The Innocents is a ghost story, and people have been scaring each other with ghost stories for approximately as long as there have been people. But it’s worth bearing in mind that before Hitchcock — an oversimplification, but not much of one — this is what scary movies looked like. They were gothic, atmospheric affairs, psychological rather than visceral, creepy rather than terrifying. And The Innocents is very creepy. Full of haunted children and disembodied specters (and based on an excellent Henry James short story), The Innocents gets under your skin and stays there.