The Innocents: Jack Clayton

I honestly can't remember the last time a horror film made me look behind my shoulder several times to make sure nobody was behind me. I mean, I've seen more horror films than I can count. But Jack Clayton's The Innocents legitimately got under my skin and frightened me. Although, I don't think calling it a "horror" film is appropriate. It's more of a "terror" film. As Stephen King once explained, "terror" is "the suspenseful moment in horror before the actual monster is revealed." The Innocents is all about the anxiety, fear, and panic of knowing that you're not completely alone in a dark room in the middle of the night. It's about the dim figure you spy out of the corner of your eye that disappears when you turn to take a better look. It is a film about fear itself. The film follows Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), a young woman who gets a job as a governess for two young children under the "care" of their uncle. The children are initially a delight, but soon she begins to suspect that they might have terrible secrets (particularly the boy who acts and speaks more like a grown man than a child)...secrets involving a past caretaker and her relationship with a fiendish valet...a secret that might involve past abuse and demons, both figuratively and literally, that haunt them to this day. Even if the story fails to gain your interest, the film's cinematography by Freddie Francis will. I haven't seen a film use such beautiful framing, deep focus cinematography, and expressive use of chiaroscuro lighting since William Wyler's The Little Foxes (1941). The film is simply mesmerizing to behold. I've often argued that black and white films can be even more inherently colorful than color films. The Innocents is proof of this. Though Kerr's performance veers ever so gently towards blatant over-acting, The Innocents is one of the most perfectly realized and brilliantly effective "terror" films I've ever seen.

Side Note: While watching I accidentally took a screenshot with my computer. When I ended up looking at it, I realized that I might have serendipitously captured the essence of the film (or at the very least a very important part of it) in one frame. I have included it below.

10/10