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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to have actually scared myself reading The Turn of the Screw last night?

40 replies

InMyLittleHead · 30/12/2009 18:54

As it is on telly tonight, I was determined to re-read it before watching it. So I was reading it in bed at about 2am last night, finished it, and had realised that I had given myself the heebie-jeebies to the extent that I couldn't sleep. Silly, right?

OP posts:

timelordvictorious · 30/12/2009 18:57

Nope. 'Tis terrifying. Am very excited about watching it later.

JaynieB · 30/12/2009 18:59

Had to laugh! Started reading a book a few months ago that gave me the jitters and have only just had the nerve to pick it up again! You must have a good imagination :-)

expatinscotland · 30/12/2009 19:03

i first read it when i was 15. i realised as i neared the end that everyone in the house had gone to bed and i was up all on my own.

i went to bed with the light on!

Original poster

InMyLittleHead · 30/12/2009 19:17

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill is even worse. That was a definite lights-on bedtime.

OP posts:

skihorse · 30/12/2009 19:28

Oooh I love the Woman in Black. The book, the TV film and the theatre production were just awesome! No sleep tonight!

southeastastra · 30/12/2009 19:29

i'm quite peed off that they've done yet another tv adaptation of this.

there are tons of classics they could have done instead

radstar · 31/12/2009 20:01

Is the book better than the film?

I was disappointed yesterday, it was going well with the suspense etc then just lost it I thought and got predictable. I vaguely recall being scared by "The woman in black" must get that out of the library again... "The Mist in the mirror" by Susan Hill is quite good too.

cathcat · 31/12/2009 20:05

I have this story in a Henry James book and am TOO SCARED to read it. The blurb on the back says it is the scariest story ever written and as I am obviously very suggestable (is that a word?) I have taken them at their word and am too scared to read it. Not watched it either, oh no, no, no.

cathcat · 31/12/2009 20:07

actually I have just checked the blurb and it says the most hopelessly evil story ever written. I think that is worse

MadamDeathstare · 31/12/2009 20:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

famishedass · 31/12/2009 20:15

Why is "the turn of the screw" called "the turn of the screw"?

Fibilou · 31/12/2009 20:19

I was going to watch it this evening (by myself) then remembered just how scary it is and decided to save it for tomorrow morning

Fibilou · 31/12/2009 20:20

I didn't realise there was a TV film of TWIB. That really is a scary book but I love it

Clary · 31/12/2009 20:22

Our book group did this and I found it scary...how unreadable it was.

I just found it sooo badly and annoyingly written that I just couldn't get over that, sorry.
Sorry to all HJ fans. I didn't find it scary in a ghoststory way at all I am afraid but had obv missed the point.

madamearcati · 31/12/2009 20:23

I watched a black and white film of it once about 20 years ago and I think it was the most scary thing I have ever seen.

UpsyOne · 31/12/2009 20:23

ooh, whens it on and which channel?

expatinscotland · 31/12/2009 20:28

The book is WAY better.

Because, as Orm says, there's the environment and climate and suggestion of evil and sinister depravity, but you never really know what exactly that is.

It's the suggestion, it piques your imagination.

Original poster

InMyLittleHead · 01/01/2010 01:53

Filibou - it's a line from the book, it kind of means when you think a situation is a certain way, and then something else happens (a turn of the screw) and you see something else.

The book is much better than the TV thing. I did think the prog was good for a bit, but then you saw 'them' a bit too much so it became less scary. Also the book is very subtle in the way it suggests things, but that's difficult to do in a film so they had to make it more obvious (went too far imo).

OP posts:

skihorse · 01/01/2010 11:57

madamearcati 20 years ago - that'd be about right - I'm sure it was on one christmas - and as you say, the scariest thing I'd ever seen - or since! The bit where the tree comes crashing down on to the boat still terrifies me! It was on the back of that film that I took all my friends to see TWIB in the West End for my 18th. All the blokes were rugger buggers who didn't think they'd like it at all - everyone loved it!

skihorse · 01/01/2010 11:58

My interpretation of the line "The turn of the screw" is that it is suggested that the nanny has lost her mind - so for me, it just meant that she loses it a touch at a time. She doesn't go insane overnight, it's just a drip of water at a time - or a turn of a screw.

nellynaemates · 01/01/2010 12:44

Am I only one who found the book a tedious read then? Henry James writes sentences, which go on, with millions, and millions of commas, and they never really come to an end, just when you think you're home free and you get to take a break, you lose your place with all the commas, and have to go back, to the beginning.
I also didn't find it scary. At all. Maybe I need to read it again, I read as part of my Eng Lit course in 1st year at Uni and it was the least enjoyable on the course - give me Angela Carter and Martin Amis any day

expatinscotland · 01/01/2010 13:28

Oh, god. I.hate.Martin.Amis.

He's so full of himself.

Fibilou · 01/01/2010 13:38

I read the book about 5 years ago but I do remember it being a difficult read (and I was reading Austen, Bronte and Du Maurier at about 11 so am a good reader) and struggling to get going. It took me several attempts to read it - as you say the sentence structure is quite cumbersome and requires your full attention.

Having read it I can confidently say it is one of the scariest novels I have ever read. Haven't seen the adaptation yet, am saving it for this afternoon with the ironing. But as you say IMLH, adaptations are never quite as good as the written word - I prefer the interpretation of my own imagination over someone elses. I shall never forget the horror on watching Hitchcock's adaptation of Rebecca and wondering why everyone raved over it so much when they took such liberties with it.

I interpret the title to be a reference to how the governess is slowly driven out of her mind - little by little the screw turns tighter and tighter.

puddinmama · 01/01/2010 13:48

Am a bit daft concerning this, I saw turn of the screw last night and it seems a bit like 'the haunting' the old film with Aiden Quinn in it, so please confirm to me, who is dead and who isn't are they all dead in the house or just the 'others' did miles really die in her arms I'm assuming so since the police were taking her away, it wasn't that scary. Going to get the book but someone please explain to me what it was all about, oh and the master what was he all about.

thanks

Original poster

InMyLittleHead · 01/01/2010 14:09

Quint and Jessel are definitely dead, everyone else is alive. But Miles dies, I think, at the end. She doesn't get arrested or anything in the book - the whole mental asylum thing in the BBC one was added in.

Martin Amis can only write about people just like himself...yawn.

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