It's always hard to do a remake or adaptation of a classic like Henry James' "Turn of the Screw." The director, actors, and crew must transpose a lot of printed words into visual images and sound. It ain't easy.
The performers can do a lot to add realism to the movie. Diana Rigg, for instance, is the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, and without seeming to do so she turns a dull and unimaginative old lady into a human being by the pitch and stress of her voice and by occasional sideways glances that aren't in the novella but which suggest she's smarter than she looks.
Valerie Bertinelli does a TV version of the heroine, Helen Walker, who was unnamed in the original. She's not bad, considering the challenge presented by a display of creeping madness.
But cast and crew aside, there's another element to be considered -- the intended audience, whose nature will help structure and color the narrative. Any movie is a joint project between the producers and the consumers. In this instance, the producers have presented the audience with a kind of Rorschach ink blot and the viewers have to decide, among other things, whether or not it's a picture of a crazy lady.
The intended audience is the TV viewer looking for something interesting but not too demanding. "The Haunting of Helen Walker" fills the bill. It's not too demanding. For example the governess is given a name right off the bat because it make writing the screenplay easier and it doesn't prompt the audience to wonder if her name was left out by mistake.
Most of the better-done stories of threats and danger take a while to build up tense anticipation. We don't get a look at Bruce the Shark until half-way through "Jaws," and the same with "King Kong." The mysterious and evil figure in "The Third Man" has about fifteen minutes of screen time towards the end. In "The Turn of the Screw" evil is represented by two not-quite-real figures who are only gradually insinuated into the tale. But in "The Haunting of Helen Walker," with an impatient audience in mind, the producers give us the first supernatural shock at ten minutes into the story. (The second comes ten minutes later.) Between eerie incidents, the movie lets us see the governess daydreaming about the handsome young master of the country estate, whom we see only briefly at the start. James let us infer her yearning for a suitable husband.
I've been kind of harsh on "The Haunting of Helen Walker" but it's not a bad movie. They haven't taken a meat ax to James' ghost story. It gets more confusing towards the end, almost hysterical. I don't know what James had in mind. Is she nuts or not? Maybe all James wanted to do was write a chilling tale about ghosts and such.
The performers can do a lot to add realism to the movie. Diana Rigg, for instance, is the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, and without seeming to do so she turns a dull and unimaginative old lady into a human being by the pitch and stress of her voice and by occasional sideways glances that aren't in the novella but which suggest she's smarter than she looks.
Valerie Bertinelli does a TV version of the heroine, Helen Walker, who was unnamed in the original. She's not bad, considering the challenge presented by a display of creeping madness.
But cast and crew aside, there's another element to be considered -- the intended audience, whose nature will help structure and color the narrative. Any movie is a joint project between the producers and the consumers. In this instance, the producers have presented the audience with a kind of Rorschach ink blot and the viewers have to decide, among other things, whether or not it's a picture of a crazy lady.
The intended audience is the TV viewer looking for something interesting but not too demanding. "The Haunting of Helen Walker" fills the bill. It's not too demanding. For example the governess is given a name right off the bat because it make writing the screenplay easier and it doesn't prompt the audience to wonder if her name was left out by mistake.
Most of the better-done stories of threats and danger take a while to build up tense anticipation. We don't get a look at Bruce the Shark until half-way through "Jaws," and the same with "King Kong." The mysterious and evil figure in "The Third Man" has about fifteen minutes of screen time towards the end. In "The Turn of the Screw" evil is represented by two not-quite-real figures who are only gradually insinuated into the tale. But in "The Haunting of Helen Walker," with an impatient audience in mind, the producers give us the first supernatural shock at ten minutes into the story. (The second comes ten minutes later.) Between eerie incidents, the movie lets us see the governess daydreaming about the handsome young master of the country estate, whom we see only briefly at the start. James let us infer her yearning for a suitable husband.
I've been kind of harsh on "The Haunting of Helen Walker" but it's not a bad movie. They haven't taken a meat ax to James' ghost story. It gets more confusing towards the end, almost hysterical. I don't know what James had in mind. Is she nuts or not? Maybe all James wanted to do was write a chilling tale about ghosts and such.