THE TURNING (2020) FILM REVIEW

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15, 99 Mins

A cop-out ending isn't the only thing that'd have Henry James "turning" in his grave...

If you want physical proof that a film's ending can completely "turn" around your opinion of the entire product, 'The Turning' (2020) is that in its most enraging form. Watching this cut to black, I went from merely underwhelmed to the level of livid that I wanted claw the screen to shreds! It's the kind of cop-out conclusion that makes 'Game of Thrones's corn-blazed finale look like Homer's 'The Iliad'. The result of either film-maker laziness or the cash-hungry cravings for yet another lifeless franchise...

I will try my utmost to remain objective with this review which means not dwelling on the bitter aftertaste left by undoubtedly the worst final minutes of any work in living memory. Any intrigue about the prospect of a contemporary adaptation of Henry James's classic chiller 'The Turn of the Screw' can be swiftly discarded. This is a mass-produced horror movie in all the worst senses with idle jump scares, a supremely unmenacing haunted house and a heavily objectified attractive woman whose pretty face is constantly bloodied, sweated and teared by the rather irritating interjection of bogeymen behind doors.

The attractive woman is McKenzie Davis who makes her best out of a retrograde role; remarkably managing to keep a straight face amid the tired conventions. She plays Kate - a former school teacher who leaves her job to become a governess to two children (Brooklyn Prince and Finn Wolfhard) housed in a "spooky" Victorian mansion. The youngest of the two kids Flora (Prince) has your standard dose of phobias, but it's the elder one (Wolfhard) who's the real wrong un' as he spends his spare time perving on Davis's Kate in her sleep. He's also apparently in touch with the spirit realm which has ghoulish apparitions hiding in every cliched corner, cupboard and crevas of this house...

The film's greatest lacking is the one thing that simplistically makes the horror genre tick - being scary. Sure it can jab you with a cattle prod all it likes, but there's no effort going into building an ominous atmosphere through the ambience, sounds and settings that its literary predecessor excelled in. Every time it prods you therefore is essentially like getting a bee sting - it shakes you a little, but you forget about it within seconds.

'The Turning' has its genesis in one of the most iconic ghost stories ever written. A novel which has inspired everything from 'The Haunting (1963) to 'Ringu' (1999) to 'The Conjuring' (2013). And yet - despite its roots coming before all these movies - every single trope in this film's book feels utterly derrivative of every horror film in the past 50 years. You'll find yourself playing a game of "spot the rip off"; wanting to shout "Hey! look! It's the haunted house" from 'The Haunting!". "Hey! look! See the interminable jump scares from 'The Conjuring' and 'Insidious' (2011)?!". "Hey! look! There's the creepy kids from 'The Exorcist' (1973)​!". In a better constructed movie, these references would be warm homages. However all this soulless and mechanical beast did was make me wish I was watching all those other movies it shamefully riffs of...And I don't ever say that about 'The Conjuring' or 'Insidious'!

As for the blonde damsel in distress at 'The Turning's centre, this is an appalling step backwards into the genre's un-PC back-catalogue. Last year 'Ready or Not' (2019) subverted this concept by having Samara Weaving's bloodthirsty bride strapped with shotgun bullets to her shoulder and shootin' the crap out of everything living in her path. 'The Turning' alternatively serves as a reminder of how not to do a horror heroine. Davis spends most of this movie skipping around in her undies and just the thought of her being sexualised by a teenage boy?! Let's not even go there...Safe to say, it's a disgraceful and distasteful waste of a talented actress.

Add all this to the laziest, most utterly inept ending of all time that will make even the stupidest viewers go "WHAT THE BLOOMIN' F**K!" and I'll be hard-pressed to find a worse cinematic experience all year. It's arguably not as nasty or as toxic as 'The Gentlemen' (2020), but at least Guy Ritchie's bullying sensibility knew how to frickin' end! This will truly leave Henry James "turning" in his grave...
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