The Innocents

Horror is such a varied genre when it comes to the elements that go into it. It probably has the most sub-genres, due to the different styles of horror. Slashers, body horror, gothic, folk, possession, giallo, zombie, psychological, the list goes on and on. These sub-genres have little in common with one another as far as their building blocks go, but they all share one intent: scare the viewer. To do that, over the course of the movie, there has to be an escalation in the horror. Think of The Fly, with Seth Brundle's slow, inexorable transformation into the fly creature, or any slasher movie's systematic elimination of the main cast, or basic survival in a zombie movie becoming harder and harder to achieve as safe harbor is breached and the numbers become overwhelming. All of these stories have different ways of raising the stakes, but they all do it. It is this aspect where I transition into talking about The Innocents, and the most significant flaw of the movie: its failure to escalate anything. The Innocents is about a woman who is hired to be the governess for two children, a young brother and sister. As she spends time with them, their precocious and peculiar behavior starts to become alarming, and she starts seeing ghosts. She comes to the realization that the children are possessed by the spirit of two former employees of the estate, and fights to save them. A simple but effective start for a horror. I will give The Innocents credit where it's due, and that is excellent acting and wonderful atmosphere. Taking place in England in the later 1800's, the movie is dripping with gothic atmosphere and a general uneasiness. The massive mansion and its grounds help in that regard, but it's also in how the movie is shot and framed, using uncomfortable angles and low lighting to accentuate the spooky vibe, even going so far as to paint the exterior edges of the lens to make what was visible on screen smaller and seem like it was being swallowed in darkness. Likewise, the acting is fantastic, with Deborah Kerr walking a fine line between a person with one foot grounded in reality and one trying to cope with a situation beyond rationality. I've read that there was intention that maybe everything that was happening was a projection of the sexual repression of Miss Giddens (Kerr's character) and she was imagining it all, but I don't see it that way. It just seemed like a ghost story to me. As for the kids, they also do a great job in balancing childlike innocence and a weird, creepy, but difficult-to-pin-down aspect of something beyond their years, and that something is wrong. Unfortunately, though, these excellent elements fight against the problem I mentioned before. While Deborah Kerr's performance of a woman slowly becoming unhinged as she tries to make sense of the unbelievable is fantastic, it is not proportionate to the escalation of the situation itself. Look at a movie like The Omen; as more and more weird things start happening around Damien, his father becomes increasingly worried. The closer he gets to discovering the truth and a way to bring it all to an end, the more deadly the response becomes from the forces around Damien. The main character's panic and desperation and fear rise in conjunction with the escalation of the stakes. That doesn't happen in The Innocents. Miss Gidden's panic rises and rises to the point of near hysteria, but the threat level never rises in accordance with it. In fact, it hardly feels like there are stakes at all much of the time. Miss Giddens says their souls are in danger, but the movie never gives the viewer any evidence of that. It makes Miss Giddens' growing fear feel unwarranted. Things don't seem to be getting any worse as the movie goes on, but she's acting like the world is coming to an end. It's like her reactions are rising on a 45-degree angle, and the movie's horror is rising at 5 degrees. Maybe less. It leaves The Innocents in a weird place for me, where all the supporting structure is there for an excellent haunted house/demonic possession story, but that crucial element is missing. The movie works so hard at building atmosphere and a slow-burn sense of dread, but it doesn't build, it just moves forward, never picking up any sense of urgency. If you're all about vibes, I can see this movie being your thing. But if you need something behind those vibes, The Innocents builds a ton of atmosphere around a hollow nucleus.