10 Horror Movie Endings No One Understands

Adapted from Daisy Miller author Henry James' Turn of the Screw (which is soon to be re-adapted as the second season of Netflix's horror television hit The Haunting of Hill House), 1961's The Innocents sees director Jack Clayton lean in to the ambiguous ending of the original novella.

Lean in a little too hard, some frustrated viewers may argue as they search for closure.

The film's action follows a straight-laced governess who teaches a pair of siblings in their remote country manor, but soon finds herself disturbed by the revelation that their former governess and the groundskeeper took their own lives after a torrid affair which our heroine presumes her young students were privy to.

So when the film reaches its strange, inconclusive ending, the audience is left wondering whether the governess killed her young charge, or he died of fright, and moreover were there any ghosts at all?

Is the title ironic or sincere?

The film is intentionally difficult to parse and ambiguous, but some critics note that the chilling scene by the lakeside can be viewed as evidence that the ghosts are projections of the repressed governess’ overactive imagination. Therefore, her young charges are un-ironically innocent, as her student claims to see nothing whilst her teacher raves about a ghost woman.