I gave this movie three stars for the acting, the superbly creepy children, and for a couple good scares. I couldn't think of anything to merit a fourth star.
Here's a detailed summary so you don't have to watch it. Kate becomes a governess/tutor to an orphaned girl named Flora. Unbeknownst to Kate, Flora's brother, Miles, is expelled from boarding school and returns home. So now she has two kids in her charge. The only other person in the house to help is Mrs. Grose. I take it she manages the estate and everything that entails. Plus she Mile's and Flora's guardian.
Miles and Kate immediately get off on the wrong foot. These are privileged children and Miles doesn't like to be bossed around. He is extremely creepy and hateful to Kate. At times his mannerisms and behavior seem like a sociopath. Kate is definitely scared of him.
And while dealing with that, Kate starts to hear voices at night. Then she starts seeing fleeting spirits, quick enough that she's unsure if they were real. Pretty soon though, the spirits begin to make themselves more seen and even attack her. She eventually sees that the female spirit (Jessel) is of the last governess and the male spirit is of the deceased horse manager (Quint). The movie continues with Jessel trying to show Kate different things that happened to her. And Quint keeps trying to scare and hurt Kate. Sometimes it seems he even inhabits the body of Miles to intimidate her even more.
Eventually it got to a point where I thought the ending was actually going to be good. Kate received black paintings from her mom, who was in an insane asylum. That night, Through physical visions, Kate sees Quint r*pe and kill Jessel. This is after Jessel's spirit pulls her into one of the house ponds, where Quint apparently placed her body. After seeing this, Quint also attacks Kate and then pushes Mrs. Grose over the staircase railing. Kate frantically finds the children and convinces them to leave with her. As they are exiting the property, the movie goes back to when Kate first started looking at her mom's paintings. So none of this paragraph actually happened to Kate, Mrs. Grose, or the kids. There are a few paintings though, so I thought perhaps each one would be a different ending. How cool would that have been? Four different endings. Instead, we get NO REAL ENDING.
Kate is made out to be crazy. The kids are still extra creepy, with Flora being afraid of Kate too. And I still don't know if there were any spirits. Plus, was the woman in the asylum supposed to be Kate at the end? Was EVERYTHING just a story in her own mind?
Did Kate inherit her mother's psychological disorder, which caused her to imagine things? Or was evil really in the house and it caused her to go crazy? If it was the latter, why the heck didn't she leave? The behavior of the elder brother Miles would've been enough for me to go. But Kate stuck it out to try and "reach" him. Blah. After she saw evil spirits and these entities actually attacked her, she should've fled that house. This movie left me with more questions than answers.
Here's a detailed summary so you don't have to watch it. Kate becomes a governess/tutor to an orphaned girl named Flora. Unbeknownst to Kate, Flora's brother, Miles, is expelled from boarding school and returns home. So now she has two kids in her charge. The only other person in the house to help is Mrs. Grose. I take it she manages the estate and everything that entails. Plus she Mile's and Flora's guardian.
Miles and Kate immediately get off on the wrong foot. These are privileged children and Miles doesn't like to be bossed around. He is extremely creepy and hateful to Kate. At times his mannerisms and behavior seem like a sociopath. Kate is definitely scared of him.
And while dealing with that, Kate starts to hear voices at night. Then she starts seeing fleeting spirits, quick enough that she's unsure if they were real. Pretty soon though, the spirits begin to make themselves more seen and even attack her. She eventually sees that the female spirit (Jessel) is of the last governess and the male spirit is of the deceased horse manager (Quint). The movie continues with Jessel trying to show Kate different things that happened to her. And Quint keeps trying to scare and hurt Kate. Sometimes it seems he even inhabits the body of Miles to intimidate her even more.
Eventually it got to a point where I thought the ending was actually going to be good. Kate received black paintings from her mom, who was in an insane asylum. That night, Through physical visions, Kate sees Quint r*pe and kill Jessel. This is after Jessel's spirit pulls her into one of the house ponds, where Quint apparently placed her body. After seeing this, Quint also attacks Kate and then pushes Mrs. Grose over the staircase railing. Kate frantically finds the children and convinces them to leave with her. As they are exiting the property, the movie goes back to when Kate first started looking at her mom's paintings. So none of this paragraph actually happened to Kate, Mrs. Grose, or the kids. There are a few paintings though, so I thought perhaps each one would be a different ending. How cool would that have been? Four different endings. Instead, we get NO REAL ENDING.
Kate is made out to be crazy. The kids are still extra creepy, with Flora being afraid of Kate too. And I still don't know if there were any spirits. Plus, was the woman in the asylum supposed to be Kate at the end? Was EVERYTHING just a story in her own mind?
Did Kate inherit her mother's psychological disorder, which caused her to imagine things? Or was evil really in the house and it caused her to go crazy? If it was the latter, why the heck didn't she leave? The behavior of the elder brother Miles would've been enough for me to go. But Kate stuck it out to try and "reach" him. Blah. After she saw evil spirits and these entities actually attacked her, she should've fled that house. This movie left me with more questions than answers.