The Innocents

Dir. Jack Clayton. 1961, 101 mins. 35mm. With Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Michael Redgrave. This exquisitely eerie adaptation of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw stars a brilliantly cracked Kerr as a governess who arrives at a secluded house to take care of two strange children, whom she grows convinced are haunted by a ghost. Featuring brilliant cinematography by Freddie Francis, whose every hushed, black-and-white, CinemaScope frame is a master class in quiet terror, The Innocents is among the greatest horror films ever made, and its many scary visual details can truly be grasped only on the big screen.