Gothic horror is so hard to translate from the page to the screen that the long history of duds makes the few successes seem all the more miraculous. Director Rodrigo Cortés adapts a 1973 novel by Lois Duncan about a troubled teen named Kit (AnnaSophia Robb) whose parents send her off to a remote boarding school called Blackwood, where the headmistress (Uma Thurman) has special plans for her unique students. Without venturing too far into spoiler territory, it’s hard to explain how this plays a little bit like a #MeToo-era tale, with young women’s lives deemed less important than the creation of great art. But any thematic resonance—and the subtext of Kit’s grief for her dead father—is mostly swallowed up by a steady parade of creaky noises, creepy whispered voices, gloomy rooms and jump scares. While there’s the potential for Kit to be a much more complex character—and Thurman’s mysterious Mme Duret as well, for that matter—Cortés and the screenwriters don’t appear much interested in offering more than a rote ghost story, heavy on mood but light on emotion.
By
Scott Renshaw