The Turning (2020) Universal/Horror RT: 94 minutes Rated PG-13 (terror, violence, disturbing images, brief strong language, some suggestive content) Director: Floria Sigismondi Screenplay: Carey W. Hayes and Chad Hayes Music: Nathan Barr Cinematography: David Ungaro Release date: January 24, 2020 (US) Cast: Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard, Brooklynn Prince, Barbara Marten, Joely Richardson, Denna Thomsen, Niall Greig Fulton, Kim Adis. Box Office: $15.5M (US)/$19.4M (World)
Rating: * ½
I can see Henry James turning in his grave over The Turning, a stylish but muddled update of his classic short story The Turn of the Screw. As a former lit major, James was always one of my least favorite authors. His work tends to be boring, long-winded and slow to get to the point. The Turning, directed by Floria Sigismondi (The Runaways), is only a tad more interesting because of its 1994 setting, a time frame established by reports of Kurt Cobain’s suicide playing on the TV when we meet Kate (Davis, Terminator: Dark Fate), the new nanny to two orphaned rich kids, Flora (Prince, The Florida Project) and Miles (Wolfhard, Stranger Things). She quits her gig as a kindergarten teacher asking how hard it could be to go from 25 children to this. Did anybody mention that the new job comes with risks like the possibility of ghost sightings and ensuing madness? Of course not.
The basic story remains the same. A newly hired nanny becomes aware of supernatural activity in the country mansion that’s home to the two youngsters in her charge. Originally, Kate was hired to teach only Flora, a precocious 8YO who never leaves the property. Miles shows up unexpectedly after being expelled from boarding school for fighting. Kate’s relationship with the brooding, angry teen is antagonistic. Then there’s longtime housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Marten, Casualty), a disagreeable sort who never misses a chance to challenge Kate’s authority.
Kate comes to the elegant but gloomy mansion with her own demons like a mentally ill mother (Richardson, The Patriot) currently residing in an institution. Immediately after her arrival, she starts having bad dreams every night. She sees ghostly figures in the dark hallways, windows and dusty rooms. Each morning, she looks a little more pale and frazzled. The kids behave strangely. It’s clear they’re hiding something, but what? They won’t talk about it. It may have something to do with why the previous nanny suddenly left.
My biggest issue with The Turning is the same as the majority of PG-13 horror movies, it’s not scary. I’ll concede it has the eerie, dread-filled atmosphere beloved by fans of Gothic horror. You can almost feel the chilly air inside the cold, uninviting house where spiders scurry hither and yon and severed doll heads decorate the garden. It’s place haunted by spectres and secrets. The perennially overcast skies cast a shadow over the grounds as Kate and the kids take leisurely walks. Sadly, the imagery ultimately loses its appeal due to repetition. All that’s left is a bunch of predictable jump-scares in the exact places you expect them.
I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the fact that horror movies dumped in theaters in January tend NOT to be scary. I can almost excuse this unfortunate but inevitable trend. What I cannot excuse are ones with rotten endings like The Turning. It’s abrupt, unsatisfying and makes no sense. The best way I can describe it is it wants to have its cake and eat it too. It tries to please both sectors of the audience, those who want a happy ending and those who don’t, and fails miserably at both. I went from being bored to being confused. What the hell just happened? I’m sure I’m not the only one who had that question on my lips as the end credits rolled.
The other thing that annoys me about The Turning is how it wastes a perfectly good cast on such tedious material. Although I found Davis rather mechanical as a cyber-soldier in last fall’s Terminator sequel, I thought she was great in 2018’s Jason Reitman-Diablo Cody dramedy Tully in which she plays a different kind of nanny. She’s pretty good as the haunted, increasingly paranoid nanny in The Turning. She has the 90s grunge look down pat. The kids are good too. I knew they would be. As we saw in The Florida Project, Prince is a little star. She has a natural child-like quality to her, one that feels neither forced nor unnatural. Wolfhard has serious game. He’s great in the Netflix series Stranger Things and the two It movies. He was even good in the otherwise terrible The Goldfinch. With such an amazing acting trio, it’s an even bigger shame that The Turning doesn’t work.
I commented to the manager on the way out that it’d be less of a chore to re-read the original short story than sit through this dull, redundant horror movie that entirely misses the point. Critics and scholars have long debated the reality of the ghosts and the sanity of the governess in The Turn of the Screw. James deliberately left it open for discussion. It looks like Sigismondi attempts to do the same with The Turning except it comes out confusing instead. The ghosts are the usual CGI claptrap. The screenplay doesn’t even scratch the surface where Kate’s mother is concerned. Boring and frustrating in equal measures, anybody who spends good money to see The Turning will get screwed in the end.
