More gothic folklore than gruesome gore, Jack Clayton’s beautifully haunting (and hauntingly beautiful) 1961 film, The Innocents is high-art psychological horror. Co-written by William Archibald and Truman Capote, the film is based on the 1898 Henry James story, The Turn of the Screw.

Day or Fright

Throughout the crisp, black-and-white film there are a number of bone-chilling scenes. The manor and its grounds become settings for strange goings-on, ones not solely reserved for the nighttime, when fatigue, shadows and imagination can get the best of someone, but in broad daylight as well, often with others nearby. But what is real, and who is credible? In the film’s first line, a sense of doubt is immediately placed upon the viewer toward Miss Giddens, when the children’s uncle asks her during the interview for the governess position: “Do you have an imagination?” An almost embarrassed Giddens replies with a yes. As the film progresses: To believe or not to believe her, that becomes the subsequent question in the viewer’s mind.

Depth of Fear

Brother and Sinister

And the horrors continue through the film’s dizzying conclusion (or disturbing connection to its beginning, as described earlier), one that is both spine-tingling and heavyhearted, where the secretive becomes communicative, the whispery reaches its crescendo, the indecent once again innocent.