Movie Review: 'The Turning' Fails as Literary Adaptation and Modern Scare-Fest

The Turning stars Mackenzie Davis (Tully) as the new Governess, Kate, at one of those only in the movies, dusty old mansions where every creaky floorboard is likely a malevolent spirit looking to slam a door. Kate has just been hired to replace a Governess who left abruptly, you get no points for guessing what happened to her, though the movie pretends that the fate of the previous Governess is a mystery.

Kate is under the impression that she will be caring for only one child, pre-teen Flora (Brooklynn Prince, star of The Florida Project). Kate is not in the job long however before Flora’s older brother, Miles (Finn Wolfhard, Stranger Things), comes home unexpectedly and begins making trouble. Miles had a troubled relationship with the former horse trainer and gardener of the grounds who died under mysterious circumstances several months ago.

Kate is unsettled very quickly as a presence in the home keeps going bump in the night. Kate is constantly up and down the halls to investigate this noise or that, always encountering some form of jump scare followed by a creepy encounter with one of the kids or with their servant, Mrs Grose (Barbara Marten). Mrs Grose is an ancient presence whose age is used as a tool to make you question whether she is human or not.

The Turning is said to be an adaptation of the Henry James novel The Turn of the Screw. However, evidence from actually watching The Turning indicates that this is merely an adaptation, or straight up rip-off, of every other creepy mansion horror movie ever made. The Turning hits every cliched beat from ghosts that slam doors just to slam doors to big ‘boo’ attempts at jump scares. Much like The Grudge, which was released in theaters just a month before The Turning, if you’ve never seen a horror movie before, the scares here might work.

The Turning was adapted by Carey and Chad Hayes who had incredible success with their scripts for The Conjuring movies. A successful pedigree however, is not enough to create a good script and the script for The Turning is lazy, misguided and uninspired. They’ve taken every cliche of the horror genre and added nothing to them. The boring and derivative quality of The Turning is inescapable as the movie lifts liberally from the mid-2000’s hit The Others starring Nicole Kidman and the relatively recent minor hit, The Woman in Black starring Daniel Radcliffe.

Then there is the ending of The Turning which I won’t spoil here. But, I will tell you that there really isn’t anything to spoil because an ending does not exist. It’s hard to explain but The Turning ends in a fashion that is utterly inexplicable. None of the threads of the plot are resolved when the movie smash cuts to the closing credits with no explanation, no set up, and nothing in the credits themselves to send audiences home with any notion of closure on this story.

The ending of The Turning reminded me of another terrible horror movie with a non-ending, the 2012 film The Devil Inside. That film, at the very, very, least had the kindness to end with a note to go to the film’s website to see the actual ending. I was too annoyed to actually go to the website but at least they appeared to have shot an ending to their story. The makers of The Turning simply slam on the brakes with some blink and you’ll miss it reveal and then the movie is over and the audience is left confused and annoyed.

How the makers of The Turning watched this ending and decided to release the movie as it is, is mind boggling. How did no one in the process of releasing The Turning miss the fact that the ending is completely incomprehensible? I could maybe reason out some of the more un-subtle story elements of The Turning and conjecture my way toward an explanation of the ending but The Turning isn’t good enough to warrant that level of effort.