"The Innocents" (1961) probably holds up better than most old horror movies. The frightening elements are psychosexual, but in a subtle, layered way--and it's subtle not just because the movie is old. If the undertones were any stronger--even if the film were made today--it would've become instant camp. (This isn't to say that a campy version wouldn't be entertaining.)
"The Innocents" is based on Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw" (1898), which I started reading awhile back, but I was so bored with the prologue that I gave up--a mistake, perhaps, that I should rectify. (The change in name does more than make the title sleeker.) Deborah Kerr plays the young-and-pretty preacher's daughter, Miss Giddens, who goes off to an English manor and becomes the governess for a pair of orphans whose uncle willfully neglects them. She begins to see visions of the children's deceased former governess and the estate's deceased valet who, according to the good-hearted maid (Megs Jenkins), were lewd, flawed people. The former governess was obsessively, masochistically in love with the n'er-do-well valet, a cruel, abusive man who had a Rasputin-like appeal and influence. The maid is ashamed to tell Miss Giddens of their proclivity to make love when and wherever they wanted--even if the innocent children were watching. In a scene that the director, Jack Clayton, cleverly withholds from us, Miss Giddens somehow learns from her predecessor that the old governess and valet can only be together (sexually) if they possess the children; the lecherous elders were, of course, the isolated kids' idols, and Flora and Miles seem to have taken on some of the lovers' characteristics (Miles, for instance, flirts with Miss Giddens and kisses her lips good night). Giddens, who exhibits no sexual urges of her own, wishes to protect the children and believes that if the truth can be wrung out of them they'll be saved. The children claim to not see the ghosts when Miss Giddens does, and the maid is content to not wake the children from this bad dream; she doesn't see the specters either, and is skeptical of Miss Giddens, but minds the governess's authority. It's never resolved whether ghosts are present and Giddens's truth-bating does not go as planned.
The Victorian writing and setting, and the early-’60s production enrich and confound the sexual analogies. The children are referred to as "the innocents," but, if Miss Giddens is correct, they've been unwittingly corrupted. But is our virtuous, virginal heroine correct? Is the maid right in trying not to disturb the children’s' idyll, and what would it mean if she did? Since we're not clear on whether their excessively childlike behavior is really "innocent" or, in actuality, corrupted, we're not sure whether Miss Giddens' virtue is devoted to postponing their sexual awakening or whether or not that is a good or bad thing. If Giddens is right, then their sexuality is improper (both by Victorian and modern standards): possessed, the kids are made to be incestuous. However, they show no tangible signs of being truly harmed, and, as with many horror movies, we're forced to doubt the supernatural as much as we are made to believe in it. Although the movie never truly "frightened" me, I think its leaving me with these questions was enough to make it a chilling, intellectual and satisfactory experience.
The direction is simple and fluid and even Clayton's montages hardly seem dated (although sometimes the tendentious score does). Freddie Francis's vivid grayscale photography doesn't hurt (although the framing itself is hurt when not presented in its proper aspect ratio) and neither does the traditionally Victorian production design. Also, I'm sure that the film owes a lot to Truman Capote, who co-wrote the movie with John Mortimer and William Archibald in the midst of writing "In Cold Blood"--his spaciousness and journalistic formality in that book fit snugly here.
"The Innocents" in mood and manner has left its mark on more recent psychological-horror movies like "The Shining" and "The Others." If those movies appeal to you, then don't let this one's age be an impediment to your seeing it.
