NEW YORK — The following are capsule reviews from Catholic
News Service of new and recent video releases available on DVD and/or Blu-ray —
as well as for online viewing. Theatrical movies have a Catholic News Service
classification and Motion Picture Association rating. These classifications
refer only to the theatrical version of the films below, and do not take into
account any extra content.
Secret Ceremony (1968)
Morbid, disquieting melodrama about the unhealthy
relationship between a middle-aged prostitute (Elizabeth Taylor) and a
developmentally disabled girl (Mia Farrow) who, though they need help, cannot
help each other.
Watch out for: Directed by
Joseph Losey, its story has a heavy touch of madness, incest, suicide and
sexual shenanigans introduced by Robert Mitchum's uninvited presence.
Rated: L, limited adult
audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling;
MPAA: R. (KL Studio Classics; also
available on Blu-ray)
The Turning (2020)
Director Floria Sigismondi's loose, updated adaptation of
Henry James' classic 1898 novella-length horror story "The Turn of the
Screw" provides the occasional jolt on the way to a thoroughly incoherent
ending. A newly hired live-in nanny (Mackenzie Davis) at an isolated country
mansion presided over by an austere housekeeper (Barbara Marten) is gradually
unnerved by the sinister behavior of her initially endearing young charge
(Brooklynn Prince) and of the girl's sullen, aggressive older brother (Finn
Wolfhard). Is the manor haunted? Is the lad possessed? Or is the protagonist
going mad? While James keeps readers on a knife edge with alternative
possibilities, screenwriters (and brothers) Chad and Carey W. Hayes can't seem
to decide what direction their script should adopt, so they wind up veering all
over the place. Since one of the possible ghosts had a taste for sadistic sex
and a character meets a briefly glimpsed bloody death, their film is strictly
for grown-ups.
Watch out for: Some
violence with momentary gore, occult and mature themes, including aberrant
sexuality, an image of rear nudity, partial upper nudity, at least one
profanity and a milder oath, a single rough and a couple of crude terms.
Spanish language and titles options.
Rated: A-III, adults; MPAA:
PG-13. (Universal Studios Home Entertainment; also available on Blu-ray)