A Study of Psychological Realism in the Nightcomers (1971)
Abstract
This article studies The Nightcomers (1971) from the perspective of psychological realism and analyzes this cinematic adaptation of “The Turn of the Screw” via semiotics, images and symbols deployed in the light of psychological realism. Henry James’s novella The Turn of the Screw has variously been adapted into several films. Even though The Nightcomers (1971) was described as a particularly listless and greedy parody of James’s novella on its American premiere in 1972, it can still be justified when its context of production has also been taken into consideration. As a prequel to The Turn of the Screw, Michael Winner’s The Nightcomers (1971) stepped in as a bold move away from merely ambiguous. Due to the popularity of the horror genre at the time of this adaptation’s production and the possibilities the text presented for the exploration of sexual transgression, the post-censorship seventies saw a revival of interest in the novella. Due to the deployment of extra elements in this horror remake, it does appear to be well suited to be studied comparatively from the perspective of psychological realism.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v12i7.6866
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