My exposure to this classic ghost story was also courtesy of my film history professor Wheeler Winston-Dixon. After crowing about the film in class one day, he offered to make a VHS copy for me, which I gladly accepted. And upon my first viewing, I knew I’d found my favorite horror movie of all time.

I’m not a big horror fan, but I absolutely love this adaptation (co-written by Truman Capote) of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. The Innocents’ story of a pious young governess who moves to a remote English manor to care for two children, and comes to believe that her young charges are possessed by some malevolent force, is a master class in slow-burning atmosphere.

Freddie Francis’s black-and-white cinematography is by turns gorgeous and ominous, and the film’s music and sound design only adds to the tension. Deborah Kerr carries the film as the increasingly unstable governess, but young Martin Stephens steals every single one of his scenes as the charming yet creepy Miles. His poetry recitation is surely one of the great film monologues.

Trivia: In 1971, Marlon Brando starred in an explicit prequel titled The Nightcomers that I have no desire whatsoever to see.