The Innocents

The Innocents (1961)

Runtime: 100 minutes

Directed by: Jack Clayton

Starring: Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Martin Stephens, Pamela Franklin

From: 20th Century Fox

This is a movie I watched tonight as I heard it was great. Well, this horror film is indeed pretty great. I explain why I feel this way below: 

While this is a film I have heard about from various people on Letterboxd throughout my time here (I even had it in my Watchlist) my inspiration for seeing this now was a recent messageboard discussion and me seeing last night that this would be playing tonight on Turner Classic Movies.

This British Gothic tale stars Deborah Kerr and she becomes a governess for two kids who have a rich uncle but he's absentee; the kids, Kerr, and some housekeepers live in a classic (and appropriately spine-tingling) Victorian house, where plenty of weird things happen and the children just act flat-out odd on occasion. It'd be criminal to reveal much more but I will say that there is question of Kerr's sanity.

It has to be said that Kerr delivers a marvelous performance but the entire cast does a nice job. Those two kids... “child actor” is a thing that can easily go wrong. They sometimes act poorly or just not right for the role. Martin Stephens and Pamela Franklin are tremendous as Miles and Flora, respectively. They are cute kids but they nail the aspect of being off-kilter at times, always creepy and precocious but the precociousness was right for the role and it wasn't eye-rolling.

Then, there's how this was shot. I won't list all the technical things that were done or all the various tricks that were used by cinematographer Freddie Frances, but deep focus is used often and it was definitely appropriate for this story. In addition, the natural lighting and all the contrasts between light and darkness, it was aces. It is simply seeped in the rich and chilling Gothic tradition.

Then, there's the story... it definitely gives you a spooky feeling throughout as you try to figure out what's going on among all the weird things that happen. I discovered that The Conjuring wasn't the first movie to have either a very chilling hide and seek scene or an eerie moment involving a music box. Truman Capote did a swell job of adapting the story A Turn of the Screw and including some psychosexual elements and obvious allusions to “the dirty deed”.

Things are left ambiguous so you are left to figure out just what exactly happened, and as the screw tightens, the story becomes more suffocating and no matter how you interpret what really took place, it is a great horror picture I recommend to anyone who loves the genre.