Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

PippinInOz I agree with all of the previous four reviews here. Like another reviewer, I have been looking forwards to seeing this - absolutely LOVE 'The Innocents' and was curious as to how a contemporary film maker would interpret this. It aired as part of Christmas / New Year viewing in Australia on Foxtel's UK Channel.Where to begin?? Thought there was trouble brewing when it began in the asylum. Straight away the audience is given 'markers' as to how we are to interpret or 'read' this television film. To me, the story's power is it's AMBIGUITY! Immediately, this is undercut.Okay, they have decided to swap the setting to 1922 rather than Victorian England. Was willing to play along and give the film makers the benefit of the doubt, but alarm bells are going off. After all, Gothic and 19th Century England just go so beautifully don't they?! Quite apart from the fact that this is the historical period in which the novel is set. I have no problem with films and television programmes providing viewers with fresh contexts, but swapping the historical period was always going to be difficult. But no matter, I persevered. What really REALLY annoyed me - in no particular order:SPELLING EVERYTHING OUT. You know those B grade made for television (often Hallmark) films where the characters are given ridiculous lines of dialogue telling you everything - in case you might get to use your imagination and try to work something out for yourself? Well, you will recognise this modus operandi here. The sinister mysterious figure of the male that the governess 'sees' - transformed into a panto villain who keeps doing the 'HA HA HA!!!!' laugh. Spare us. Not scary, just irritating.The 'oh look at ye governess, she be havin' sexual fantasies about Master' scenes. What makes the original story so effective is the general repression of the Victorian era. The style of Gothic in literature has been interpreted as a way to express that which was repressed in the Victorian era. For example: see 'Wuthering Heights' amongst others. All feature violent, sexual, usually dark haired men - (Heathcliffe is a classic). The viewer should never be completely sure of how the governess is feeling about the male characters. This is about repression, not telling. That ancient gravestone when the Governess and the Housekeeper (Oh Sue Johnston - I love your work, but how in God's name did you get involved in this?) are supposed to be looking at the previous Governesses gravestone. She is only meant to have died recently and this gravestone looks like it's been there for centuries. A small goof perhaps, but this nicely sums up the general sloppiness. The poor child actors - pity them. They have no idea what is going on here at all. Suspect they were turning up for work in Studio 1 for a new version of 'Village of the Damned' but walked into Studio 2 by mistake, ending up in this. If you want to see an evocative version of this story, go and find a copy of 'The Innocents' - watch it a couple of times and see how your idea of just what happened in this house continually changes. It opens up interpretation rather than shut it down and spell it out. It will make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. This dogs dinner on the other hand will make you wonder why you bothered.

Conspirator Slash I hated the 20's costumes, this just NEEDS the fancy Victorian clothing! Also, automobiles? Stupid frame story? And using Voice Of The Legion, one of the worst horror tropes? No match to The Innocents - that was perfectly creepy and beautiful (Miles could have been prettier, but otherwise everything as it should be).Here? Meh. Adding random new characters was unnecessary.Music - can't even recall it. Go for the opera if you want the REAL music of this, also, Britten understood a lot more than this movie's director. It was not just about *possessing* children. It was more, at least in the case of Quint/Miles.

jc-osms I first read Henry James' chilling ghost story at a young age and have seen different versions of it both on stage and film and so was very keen to see this latest version put forward by the BBC in their winter season.The key to the story, in my opinion, is the doubt on whose truth here is real. Indeed when I first read the novella in my youth, it never occurred to me that the ghosts weren't "real" and not possibly a figment of an over-emotional young woman's imagination. Re-reads and re-viewings of the piece have brought me round to this, I think, intended more ambivalent (and ultimately satisfying) interpretation so that I was disappointed that that this high-production-value version seemed to cleave so much to the former viewpoint, i.e. that the malevolent spirits were real - this evidenced by the ghosts "appearing" in the imagination, for example of the young doctor who attempts to understand and salve the troubled mind of the disturbed young governess.Another source of confusion and disappointment was the transposition of events to post-First World War England. If the lead character had been a young man, just back from and possibly their mind affected by the war, then a case for this change of context, could be argued. In every other respect though, the film plays as if in a 19th Century time-line thus throwing the narrative off-kilter. I could also have done without the sub-Lady Chatterley cavortings of both the governess in her imagination with her new employer (who, good looks apart and a self-confessed seducer of previous servants and governesses), hardly seems able to be responsible for her graphic fantasising, as well as the crudely physical liaison that the phantoms Quint and Jessell portray.The film takes this shock-Gothic outlook to extremes with scenes suggesting the actual possession of the children by their malefactors but it's all done in a very sub-"The Exorcist" way and in the end I felt it wrong to come down so conclusively on the side of the demons.The acting was mixed in quality, the children unable to portray the duality of their personalities convincingly and the actor playing Quint lacking menace entirely. However, Michelle Dockery, as the stricken governess, was convincing in both appearance and conviction, with the omnipresent Sue Johnston a sympathetic foil as the bemused house-matron.There were some scares deftly inserted along the way, punctuated effectively by well-crafted background music, but as I said earlier, the modernising of the story to include the nudity and violence depicted here, overpowered, to me anyway, the thin line between fantasy and reality that served the original book so well.A great story, lost somewhat in this particular re-telling.

srm-1 Of all the programmes in this year's Christmas TV schedule, 'A Turn of the Screw' was the one that I was looking forward to most of all. Although not explicitly advertised as a "BBC Ghost Story for Christmas" that is exactly what it was: a BBC - ghost story - at Christmas. And with top director Tim Fywell at the helm, how could it possibly go wrong? Well, it did.Others might like to list all of the myriad small problems with this production but, for me, there were two major faults which rendered it almost unwatchable: firstly, the two child protagonists were neither enchanting nor engaging which made it impossible to sympathise, or care, about their situation. Secondly, the way that the governess either thought that she heard things, or thought that she saw things, almost every second of every scene of her time on screen meant that there was absolutely no build-up of tension or foreboding throughout the whole production. Ultimately, and disappointingly, it ended up being just a very boring and completely unsatisfying ninety minutes.Once again the true winter chills were to be found on BBC Four this year, with a re-run of the excellent 'Crooked House' and welcome screenings from the real master ghost storyteller - the other Mr. James.