The Innocents

Steel from the best, right? Also, I love there's a touch of Shakespeare's The Temptress in there for these lovers of The Great Bard.

I want to check out that Spanish take on The Turn of the Screw.

I'm a bit obsessed with this creepy novella.

I adore Jack Clayton's adaptation, of course.

Like a year apart, basically, a year and a half apart.

But yeah, it's like the turn of the screw or also the classic film version, The Innocents.

Or for another modern take on that, the Netflix horror series The Haunting of Bly Manor, written and directed by Mike Flanagan, who's writing Clayface.

Yes, I need to watch that.

Uh, what is that? Uh, pro films interview with pro films, producer and sales executive, Louise Fernando, uh, inheritance is horror blood tradition in the gothic and the dracula saga video essay by kate ellinger author of daughter of darkness she does really well with this puts a lot of that stuff that i said about the hereditary horror which i like i i love that idea right where you're like oh i'm cursed because my family lineage or i'm cursed to be doomed because my brain is is fucked up because my family and who i am and i can't escape my fate and that's always something that's scary and this one hell what if you're related to the fucking dracula's you can't uh looks great sounds great i think this one had english and uh spanish if i'm not mistaken yeah you can do english and spanish with optional subtitles i think i i you know usually in italian i always watch it in english because the the post dubbing and stuff in spain sometimes they go back and forth and i think i did this one in spanish sometimes they work a little bit better in spanish sometimes they don't i think this one worked better in spanish uh but yeah good stuff good dracula and they talk about how much that they really enjoyed the dracula and how much other people think the dracula is really strong in this one i do think he's good i do think he's pretty solid Alright, here's another one here in the final film in the Danza Macabra Volume 5 Spanish Gothic.

And this is Eloy de la Iglesia's The Turn of the Screw, based of course on the classic novel that The Innocents was turned into.

And Turn of the Screw has been done several times.

throughout the years.

Half Price Horror is a spoiler-heavy podcast that takes a deep dive into scary movies curated by the selection at the local Half Price bookstore.

I'm your host, John, and today we'll be taking a look at The Innocents from 1961, adapted by William Archibald and Truman Capote from the play of the same name, with additional dialogue by John Mortimer and directed by Jack Clayton.

Although it must be said that the play itself is an adaptation of the 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, which was originally published in serial form in Collier's Weekly but was collected that same year.

It was a popular story almost immediately, and certainly people spotted the potential of an unreliable narrative right from the beginning, The story is told from the point of view of a young woman hired as governess to two orphans living in a mansion in the countryside, and everyone else denies seeing the ghost she continually spots haunting the estate.

The first sentence is, "...the story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless." but accept the obvious remark that it was gruesome as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.

Like, I love run-on sentences as much as the next guy, but that's just an explosion in the comma factory.

William Archibald's 1950 stage play The Innocents actually pushed back against this interpretation, giving a physical presence to the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel by casting actors for their roles, and it was directed by the legendary playwright, actor, and director Harold Pinter in its initial Broadway run, giving it considerable acclaim and attention.

That attracted Jack Clayton, who was at the time a production manager and associate producer on a number of films as well as a burgeoning director.

Yeah.

Jack Clayton's The Innocents.

More recently, uh, Personal Shopper with Kristen Stewart.

Just I, I, I, I love the notion of taking ghost stories and folklore and these things that are part of, like, traditions that now seem antiquated-

Released by Disney, before the animation renaissance brought the studio back to life.

This Ray Bradbury adaptation, which Bradbury himself scripted for the director Jack Clayton, who did The Innocents, was another troubled production, that died at the box office, but Something Wicked This Way Comes has gained a cult reputation over the years for its spooky, evocative portrait of a wholesome town threatened by its supernatural evil.

Set in mid-century rural Illinois, the film follows two sons of single parents, Jason Robards for one and Diane Ladd for the other, who tried to thwart the temptations of a mysterious carnival.

Janet Maslin called it, quote, a lively, entertaining tale combining boyishness and grown-up horror in equal measure, unquote.

It's been made into a movie a hundred times.

The best movie made of it was The Innocents in the 60s with Deborah Carr.

It is, again, one of the most classic ghost stories.

So I just reread it about two months ago and it still holds up.