Die Besessenen

"The Innocents" (1961) is an ambiguous ghost story with the magnificent Deborah Kerr in the lead role. "The Nightcomers" (1971), with Marlon Brandon, explains the behavior of Flora and Miles in "The Innocents". Unfortunately, "The Turning" is a poor remake of "The Innocents" without any explanation of the original story. The conclusion is ridiculous (or inexistent) and never provides the ambiguity of the original film to the viewer. The performances are not bad but the screenplay is terrible and forgettable. If the viewer seeks out an explanation for the story, reads the plot and reviews of the original film to understand the plot. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Os Orfãos" ("The Orphans")

Note: On 11 December 2024, I saw this film again.

It was like watching an hour and a half movie trailer. You get left wanting to know what happens...

I really wanted to give it three stars, but going over my notes plus how the movie felt - not justified. Positives: Unfortunately, there are none. Except they mentioned Kurt Cobain which had nothing to do w/anything, and not mentioned again. Negatives: Always a sign of cheapness is an opening (twice in this case) overhead view of a car on road. Heavily dependent on the overused, stereotypical, music & sound effects to startle you. Yawn. The usual ghostly apparitions in mirrors, windows, and in background. Very uncreative, and cheap looking. The usual isolated mansion/house w/lots of rooms w/stuff, and usual dark basement. And, a maze garden. A brief scene of a creepy tree which had no bearing on anything. Supposedly scary scenes in which our future victim has portending nightmares, and of course we don't know they're just dreams. Future victim, unfortunately in this genre is female, does not respond intelligently to what's going on. Ending, and alternative ending which was worse, was one of those "viewer decides" could be anything.

I sat through that whole movie and I still can't tell you what happened. It's literally the most forgettable movie ever.

Very annoyed by this movie. It had potential but every good plot idea fizzled out into nothing. There were too many cheap jump scares and way too many unanswered questions. The ending left not only me but the entire cinema audience questioning what actually happened...

Such a good location and atmosphere but I feel like there was too much going on. The acting was good but was ruined by the dull and in my opinion, non-existent story line.