The Guardian
Everything is very ham-fisted and crass, with nothing like the ambiguous shimmer of the original story or the style and elegance of the 1961 Jack Clayton film version...
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The Turning (2020)
Two disturbed orphans terrorise their nanny (Mackenzie Davis, Tully) in this supernatural horror co-executive-produced by Steven Spielberg.
A young governess (Davis) is hired by a man to care for his young, newly orphaned nephew and niece after the deaths of their parents. But it isn't long before she realises that the children are harbouring dark secrets...
2020Rating: R1694 minsUSA
Horror
The Turning (2020) / Reviews
The Times
The elements are familiar - jump scares, creaking doors, mutilated dolls, tailor's dummies, reflections in mirrors and windows - but they are combined with skill. The hairs on my arms rose at least twice.
Full reviewDaily Telegraph
The plot doesn't allow for an ebb and flow of tension, but instead serves up a steady parade of clunks and whoos and creepy dolls that quickly becomes tedious.
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The New York Times
It's the movie's open-endedness and literary vestiges that sit uneasily with its repetitive goosings, which manifest in exceedingly familiar ways.
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Screen Daily
Expect smart horror fans to avoid it - and and smarter ones to seek out the definitive version of the tale, Jack Clayton's old, elegantly elusive The Innocents.
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Hollywood Reporter
The Turning sacrifices narrative and emotional coherence in favour of a series of would-be scary set pieces that seem mainly designed to discourage aspiring nannies from pursuing the vocation.
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Variety
Lacking spine-tingling dread, taut tension, and the deservingly provocative ending needed to make its modern sentiments land, this re-imagining is less than a classic.
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