I'm pretty sure there aren't many readers of this blog unfamiliar with the 1961 gothic horror movie 'The Innocents'. A brooding and, if you'll excuse the pun, haunting ghost story concerning a governess and her young charges.
The film itself is a masterclass of visual storytelling and as such when I spotted this short BFI documentary discussing the making of the film and the people behind it I thought it would be of interest to some of you, personally I found it fascinating.
If
you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us
continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the
blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
Based on the Henry James novella 'The Turn of the Screw', The Innocents tells the story of Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) who becomes governess to two young children, Flora and Miles (played with aplomb by Pamela Franklin and the creepiest kid of the 1960s Martin Stephens) and becomes convinced that the children are possessed by the spirits of the previous governess (Clyte Jessop) and her abusive lover (Peter Wyngarde).
The Innocents is a masterclass of artful and restrained horror, a deliberate move away from the glorious schlock of the Hammer movies. Scares are kept to a minimum and in their place is a mounting sense of terror realised through it's use of darkness, slow, languorous edits and astonishing, groundbreaking electronic sound from legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop composer Daphne Oram.
If
you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us
continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the
blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
