The Turning (2020)

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to see on Sunday. I figured I had two choices: The Last Full Measure and The Turning. Given the January release, chances were good neither of them were any good, so I went by advertising. As in, I saw far more of it before other movies for The Turning instead of The Last Full Measure. In fact, I think I saw The Last Full Measure‘s trailer maybe twice, and that suggested to me that the studio behind it had less confidence in it than whoever made The Turning. So, I opted to see The Turning.

Now, I didn’t exactly go into The Turning full of confidence in the movie. It’s still a January horror movie, but the real problem is the inspiration. Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw is a classic piece of horror literature where the narrator, nanny to two privileged kids, sees things that, due to the way the story is written, may or may not actually be there. Can a movie, which shows the audience what’s happening, really make a story with an unreliable narrator where the audience never quite knows what’s going on? I mean, the answer there is yes, but it isn’t really an easy task.

Besides, the very first scene suggests that whatever is happening is real since, well, the main character isn’t there to see any of it.

As for the plot, Kate Mandrell (Terminator: Dark Fate‘s Mackenzie Davis) gets a job as a private tutor to a young orphaned girl in a large manor. Initially thinking the only other company will be the housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Barbara Marten), Kate discovers that young Flora (Brooklynn Prince) is a rather delightful little girl. But then her brother Miles (Stranger Things‘ Finn Wolfhard) comes home from boarding school early, and he seems to be a bit of a budding psychopath.

Then again, the house itself has a lot of weird stuff going on. The place may be haunted by ghosts of residents past. Factor in as well that Mrs, Grose refuses to think anything remotely bad about either of the two children as well as the fact that Flora either can’t or won’t leave the grounds (the movie isn’t clear), and the end result is the house and its residents are all really weird as best and disturbing or violent at worst.

So, essentially, this movie wasn’t very good. It was either working to build scares through atmosphere or just popped out a jump scare. Neither is done particularly well. The atmosphere is undermined by inconsistent tones, and the jump scares are often poorly executed. The movie is set in the mid 90s for some reason, and the only explanation I can think of is it would prevent Davis’s Kate from, say, looking up answers to her questions on a smartphone.

And then there’s Wolfhard. When he’s playing a normal kid, he’s OK. When he’s trying to be the potential psycho, well, it just doesn’t work. Quite frankly, I’m starting to think anything he does that isn’t set in the 80s is maybe something to be avoided. I don’t know if its his fault since something like The Turning or The Goldfinch would probably be pretty dire with or without him, but at the least, I’m going to be a bit more wary of movies he appears in.

That said, I was set to grade The Turning with a D as just a rather dull attempt of a horror movie. I really don’t like dispensing Fs unless I feel like the movie has truly earned one, and in the last twenty minutes, when The Turning was ostensibly wrapping everything up, it went truly to a really bad place. I won’t say more aside from guessing that the screenwriters opted to try to create that uncertainty that James’s book is known for, and they, well, failed miserably by giving the audience something I found confusing and incoherent. Don’t bother with this one. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Grade: F