Metacritic reviews

It may not work for everyone, but those for whom it works will find much to savor and puzzle over in The Turning.

The Turning announces Sigismondi as a bold and adept genre filmmaker, with an eye for detail and impeccable casting choices.

Lacking spine-tingling dread, taut tension, and the deservingly provocative ending needed to make its modern sentiments land, this re-imagining is less than a classic.

In a movie as utterly lost as The Turning, everything from the performances to the production design to the music cues amount to one big pile of dirty mirrors and doll parts.

The Turning is not a total loss. There are some stylish, nearly giallo-like sequences and sensitive performances from both Wolfhard and Prince, both of whom look like they could go further with their roles if the script didn’t eventually limit them to reactions in the second half.

The mood and atmosphere is appropriately unsettling, and the stellar cast never stops trying to elevate the material, all of which makes it even more upsetting to watch as it slowly unravels and botches the landing.

The Turning sacrifices narrative and emotional coherence in favor of a series of would-be scary set pieces that seem mainly designed to discourage aspiring nannies from pursuing the vocation.

Instead of intriguing ambiguity, this updated version – which had a long and bumpy development – offers only maddening confusion...With false endings within false endings, it’s the sort of movie whose final fade-out will leave audiences groaning in frustration.

The movie doesn’t quite stop mid-sentence, but it comes as close as any film I’ve seen. That can’t be it. Can it? ... A total waste of time.

The Turning damns itself with good ideas turned bad and a flat-out ugly execution. Its talented cast can’t save it from cheap scares, poorly edited set-pieces, and a bad twist that leaves a worse taste in your mouth.