70
Director Jack (Room at the Top) Clayton, sensitively seconded by Cameraman Freddie Frances, has filled every coign and corridor with a dangerous, intelligent darkness. Moreover, the main performances are most capably carried off.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
Mr. Clayton and Miss Kerr have neglected to interpret the tale and character with sufficient incisiveness and candor to give us a first-rate horror or psychological film. But they've given us one that still has interest and sends some formidable chills down the spine.
100
Time Out London by Cath Clarke
You can watch The Innocents twice and walk away with different conclusions. Psychological horrors have imitated its ambiguous ending ever since. Few have pulled it off half as creepily.
100
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
Clayton's filmmaking, mustering frisson by both candle and blazing daylight, could serve as an object lesson in its genre.
100
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Clayton brilliantly uses slow dissolves to create ghostly superimpositions, and the harmless squeals of bath-time fun, or squeakings of a pencil, suggest uncanny screams.
80
The Dissolve by Tasha Robinson
The film’s symbolism is never subtle, but that doesn’t make it any less effective.
100
The film thrives on unsettling images of overgrowth and rot, such as the dead flower that drops at Kerr’s touch, and the beetle that crawls obscenely out of the mouth of a cherub statue.
A chilling Gothic tale, a haunting atmosphere, and a stunning use of scenery – THE INNOCENTS is everything that a haunted house movie should be. There are visual sequences in this film that you will never forget.