Review - The Haunting of Helen Walker (1995)

Despite the original title, this is yet another Turn of the Screw.

Valerie Bertinelli plays the titular character, an American widow in London, on her own for the first time, who manages to convince the rich uncle of two orphaned children that her unfulfilled desire for a family makes her an ideal governess. You know the rest.

Unlike in other versions, Bertinelli remains consistently caring even when she suspects the children are possessed and plotting against her. Diana Rigg also departs from form in her portrayal of Mrs. Grose. She's tough and imperious, deriding Helen's belief in ghosts and shutting her down when she tries to investigate Bly's past.

On the downside, this movie isn't the least bit scary. In fact, the wild-eyed appearance of Peter Quint is over-the-top. There's an unintentionally funny scene where Helen is exploring Quint's old room and is scandalized to discover his collection of photos of women with bare shoulders and ankles (!) However, that scene prompted an epiphany for me.

The most frustrating thing about reading Turn of the Screw as a teen, worse than scaling James's interminable prose, was that he never actually said anything about Quint and Jessel. We were told that they were wicked, evil people but given no examples of their behavior to justify that categorization. Were they cannibals? Satanists? At the time, the lack of information stymied me and made it hard for me to appreciate the story. As an adult, I can now see that the author wanted to leave it up to his audience to imagine the worst possible behavior and project it onto his villains.

In reality, Quint's wickedness probably involved playing cards on the Sabbath and looking at dirty pictures, neither of which acts are scandalous by today's standards. Had James explicitly written these abominations into his text, modern readers would laugh. Most movie adaptations imply sexual impropriety toward the children, definitely a taboo in any era. As Turn of the Screw is adapted for future, more jaded generations, I expect we'll see even more audacious behavior attributed to the accursed pair.