The Innocents

1961 Directed by Jack Clayton

Apparitions? Evils? Corruptions?

A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.

Deborah Kerr Peter Wyngarde Megs Jenkins Michael Redgrave Martin Stephens Pamela Franklin Clytie Jessop Isla Cameron Eric Woodburn

Country

Language

English

Alternative Titles

The Turn of the Screw, Os Inocentes, Schloß des Schreckens, Невинные

horror thriller history

100 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Aaron ★★★★★ 32

Part of Hoop-Tober
“But they haven’t been good, merely easy to live with.”
Beware the well-read virgin. So the saying goes. The imagination will be well lubricated by the endless tomes over which she has pored. She will know of the world, but will not be a part of it—what is worse, she will see this as a virtue rather than a liability. Hers will be a conviction that treats faith as the evidence of things unseen, an unseemly melding of hope and conclusion and fancy into an irrefutable approximation of truth. She will insist upon nothing but the best from people, and will assume nothing but the worst.
Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr, in a tour de force performance) is…
Review by allain ★★★★★ 15

SINEGANG WEEK #9, picked by ice
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This is peak ambiguity in cinematic form. Derived from Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, The Innocents is a psychological horror film revolving around a governess slowly losing her mind as she thinks that the children she is taking care of are being possessed by the dead. The profound music score and the prepossessing cinematography transformed the 1898 novella into, dare I say, the most equivocal film to date, touching subjects like seclusion and sexual repression in a contentious yet terrifying manner. The lingering uncanny shots can drive someone’s claustrophobia to a maximum and the ending posed multiple symbolisms that was left for…
Review by Quintin 📽 Philipson ★★★★ 3

The Innocents does a great job creating a horrifying atmosphere between the protagonist and these two children. Most modern films use children to have a cheap way to have jump scares or have the kids say creepy things. I find children in horror films to be extremely annoying and overdone; however, in this film they genuinely make us uncomfortable with the lead.
There are a lot of great shots and terrifying scenes that are accompanied by a creepy score... but by far the most unsettling moment is when the maid thought a frog and turtle look the same.
Don't trust someone that can't tell there difference between a turtle and a fucking frog.
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Review by Siegel™ ★★★ 9

Masterfully establishes an atmosphere that is simultaneously beautiful and unsettling through the sets, costumes and cinematography, it is a film that focuses not on the horrors of fear - that which has some horrifying object about it and can thusly be overcome; but rather on the horrors of angst - the abject terror of the unconquerable unknown. It is an equally fascinating and haunting experience, but one whose story did not draw me in. I can appreciate this movie, but I didn't really get anything out of it.
Review by josh lewis ★★★★★ 4

what the fuck
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 10

100
Orgasmic. A stifling scream of sexual release and emerging demons. The greatest CinemaScope film - with Victorian "larger at night" chambers and hallways enclosing their grasp on the suffocated. Let go.
Review by 🌻✨ Andi ✨🌻 ★★★★ 3

Sinegang Weekly Pick #9
By Isee Icy Ice
I put this off for too long. The Innocents is a film that is able to carry its praises and credibility despite all the years that has passed, and can absolutely hold up a light to modern audiences despite horror being one of the more subjective of genres. From the opening credits of a ghostly voice singing O Willow Waly to the repressed hysteria that follows you throughout your viewing experience, The Innocents is a plausible fine piece of horror cinema, and is criminally under-seen as a classic of its genre.
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Recommend Me Films
Review by josh lewis ★★★★★ 2

a story about a haunted estate swallowing children or a sexually repressed weirdo (who loves kids a bit too much) violently projecting her overprotective fantasies onto them? regardless, would be my first pick towards a problematic age gap canon. also has some of the best cinemascope and b&w photography of all time.
Review by kailey ★★★★ 6

me: decides to watch a legendary horror movie
legendary horror movie: is scary
me: shocked pikachu face
ghosts don't haunt places, they haunt people. forgive me a disagreement but i think they haunt both. from the beginning, there's something just a little off about the governess hired to take care of two orphaned children by their uncaring uncle. she's a little fluttery, a little too old to be unmarried, a little too eager to prove that she truly does love and cherish children. from the beginning, there's something a little off about the house she arrives at to begin her duties. there's a lake and a gazebo and too many rooms and far too many candles. there's something empty and…
Review by cuckoochanel ★★★★½ 9

SHOCKtober Day 13 of 31
My lifelong attraction to fashion began from a childhood filled with a visual buffet of sartorial inspiration—from music videos to the costume dramas I would often watch with my mother. Period dress has always stoked my whimsical sensibilities, and to this day I will happily watch any period piece put in front of me (particularly those of English origin), and Jack Clayton’s gothic ghost story, The Innocents, was no different. Based on the Henry James novella, The Turn of the Screw, this ambiguous psychological horror marries the technical with the textual, the ephemeral with the eternal, the supernatural with the cerebral in an aesthetically-driven manner that highlights its enigmatic themes with a morphing couture symbolism.…
Review by davidehrlich ★★★★½

“I can’t judge you, Miss. A body can only judge themselves.”
everything that's wrong with modern horror movies, and then some. the new Criterion blu-ray is a thing to behold, i tell ya. full review on the AV Club next week.
Review by Austin Lord ★★★★½ 10

An excellently crafted horror film that does an incredible job at building tension and genuine horror. Some shots in this film are eerie and have still been on my mind after watching this, and the child actors are really great in this. The children were the scariest part about this film, something about children exhibiting maturity far past where they should be really got under my skin, and it felt like the kids had total ownership of all interactions. Even after the film, I'm not even entirely sure what to make of the story or the meaning of what I saw, but the atmosphere was on another level.

Recent reviews

Review by Michael Cox ★★★★

"I want to save the children, not destroy them." - Miss Gibbens
This was suggested by Andrea as a part of the film of the week for the Film Club. If you want to see all of the films I've watched for the Film Club, click here along with my ranking of each.
We're just watching two suspenseful horror films back to back, huh? That's what I like.
An illusion of innocence. That's what children are to society. An illusion of innocence. What I mean by this statement is that, we as a society often depict kids as these little angels. Angels that cannot make mistakes or often don't mean harm because they either don't know better or we expect…
Review by Victor González ★★★★★

Hace unos meses me vi la nueva adaptación de esta historia basada en un libro disponible en Netflix llamada (The Haunting of Bly Manor), quede sorprendido de lo mucho que la serie de Netflix es fiel a la película (o al libro, aun no lo he leído), esta película a pesar de no ser de un terror paralizante si es buen drama fantasmagórico en una mansion gigantesca de la era Victoriana de Reino Unido.
La version reciente de Netflix es mucho más explicativa y ahonda en detalles por la naturaleza de su formato (serie de TV) pero la version original de 1961 recae mucho en efectos de camara como el enfoque profundo (deep focus) y el juego de luces que…
Review by mujanovic ★★★★½

Handsome ghost gives the governess a major case of lady blueballs so she dishes out some tough love on those creepy kids. Housekeeper rethinking her career choices.
Review by pėdrö ★★★★★

But above anything else, I love the children.
a cinematografia é simplesmente fantástica e o suspense me envolveu até o final, criando uma ótima atmosfera de terror. devo dizer também que as atuações mirins me surpreenderam, muito bem feitas! é um longa excelente e foi uma experiência sublime o assistir.
Review by Austin Lord ★★★★½ 10

An excellently crafted horror film that does an incredible job at building tension and genuine horror. Some shots in this film are eerie and have still been on my mind after watching this, and the child actors are really great in this. The children were the scariest part about this film, something about children exhibiting maturity far past where they should be really got under my skin, and it felt like the kids had total ownership of all interactions. Even after the film, I'm not even entirely sure what to make of the story or the meaning of what I saw, but the atmosphere was on another level.
Review by Lauren Price ★★★★½

And here was me thinking The Haunting of Bly Manor was wild
Review by Syadiq ★★★★★

This was totally the opposite of Jigoku which was on your face. The innocents is much subtle and it crawl under my skin.
Review by Jordan ★★★½

Horror can be fun, or it can be deeply unsettling. This is 100% the latter. Thanks to eerie direction and unhinged performances, The Innocents gets under your skin pretty quickly and never lets you relax. The atmospheric elements were more effective for me than the dark allegory in its themes and relationships. But even as someone who doesn't cozy up to this specific genre in horror, I admire quite a bit of its tension and technique.
Review by DerBoi ★★★★★

My gf didn't let me turn off the lights in this one. I think that's enough to say about the horror quality of this film. Capote was involved in the screenwriting process, creating the imagery that was missing from the initial adaptations of the book "The Turn of the Screw" from Henry James, as well as from the theater play "The Innocents". I gotta admit as well that the music and sound ques, in conjunction with the amazing work with the lense frames and the black and white coloring and lighting, PLUS the amazing actors (specially the kids) were just elemental to forge this supernatural film.
Review by Quintin 📽 Philipson ★★★★ 3

The Innocents does a great job creating a horrifying atmosphere between the protagonist and these two children. Most modern films use children to have a cheap way to have jump scares or have the kids say creepy things. I find children in horror films to be extremely annoying and overdone; however, in this film they genuinely make us uncomfortable with the lead.
There are a lot of great shots and terrifying scenes that are accompanied by a creepy score... but by far the most unsettling moment is when the maid thought a frog and turtle look the same.
Don't trust someone that can't tell there difference between a turtle and a fucking frog.
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Film Club Movies Ranked
Review by Obamm ★★★★★

Best Horror Film Of The Sixties. And I Would Even Argue That This Is The Best Of All Time. The Cinematography Is Great, And Its Actually Scary, I Mean This Movie Is Just Perfect. Other 60's Horror Films That I Like Are "Eyes Without A Face", "Carnival Of Souls" And "Hour Of The Wolf" Or "Black Sunday". Oh. And "The Haunting" Is Just Like This Movie's Sibling.
Review by Siegel™ ★★★ 9

Masterfully establishes an atmosphere that is simultaneously beautiful and unsettling through the sets, costumes and cinematography, it is a film that focuses not on the horrors of fear - that which has some horrifying object about it and can thusly be overcome; but rather on the horrors of angst - the abject terror of the unconquerable unknown. It is an equally fascinating and haunting experience, but one whose story did not draw me in. I can appreciate this movie, but I didn't really get anything out of it.