The Turning- A Significant Ghost Story
In just a couple of days, a movie adapted from a popular 100 year old novella will be released to theaters. The novella in question is called The Turn of the Screw, and it released in October of 1898. Turn of the Screw was a novella which told a ghost story, the result of which is its popularity as a criticized literary work. To say it was truly criticized feels incorrect, however, as people were just trying to figure out the meaning of the story. The original author, Henry James, refused to acknowledge any of the guesses about what his work represented and remained ambiguous to the end.
This is not the first adaptation of the novella, as it has been a radio drama, film, stage, and television, including a 1950 Broadway play, and the 1961 film The Innocents. The true horror of the story in question comes from the second guessing of the sanity of the characters involved. This has been the biggest subject scrutinized by critics for years, trying to find some kind of theme and analyze something that may not even be there. The author’s commitment to this ambiguousness is why it has remained so relevant, even today.
The Turning takes us to a mysterious estate in the Maine countryside, where newly appointed nanny Kate is charged with the care of two disturbed orphans, Flora and Miles. Quickly though, she discovers that both the children and the house are harboring dark secrets and things may not be as they appear. The movie stars Mackenzie Davis (Terminator: Dark Fate, The Martian), Finn Wolfhard (It, Netflix’s Stranger Things), newcomer Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project) and Joely Richardson (Red Sparrow, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). The movie was directed by visualist Floria Sigismondi (The Runaways, Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale), and will harken back to the story it originated from.
The Turning releases in just a couple of days, January 24, 2020, to theaters domestically and select theaters internationally.