Friday, April 24, 2020

The Turning


The Turning                                                                B
This recent film is one of several based on the famous (I don’t want to say classic since that’s a subjective term) story, “The Turn of the Screw,” by Henry James.  According to Wikipedia, there have been three other film adaptations and four TV versions (one being the upcoming second season of The Haunting of Hill House).  I’ve never read the story (never really had a desire to) and the only other version I’ve seen was The Innocents (1961), a film I know I saw but can’t remember a damn thing about.  Therefore, I judged this film on its own terms since I had nothing to compare to while watching.  A young woman goes to live in a large house to watch over two orphaned children, a young girl and a teenage boy; a maid also lives there.  Upon entering the grounds, we notice a bunch of severed doll heads lying about.  Horror Movies 101 would tell you that’s not a good sign.  We learn the boy (played by Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard) was expelled for assaulting another boy, plus he’s nothing but rude to the nanny and he’s abusive to animals.  Horror Movies 101, or just Movies 101, would tell you that’s not a good sign.  The little girl is afraid to leave the property and we’re informed it’s due to what happened to her parents, but Horror Movies 101 would clearly tell us something else is the cause.    It ended abruptly and while I think I may have made an interpretation, that interpretation was a bit anticlimactic and parallel to an ‘it was only a dream’ conclusion.  This poop works neither as a haunted house movie nor as an evil kid movie.  I wonder if I should even bother reading the Henry James story…4/23/2020


Bonus review:


Freeway II:  Confessions of a Trickbaby                    OK
I recently re-watched Freeway (1996), starring Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland, and realized I never saw this sequel released in 1999.  This bears no relation to its predecessor other than being helmed by the same director (Matthew Bright) and Freeway playing on a TV at one time (wink, wink).  Both films feature young women escaping from a prison and facing adversity on the way to their desired destinations, but whereas Freeway was a clever update on “Little Red Riding Hood,” this film made a few references to “Hansel and Gretel” (and one to “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”), but wasn’t as thorough an update.  It does get a bit dark towards the end and the film is okay in a trashy kind of way (a scene involving bulimic women binge-eating and taking turns purging into a bucket is certainly in poor taste), but Freeway is definitely the better film.  Watch that first (if you haven’t already) and then watch this unrelated sequel if you feel you must (both are available on Tubi).  Or, for a better movie released in 1999 featuring Natasha Lyonne, watch Detroit Rock City or American Pie or But I’m a Cheerleader.  4/16/2020


---Sean O.
4/24/2020

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