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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