From the ghost genre, the plot shines with the use of uncertainty, creating a surprise factor as one waits to see what is going to happen. Not for nothing did it serve as a reference for The Others (2001).

The more the movie digs into the ambiguity around the haunting the more eerie and unsettling it gets. Also, this is probably Kerr's best performance.

Perhaps still the best version, IMO, to be based on James THE TURN OF THE SCREW. The ambiguity concerning whether the Governess actually sees Quint & Miss Jessel or whether her perceptions result from her own repressed mind are maintained as James intended except for with one particular instance. At one point the Governess hears crying & then when she finds it coming from the room with a piano she observes a tear on the keyboard. Pauline Kael called this tear ‘a pearl of ambiguity' & it does cause the viewer to, if only momentarily, believe in the actual ghostly presences which the Governess are claiming are real. I have seen quite a bit of Kerr's variety of film characterizations but this, IMO, is her ultimate achievement & the 2 children are splendidly unsettling especially Martin Stephens as young Miles. A year before this he was the leader of the alien children in VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED which was an equally fascinating & chilling portrayal as here. Choosing black & white cinematography instead of color adds to the combination of the natural beauty & sinister dread present in the films location. Capote's contribution to the adaptation is also a significant factor in this memorable film.

This old movie adapting Henry James's novel isn't very scary but it has scary good sets. The creation of Bly, the country house populated by a few servants and 2 orphan children left to the responsibility of an absentee London-based uncle, is stupendous, with beautiful woodwork, lovely formal spaces, spacious grounds, and spectacular leaded-glass windows everywhere you look.

The show is better but this faithful adaptation is also fun and rewatchable.

I first saw this when I was only 12. It stayed with me for days.

An old school horror film from before the days of cheesy effects and irritating musical stingers, The Innocents is atmospheric, foreboding and sinister, yet believable and low key. Much of the film is composed of conversations between our lead Miss Giddens and either the maid of the house she's working at, or the 2 children who live there. The tension is slowly built up as we learn more and more about the situation but are left constantly guessing about the eventual income. The simple direction and camerawork allows us to follow the lead without distraction, and Deborah Kerr's gives a fantastic performance as a sensible woman slowly unwinding thanks to forces she doesn't quite understand. The story elements have been subject to heavy analysis, but I wasn't interested in interpretation, I just wanted to see a horror film that actually scared me, and it truly did. There's one scene that was so unexpectedly frightening that I gripped the arm of my chair as goosebumps appeared all over my body. It's great to see a film that can made the audience quiver without dumb fake outs or jump scares. In The Innocents, it's all about the atmosphere, the incredible sound design and the images that make you feel truly unsettled. If you feel like watching it, I strongly recommend you do so with the lights on.

Haunted house movies create certain expectations in the viewer. Most of the scenes will be shot indoors to create a claustrophobic effect. External shots of the house will show it to be ugly and creepy. Internal shots will confirm the unpleasantness of the house. Indoors scenes will be dark and poorly-lit, creating the fear that something will lurch out of the gloom at any moment. The Innocents, Jack Clayton's 1961 adaptation of the Henry James story Turn of the Screw, has none of these features. The house and its environs are not especially ugly or creepy. In fact the setting makes The Innocents one of the most beautiful horror movies ever made. As if anxious not to waste a single centimetre of this idyllic setting, the film uses deep focus camera work, allowing us to see every detail on screen. The house contains many secret niches that are used to make it seem almost like one of the characters in the movie, an environment that is used to heighten certain scenes. Yet it looks lovely enough to feature in any costume drama. There are many outdoors scenes in this film, and the garden is lush with vegetation, and teaming with life. Butterflies and birds are seen. The fecundity of the estate at Bly contrasts with the virginal barrenness and sexual repression of the movie's heroine. The weather plays a part here too. There is heavy rain and gloomy misty days in keeping with the mood of the film, but more often the estate is bathed in bright sunlight. This sense of light applies to the scenes inside the house too. Certainly there is use of darkness and shadow, and even black paint on the side of the lens, often used for the many night-time scenes. Yet even the darkest of scenes is well-lit in the centre of the screen. Indeed the lighting in the film was so intense that its lead star Deborah Kerr was obliged to wear sunglasses between shooting. When scenes fade out here, they fade into white, not black. This is no spooky haunted house containing evil. Perhaps the darkness and evil lies inside ourselves, and not in the setting. There are two possible interpretations of what we are seeing – a supernatural one and a natural one. What is different about The Haunting is that the natural explanation for events is actually more frightening than the natural one. The supernatural reading of the film is that the two children have become the prey of two terrifying ghosts who have corrupted their innocence. The natural explanation is that everything in the film is in the imagination of their governess, Miss Giddens (Kerr). If this interpretation is true, a hyper-sensitive governess has been driven insane by the loneliness of the large house, and her delusions are pushing the two children to the point of nervous breakdown or death. Jack Clayton's film may be beautiful to look at, but it is one of the most haunting movies ever made, and not because it has ghosts in it. There is something frightening in the very premise of the movie. Children are supposed to be innocent. Women are expected to act in a nurturing way towards children. The expected behaviours are cast into doubt. A number of other effects are used to add to the atmosphere of menace. Eerie sound effects add echoes and high-pitched noises. Cameras are placed above or below the action to create an intimidating perspective. Staircases are used to allow us to look up or down on characters. Images linger on the screen like ghosts failing to immediately disappear when the next scene begins. Sometimes as many as four images are merged on the screen at once. Scenes frequently end by dissolving, rather than simply cutting. The result of this perfect combination of creepy style and content is that The Innocents is one of the best haunted house movies ever made, even if it is not clear whether it is the house that is haunted or the minds of the three unhappy characters at the centre of the story. I wrote a longer appreciation of The Innocents (with spoilers) on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2019/08/02/the-innocents-1961/

Wow. What a masterclass in horror and suspense done right. Loved every second of this film.

Sve je manji broj klasika, pogotovo u horor žanru, koji lepo i sablasno ostare vremenom. U podžanru "ukletih kuća" gotskog horora je to tek redak slučaj. Međutim, "The Innocents", adaptacija "Okretaja zavrtnja" Henrija Džejmsa iz 1961. to svakako jeste, 62 godine kasnije. Besprekorna režija, gluma na najvišem nivou na čelu sa Deborom Ker, scenario iza kog stoji čuveni Truman Kapoti, u kombinaciji su ostavili remek delo uklete ljubavi u viktorijanskoj vili, koje i danas naježi najsitnije delove kože oko kičme. Bez "jump scare"'-ova, protkan ambijentalnim užasom, mračnim uglovima, statičnim kadrovima koji lebde poput duhova po belom danu, ovo remek delo vredi pogledati i danas. U moru rimejkova, sikvela i nedostatka originalnih ideja, The Innocents vraća onu iskonsku jezu koji svaki kvalitetni "suspense" sa sobom nosi.

"Admit it! She's here, you know you can see her!" A classic psychological horror that uses atmosphere, creative cinematography, and shared perspective to put the audiences in the shoes of a character suffering from a haunting, or from a catastrophic mental collapse. Featuring considerable alterations from Truman Capote, this 1961 Jack Clayton adaptation twists what was once considered a popular if somewhat conventional ghost story into a far more subjective narrative, keeping the impact of the mental anguish but debating its cause. Though interpretations of the film are varied, it seems that both Deborah Kerr's Ms. Giddens and the two seemingly possessed children are victims of the restrained, socially conservative society that had been idealized in late Victorian England; the children were nominally provided for very well, but lacked the love and affection of a sincere parental figure, while the young and attractive Giddens, thrust into the role of a governess in her own sense of isolation cultivated from a young age (her parents teaching her a "love of children" and the implication of a career selected for her), is in a state of mental and sexual self-neglect that she feels obligated to perpetuate. Perhaps as the result of her more prolonged suffering, it's Giddens that ends up breaking, with her supposed desire to care for the young charges manifesting an eery supernatural threat. Perhaps the film is slightly protracted and repetitive in a few places, but it's also very much a boundary-pusher for its era and features real creativity both in the script and the camerawork. It's interesting to think about how Ms. Giddens has seen a portrait of Peter Quint but not Miss Jessel, the two 'ghosts' supposedly haunting the manor and the children; Quint is the only one seen in close proximity with detailed features, while Jessel is always seen either shrouded or far away. Very clever. (4/5)

Barely a year seems to go by without someone making an attempt to adapt Henry James's novella. None to date has been as good as this version, 1961's The Innocents, starring the brilliant Deborah Kerr. It is one of the best examples in atmosphere-building I've seen in a film. That it's filmed in black and white helps rather than hinders in this regard, as does the choice of setting. Freddie Francis deservedly won an Oscar for his cinematography work on the film. Kerr is on top form as the main protagonist. Martin Stephens, as Miles, puts in an unnerving performance. For anyone who admires the James novella, and for anyone who enjoys good psychological horror, this should be at the top of the list of movies to see.

The Innocents is the not-so-innocent perfect horror film, and Capote's screenplay runs laps around the Netflix "adaptation" (I use that word VERY loosely).

A clever, tense, stylish ghost story which masterfully turns the audience's screws ever tighter, The Innocents is one of those films which leaves you mulling it over long after the end credits have played.

Brilliant, perhaps definitive, adaptation of The Turn Of The Screw which masterfully creates and sustains an atmosphere of ambiguity, fear and dread throughout. The entirety of the small cast is superb, but pride of place belongs to Deborah Kerr's tour de force in the lead role. The cinematography is essential here, the framing of shots and masterful touches key to the entire feel of the piece

Classic spooky. The actress did such a great job.

The film looks modern with nearly every frame and ratchets up the supernatural tension with some intelligence and very steady direction from Jack Clayton.

Like Robert Wise's The Haunting, The Innocents is one of the better haunted house movies from the rash of them that were released in the late 50s and early 60s. Deborah Kerr plays a governess who is dispatched to a remote country estate to care for two children, both of whom are prone to some distinctly creepy behavior. The film quickly establishes an ominous atmosphere thanks to some great lighting, creative cinematography from the great Freddie Francis, and solid performances from the two child actors (Pamela Franklin and Martin Stephens). Deborah Kerr tends to ham it up a bit too much, but that's a small price to pay for such an intense supernatural thriller.

- Miss Giddens, may I ask you a somewhat personal question? Do you have an imagination? = Oh! Oh, yes, I can answer that. Yes. - Good. With that Miss Giddens seems to be fitting to take up the position of governess to two orphans. It's like being "imaginative" is the only caveat the kids' uncle has towards Ms. Giddens having the job, even if this is, in fact, her first position. Quite hesitant at first, Giddens agrees to be a governess for his nephew and niece, as she finds him "most persuasive." From the reclusive aristocratic bachelor, to the old mansion that Giddens is flabbergasted by its vastness, to the ominous sense that's been established in the first twenty minutes by the inexplicable occurrences and a sense of foreboding, the film is full to the brim with Gothic elements that just keep heightening as the story proceeds. Thematic spoilers ahead! The Innocents has a lot of themes that's inextricably linked to its Gothic style. First, hiding the secret that's fostered by the intentional repression of imagination. Mrs. Grose always tells the children to "pretend" they heard nothing whenever disconcerting noise blare at night, and it's only in a slip of the tongue that she gives away a glimpse of Bly's secretive quality to Miss Giddens. Considering her well intention, we can deduce she's nursing a secret that can entail grave repercussions. As the Uncle says early on, "Truth is very seldom understood by any but imaginative person," and Mrs. Grose tries her best to block even the faintest hint of imaginative thinking to bury the unwelcome truth. Another thing that could also be inferred from the Uncle's quote is that Miss Giddens is set up by him for a task, which is bringing this truth to light. The increasingly claustrophobic interiors of the mansion, and the environment as a whole, asseverate said suppression while contributing to Miss Giddens doubting her sanity. In the house, Giddens also often appears as if confined by light; when outdoors, the incandescent sunlight is depicted as a blinding glint that obstructs Gidden's vision and, thus, making what she aims to see as a blurry unattainable mirage. There's something about omnipresence as well. Flora once mentions to her governess that the idea of someone could be sleeping in different beds at the same time crosses her mind. Later, she asks Giddens if she's in the picture of Giddens' family. That slowly paves the way for the whole 'haunted house' thing story-wise, and makes us ready for some spectres and apparitions that, personally, scared the hell out of me! Speaking of which, Freddie Francis, the cinematographer, utilises the double exposure technique quite to great effect, blinding in superimposed images to create some impressive ghostly shots. That's not to mention that almost every scene-to-scene transition is a dissolving transition that lingers on the screen for more than usual. One more technique that's adeptly implemented is the deep focus, and it's so sharp it could be easily confused for being shot with a split-diopter lens. It keeps both characters in frame, juxtaposing Miss Giddens' bewilderment with the children's baffling indifference. Furthermore, it also suggests something sinister is cooking while lurking beneath the surface. We also get plenty uses of ingenious foreshadowing throughout that go hand in hand with amping up the tension and feel of unease. For instance, there is a slow-motion scene of a cockroach slithering out of a statue of an angelic baby followed by yet another slow-motion scene of pigeons flying by the tower. Both lend a sense of discomfort, but the former, in particular, emphatically foreshadows there's something not-so-innocent about the children. The 'O, Willow Waly' song is a recurring refrain. Whether it's hummed by Flora or played by a music box, it's as spine-chilling as it's implicitly melancholic, betraying a sense of sadness that has to do with the ambiguity of the film. All of these are quintessentially features of Gothic horror. What keep it away from earning a full-mark rating is that the detective diversion the story took near its denouement seemed a forced detour to get the conflict easily resolved, while also resulting in some exposition moments that are a bit out-of-character for a central character in the story. Putting that aside, The Innocents is the epitome of classic Gothic films that I've been craving for a long time, and I'd be hard-pressed to say there's any other film that had scratched my itch that perfectly.

Classic British horror film that starts promisingly and ends with a dated, anti climax. Has not aged well. Not particularly scary, mildly creepy at best.