The Innocents

When the Curzon Cinema in That London  announced a screening of the excellent and much overlooked Brit film The Innocents, I had to grab a   chance to rave about a little known classic.

The Innocents is one of those films you see as a kid and it leaves an indelible mark on   you. Then you catch it again as an adult and expect it to be naff, but no, it   still scares the absolute shit out of you. And not in the ‘BOO! GOTCHA!’ way of   so much horror, but in a really uneasy, creepy, hairs on the back of your neck   doing a little dance all on their own kind of way.

It’s an adaptation of the Henry James short story, The Turn of the Screw, of course, directed by Jack Clayton and beautifully shot by Freddie Francis, with a writing team composed of the formidable talents of William (I Confess) Archibald, Truman Capote and John Mortimer.

A chilling little classic that everyone should see, with a script that is   brave enough to leave us to argue for ourselves about what just happened.

If, like me, you don’t live in That London, go hire it or buy it anyway and   see how a real ghost story should be made. And if you’re lucky enough to have a   local cinema screening it, hammer their box office door down for tickets and   drag everyone you know along.

Oh, and that Rebecca‘s not bad either.