1. Plot

2. Cast

3. Critical response
    Controversy 

4. See also

5. References

6. External links

It is the film debut of actress Gillian Anderson.^[2] Both she and co-star Raymond J. Barry later appeared in the TV series The X-Files, although they did not share any scenes together.

The film was shot on location in Pocahontas, Virginia and the neighboring communities of Abbs Valley, Virginia and Nemours, West Virginia.{{citation needed|date=July 2012}} It was released on home video in 1997.^[2]

Plot

After four years away, Cliff Harnish (Michael Dolan) returns to his hometown of Pocahontas, Virginia just before his parents finalize their divorce. Unable to persuade them to stay together, he discovers that his mother, Martha (Tess Harper), is now an alcoholic and that his father, Mark (Raymond J. Barry), is seeing another woman, Glory Lawson (Karen Allen). Cliff also has an awkward reunion with his ex-girlfriend, April Cavanaugh (Gillian Anderson).

Posing as a delivery driver, Cliff gains entry to Glory's house and orders her to end her relationship with his father, calling her a "homewrecker" and threatening her with violence if she does not comply. During this confrontation, it becomes evident that Cliff has developed white supremacist and neo-Nazi views. Learning of Cliff's actions, and disturbed by the change that has come over him, Mark disowns Cliff.

Later, Cliff bursts into Glory's house while his father is present and holds Glory at knifepoint, promising to hurt her unless Mark, to whom he passes Glory's gun, shoots him first. Mark cannot bring himself to kill his son and instead fires into the wall behind Cliff and Glory. Glory takes the gun and aims it at Cliff but Mark dissuades her from shooting him. Mark forces Cliff to drop the knife and tells him that he must learn to live with the pain of his parents' divorce. Mark and Cliff leave the house together.

Cast

• Karen Allen as Glory Lawson
• Raymond J. Barry as Mark Harnish
• Michael Dolan as Clifford "Cliff" Harnish
• Tess Harper as Martha Harnish
• Gillian Anderson as April Cavanaugh
• Tannis Benedict as Vivian Sinott
• Jim Simmons as Mayor
• Madison Arnold as Mr. Cavanaugh
• John Newton as Mr. Creasy

Critical response

Michael Dolan has described the film as "not very good ... My agent saw [it] and wouldn't talk to me for months."^[2]

Reviewing The Turning at the time of its original 1992 release, David Stratton of Variety commented that the film "still smacks of the theater. Though it packs an undeniable emotional punch, [it] comes across as overwritten and contrived as a cinema experience." He described the ending as "an anticlimax, since the audience has been led to anticipate an act of cathartic violence that never occurs." However, he praised Dolan's "genuinely scary character" as well as the "strong performances" of the other cast members.^[4]

In 1997, Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a negative review, writing that "at every turn, The Turning is ridiculously vague. We get no real idea of what Martha and Mark did – or what happened to Cliff during his absence – that has turned him into a psychopath clutching madly at 'traditional family values.'" He also commented that Puopolo "directs his cast as if they were giving a stage performance, which means that the realism of the film's location not only ensures the artificiality of the entire endeavor but also shows up the many flaws in the basic material as well."^[5] In a negative review of the home video release, Dave Nuttycombe of the Washington City Paper called the film a "tiredly talky Southern Gothic drama".^[6]

Controversy

The film features a sex scene between Dolan and Anderson's characters, and was shot while Anderson was still a 19-year-old student in drama school. After the film was bought by British film distributor David Lewis in 1996, his company Unique Films released it on home video nationwide. By then appearing in the TV series The X-Files, Anderson hired lawyers in an attempt to stop the film's release. The British tabloid press, which described the film as a "B movie", reported that Anderson had tried to buy it back for "large sums of money" without success. They described the scene as "semi-topless". According to Dolan, the scene was shot at 4 A.M. after a long day and both he and Anderson were exhausted.

Anderson had a clause in her contract stating that her breasts could not be exposed in any scenes.^{[7][8][9][10][11]} Despite the controversy, the Orange County Register judged the scene to be "fleeting" and argued that the film "deserves better than to serve as a salacious footnote to a television show."^[3] Nuttycombe called the scene "gratuitous" and "irrelevant".^[6]

In 2002, Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club, who described The Turning as an "unconvincing melodrama", argued that the film had been re-released purely for the "one brief love scene featuring Anderson, much tamer than the video box's lurid cover would suggest."^[12]

See also

• List of films featuring home invasions
• List of racism-related films

References

External links

• {{IMDb title|0105660}}
• {{AllMovie title|154140}}
• {{Rotten Tomatoes|turning}}

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