for this change of context, could be argued. In every other respect though, the film plays as if in a 19th Century time-line thus throwing the narrative off-kilter. I could also have done without the sub-Lady Chatterley cavortings of both the governess in her imagination with her new employer (who, good looks apart and a self-confessed seducer of previous servants and governesses), hardly seems able to be responsible for her graphic fantasising, as well as the crudely physical liaison that the phantoms Quint and Jessell portray.The film takes this shock-Gothic outlook to extremes with scenes suggesting the actual possession of the children by their malefactors but it's all done in a very sub-"The Exorcist" way and in the end I felt it wrong to come down so conclusively on the side of the demons.The acting was mixed in quality, the children unable to portray the duality of their personalities convincingly and the actor playing Quint lacking menace entirely. However, Michelle Dockery, as the stricken governess, was convincing in both appearance and conviction, with the omnipresent Sue Johnston a sympathetic foil as the bemused house-matron.There were some scares deftly inserted along the way, punctuated effectively by well-crafted background music, but as I said earlier, the modernising of the story to include the nudity and violence depicted here, overpowered, to me anyway, the thin line between fantasy and reality that served the original book so well.A great story, lost somewhat in this particular re-telling.

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