The Turning - February 22, 2019

[MifuneFan]

The trailer looked pretty mediocre aside from appearing to have a decent Gothic atmosphere. The girl (Brooklyn Prince), who was great in The Florida Project, was annoying as shit in the trailer. They overplayed the trailer so much that it just became laughable every time I'd see those hands moving around like thing from The Addams Family.

[DarkEco910]

Not shocked, tbh. They marketed this trailer for over 8 months it feels like. Nothing about it was appealing at all 800 times I saw it...

[Chaotic]

Apparently the movie doesn't really have an ending, it just stops, like The Grudge. oh dear.

[charlieray1]

Sadly, they really don't make 'em like they used to. The Innocents is a masterpiece of unease and subtle suggestion that stays with you long after you've seen it. If the trailer for The Turning is any indication, they took the same source material and make another dum-dum horror/jump-scare fest. Maybe I'll rent it.

[Chaotic]

Dreamworks/Universal’s PG-13 horror feature The Turning, which cost in the low teens before P&A, is seeing around $2.5M today (including $425K previews) for a $6M opening weekend. Critics turned their backs on Turning with an 18% RT score. PostTrak shows, gulp, no stars and a 20% definite recommend, and an overall 34% total positive

F cinemascore incoming. Even The Grudge managed to get 1/2 * on PosTrak.

[filmbuffTX]

I at least enjoyed the cast and production design. It was filmed at the Killruddery House in Ireland. The mansion itself and the grounds it sits on are impressive looking. It’s been used in several other films and TV productions.

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by charlieray1

Sadly, they really don't make 'em like they used to. The Innocents is a masterpiece of unease and subtle suggestion that stays with you long after you've seen it. If the trailer for The Turning is any indication, they took the same source material and make another dum-dum horror/jump-scare fest. Maybe I'll rent it.

The do actually still make ‘em like they used to.

The Little Stranger from 2018 by Lenny Abrahamson is very much in the vein of The Innocents. It too is an adaptation of an acclaimed novel and it’s a subtle ghost story, suggestive and full of ambiguities. Unfortunately the studio mis-marketed it and nobody went to see it. One if the most underrated films of the last few years IMO.

Though set in modern times, Personal Shopper from 2016 also is a recent(ish) subtle, non-traditional take on the ghost story.

[Creed]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

F cinemascore incoming. Even The Grudge managed to get 1/2 * on PosTrak.

January horror strikes again, lol! $6M against a $20M budget is awful.

So Bad Boys For Life and The Gentlemen really are the only decent January movies, apparently.

[Chaotic]

And to think, Doctor sleep was originally supposed to come out this month.

[Creed]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

And to think, Doctor sleep was originally supposed to come out this month.

Probably would've done a tad better.

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by Creed

Probably would've done a tad better.

Why ?

[Creed]

Originally Posted by Todd Tomorrow

Why ? January is the month when studios release the films they have little faith in. There have been exceptions but January releases traditionally don’t do well.

Some January horror movies kill at the box office, whether they're good or trash.

[MikeScott]

Originally Posted by Creed

Probably would've done a tad better.

Yep. Imagine a "horror" movie with good reviews opening in January? November was just such a bad time to release that. If they weren't going to do October then January would have been the next best thing.

[filmbuffTX]

Originally Posted by Creed

January horror strikes again, lol! $6M against a $20M budget is awful.

So Bad Boys For Life and The Gentlemen really are the only decent January movies, apparently.

I would classify Underwater as at least decent. I would even call it good. Just not very good or great.

[FragnitoM]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Apparently the movie doesn't really have an ending, it just stops, like The Grudge. oh dear.

It has like 2 endings but then also no ending. It’s very odd. The credits roll abruptly, and if this was back in the days of film, you’d film you’d think there was a reel missing. Surprised that Spielberg had anything to do with this and didn’t send it straight to VOD.

I’d say this was better than The Grudge. Only because the ending was so bad for The Turning it made it at least infamously memorable. They both sucked though.

Turning, Grudge, and Dolittle are pretty solid candidates for worst of the year only 3 weeks in

[Holmes]

It is not as dreadful as its incoming reputation will indicate. Or even particularly bad. The performances are capable and compelling, particularly the mischievous-meets-precocious-meets-traumatized turn by The Florida Project's Brooklynn Prince. And the cinematography and production design both have the elegantly foreboding aesthetic one hopes for in any haunted-house film.

Then, yes, there is the ending. The atmosphere in the cinema at the end was almost frightening. People were actively angered. Thoughts:

[Show spoiler]Broadly, I understand the intention of the ending. It tries to maintain the influential ambiguity of Henry James' The Turning of the Screw and its brilliant film adaptation, The Innocents, which is one of my favorite films. Namely, is the governess (or live-in tutor, in this case) losing her mind or is the house truly infested with malevolent spirits?

But the way this film presents the conundrum lands with such a deafening thud, as if rising to a challenge to create the most audience-unfriendly, bizarrely structured final two minutes ever. What should seem eerily unresolved instead feels aggressively unfinished, and the eleventh-hour gesturing toward the idea of genetic predisposition to mental illness feels a tad crass.

I also laughed when our heroine, played by the talented Mackenzie Davis, says, "I want to make a difference!" when justifying her choice to leave a classroom teaching position with 25 students to privately tutor one wealthy girl.

[brooks101189]

You know, I know it's sort of a popular thing with some movies, particularly horror films to just not have an ending. That the filmmaker's want the film to be saying something and that they want the audience to come up with the ending. Hell, one of the most successful and well liked horror films of recent times, A Quiet Place has a great semi non-ending (granted it's now negated by having a sequel that apparently IMMEDIATELY begins right after that scene ends).

But you know, from the extremely vocal way people are reacting to this film's non-ending, maybe, just maybe, it should have actually had an ending.

[Chaotic]

F cinemascore

If a horror movie has a really bad ending, it will get an F it seems (Devil Inside, Grudge, Turning, etc)

[GoneJoel]

Two Grade F movies in one month

[prkprkprk]

Is this the first time since 2012 that we've had two F movies in theaters at once (The Devil Inside, Silent House)?