Well, just when I thought Dolittle was going to be the most January movie of January and that the Grudge reboot was going to be the annual January stinker horror flick, The Turning comes and handily sweeps both of these distinctions.
This actually isn’t too surprising, though, since this film has had quite the bad production history and the trailer did it no favors. With Alfre Woodward originally signed on to star before suddenly leaving, a change in directors and writers, and Steven Speilberg going from calling producing the film a passion project before pulling the plug on initial production and then going quiet altogether, it seemed that this adaption of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw was destined to be problematic. Even when the trailer dropped, the film looked incredibly corny and I could barely piece together what the film was about. However, for the first act or so, I was genuinely surprised with how The Turning starts on such a promising note.
The initial set-up of a young nanny, Kate (Mackenzie Davis), going to her first live-in job to take care of two orphans, Miles (Finn Wolfhard) and Flora (Brooklyn Prince), is pretty solid. Davis and Prince have a very likable and genuine charm and I liked seeing Wolfhard play a more villainous character. The corny line delivery in the trailer is replaced with darker, more interesting lines that set a nice tone. Even the set design of the lavish gothic mansion and estate is very eye-catching and sets up what could be a fun horror experience. However, this promising start is completely squandered by the confounding mess that follows.
First off, The Turning has absolutely no plot and it makes the solid start feel like a trick to string viewers along. It’s hard not to find yourself wondering what the hell is happening and where things are going. Most of the time, there’s pretty much nothing happening on-screen, and the film is an absolute bore because there’s no real character development and barely any scary moments. It’s incapable of deciding whether or not it wants to be a psychological thriller or a supernatural horror story, so it tries to do both and completely fails.
The ending is probably the worst part, as it just leaves viewers disappointed, confused, and completely unsatisfied. There literally wasn’t a single person in my theater that didn’t have their hands raised in a WTF fashion and asking the person next to them what the hell just happened. One person even called the experience “completely pointless” as they left and it’s honestly the perfect way to describe The Turning.
Even the performances take a noticeable hit as you realize that the initial charm is the only thing making you kind of care about these characters. Davis does all she can to make Kate an interestingly likable lead, but she’s really just your run-of-the-mill final girl. Wolfhard just becomes your generic “bad kid” that tries to be mysterious and deep but is really just boring and shallow. Really, that’s the best way to describe the film, it wants to be as mysterious and deep as some kind of arthouse film but doesn’t even come close to having the complexity or depth necessary. Instead, it ends up being just as corny and confusing as it looked in the trailer and there’s very little to even please the most basic of horror fans.
It really doesn’t even have the solid or unique scares to be a decent horror movie either, as its ghosts are incredibly blurry and look terrible and its scares are just jump scares. Aside from a few solid sequences, The Turning brings nothing new to the table and only tries to up its creepiness by constantly showing the estate. It’s like it really wants you to be impressed with how it looks, but it never actually works.
Hopefully the worst of January has come with The Turning because it’s really bad. There’s not much to enjoy and there are just so many better movies out there, like just about anything, so it’s definitely a sure-fire skip.
