User reviews

Kate Mandell (Mackenzie Davis) takes on the job of tutoring Flora Fairchild (Brooklynn Prince) at an English estate. She is constantly harassed by Flora's older brother Miles (Finn Wolfhard). Caretaker Mrs. Grose (Barbara Marten) tells her that Flora is haunted by the death of her parents.

This sets up a good moody horror and it has some good actors. After setting everything up, the plot basically stops moving and developing. It feels stuck in place and the story becomes a muddle. Then the movie truly stops in a confused abrupt ending. The style is like an old horror ghost story which is intriguing. If only, the story would flow better than this.

"The Innocents" (1961) is an ambiguous ghost story with the magnificent Deborah Kerr in the lead role. "The Nightcomers" (1971), with Marlon Brandon, explains the behavior of Flora and Miles in "The Innocents". Unfortunately "The Turning" is a poor remake of "The Innocents" without any explanation of the original story. The conclusion is ridiculous (or inexistent) and never provides the ambiguity of the original film to the viewer. The performances are not bad bus the screenplay is terrible and forgettable. If the viewer seeks out an explanation for the story, reads the plot and reviews of the original film to understand the plot. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Os Orfãos" ("The Orphans")

I like horror movies and thrillers, I like modern takes on period pieces and classics, and I like the cast and am a fan of the director's music videos and earlier film work (i.e. The Runaways). So I expected to enjoy this update on The Turn of the Screw. I did not enjoy it, I'm sad to report. There was too little story or suspense to hold one's attention throughout, and that's a shame.

The cast certainly did their jobs -- Finn Wolfhard is no longer the nerdy little kid, and Mackenzie Davis was convincing in her role as a driven-to-the-edge tutor -- and it was visually beautiful throughout a lot of the film. But early jump scares suck a lot of the suspense out of it all. And a distinct lack of backstory/characterization leaves way too many questions about what, exactly, there is to be afraid of in the giant, creaky house. The little girl's fears are left unexplained, at least in terms of being satisfactory; the huge personality shift in the boy is sort of waved away; and the many unexplained deaths in the history of the estate are just confusing. I kept wondering if cuts had been made to the script or in the editing room, because things didn't flow at all and it really affected the atmosphere.

The ending will drive a lot of viewers to yell at the screen. Our half-full opening night theatre did a lot of groaning and saying, "You've got to be kidding me!" as the credits suddenly began to roll. Maybe that finale would've worked better had everything leading up to it actually added up to more...but unless we get a Director's Cut we'll never know. I wish I could recommend this movie. I can't. Not scary, nonsensical, and not enough to be worth the price of admission. -HV

There are quite a few jump scares, but the plot is just really thin. There are so many unanswered questions. For example, is Finn really trying to make life hard for the governess, or is he possessed? The ending is just really abrupt, I literally gasped "What?" because I just don't know what really happened in the whole film. The two endings, which one is real? Is she crazy? It is very confusing.

It was like watching an hour and a half movie trailer. You get left wanting to know what happens...

Complete waste of time. I was close to walking out but I was hoping it got better. The ending confirmed that I should have walked out.

I'm irritated I lost precious time to go see this train wreck.

I sat through that whole movie and I still can't tell you what happened. It's literally the most forgettable movie ever.

Read the reviews and hoped it was better. Not! The movie had potential. The actors were all very good, but the story was convoluted and had many holes in it. So many unanswered questions!! Then it ENDS?! What a disappointment - if it had ended 5 minutes earlier, the ending would've been better. We walked out feeling as if we wasted our afternoon.

Very annoyed by this movie. It had potential but every good plot idea fizzled out into nothing. There were too many cheap jump scares and way too many unanswered questions. The ending left not only me but the entire cinema audience questioning what actually happened...

Such a good location and atmosphere but I feel like there was too much going on. The acting was good but was ruined by the dull and in my opinion, non-existent story line.

Opens on the announcement of Kurt Cobain's death for no reason at all and never references it again. "Music" plays a theme but not 90s grunge music, for some very odd reason. Then it ends as abruptly as Monty Python and The Holy Grail. You're just sitting there wondering what just happened.

I really wanted to give it three stars, but going over my notes plus how the movie felt - not justified. Positives: Unfortunately, there are none. Except they mentioned Kurt Cobain which had nothing to do w/anything, and not mentioned again. Negatives: Always a sign of cheapness is an opening (twice in this case) overhead view of a car on road. Heavily dependent on the overused, stereotypical, music & sound effects to startle you. Yawn. The usual ghostly apparitions in mirrors, windows, and in background. Very uncreative, and cheap looking. The usual isolated mansion/house w/lots of rooms w/stuff, and usual dark basement. And, a maze garden. A brief scene of a creepy tree which had no bearing on anything. Supposedly scary scenes in which our future victim has portending nightmares, and of course we don't know they're just dreams. Future victim, unfortunately in this genre is female, does not respond intelligently to what's going on. Ending, and alternative ending which was worse, was one of those "viewer decides" could be anything.

I gave The Turning 2 stars. The only things worth looking at in this "film" are the wardrobe and the house. Other than that this junker gets 2 👎🏻👎🏻 And and extra long fart noise.

Before the turning came out, I never even heard of the story it is based on. Now that I've seen a mess of a movie, I might as well read the story to get a better knowledge on how the filmmakers adapted it for a modern audience. The only good thing about this movie is the 90s like soundtrack, which is available to stream on Spotify and other services and features a new track by Courtney Love. Avoid this movie at all costs and wait for A Quiet Place Part II to come out.

I wasted my money and time 💔 bad story with bad ending, we were so confused.