Review of The Nightcomers (1972) by Michael T — 17 Apr 2015

To my mind, one of the most underrated films of all time, due entirely to the fact that reviewers, amateur and professional, just cannot face reality squarely. It is an unqualified masterpiece that speaks of, among other things, the impressionability of children, the necessity of intimacy over artificiality, the brutal reality of sex over the dreaminess of what we merely wish for, the question of death and what it is and many other issues including class questions.

This prequel to The Innocents (the film version of the gothic Henry James novel, "The Turn of the Screw") brilliantly answers the question of how Flora and Miles came to be possessed by the spirits of the gardener and governess and it does so in a non-mystical way that sits side by side with the mystical notions of it, which it cleverly dismisses.

This act explains the underlying nature of Henry James's sideways attack on the conventions of his day and strips "The Innocents" of its reality-substitute. Such substitutes will never be enough for us to live life in reality.

"Last Tango In Paris" was a kind of bookend to this but Tango was far too literal. This metaphoric telling of life and death as it really is should have been celebrated. It would have and will continue to be but not by coward;u crybabies who can't or won't face life.