The Nightcomers

Young Miles Tyrrell and his sister Flora live at Bly House, their family's secluded country estate in England, while their parents tour the world. After their parents are killed in an automobile accident in France, their father's cousin is appointed the children's guardian and comes down from London to make arrangements for their care. The master of the house has little interest in the children or the countryside, and so delegates their supervision to the children's governess, Margaret Jessel, the estate's housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, and Irishman Peter Quint, who once served as Mr. Tyrrell's valet, but who now is assigned the task of gardener. The guardian then leaves for London without informing the children of their parents' death. That task falls to Quint, who plays hide and seek with them and crafts dolls for them that look like Mrs. Grose, Miss Jessel, Miles, Flora and Quint. To help them deal with their loss, Quint reassures Flora and Miles that the dead will come back and stay with them forever, leading Flora to believe that to truly love, one has to die. Later, when the slovenly Quint dresses up in one of Tyrrell's formal suits, Mrs. Grose, who detests him, calls him scum and threatens to have him fired. That night, Quint plays with the children and sticks pins in the doll that resembles Mrs. Grose. Afterward, Quint sneaks into Miss Jessel's bedroom, where he ties her up with a rope as a prelude to having sex. Unknown to the lovers, Miles is watching them through the window. The next morning, Mrs. Grose catches Miss Jessel taking a drink, and noticing the bruises inflicted on her by Quint the night before, assumes that she suffering from a broken heart. When Mrs. Grose finds the doll in her image festooned with pins, she forbids Quint to ever enter the house again. That night, in the children's shared bedroom, Miles pretends he is Quint and Flora Miss Jessel as he ties his sister to the bed. Upon opening the bedroom door, Mrs. Grose sees the children tussling on the bed and Miles explains that they are "doing sex." The next day, Quint, Flora and Miles watch from the shore of the small lake on the estate as Miss Jessel climbs into a wooden rowboat and paddles to an island in the middle of the lake. That night, Quint sneaks into the house for a tryst with Miss Jessel, but is confronted on the stairway by Mrs. Grose, who levels a rifle at him. Daring her to pull the trigger, he is about to walk upstairs until Mrs. Grose threatens to write to the master and have him fired. Mrs. Grose then proceeds to Miss Jessel's room, where the governess is eagerly awaiting her lover, and denounces her. As a result of Mrs. Grose's rebuke, Miss Jessel decides to stop seeing Quint, who enlists Miles's help in arranging a rendezvous. Meanwhile, Miss Jessel and Flora are rowing the boat in the lake when Miss Jessel confides that she cannot swim. Afterward, Miles connives to trick Miss Jessel into meeting Quint by telling her that Quint does not care about her any more, prompting her to demand a meeting with Quint so that he can tell her to her face. The following day, Miles invites the unsuspecting Mrs. Grose into his tree house, and once she is inside, Flora removes the ladder, trapping her. That evening, Miles leads Quint to a turret, where Miss Jessel is waiting for him. As the children watch through a window, the governess, who is flattered that Quint would risk his job for her, begins to seduce him. However, when she declares that she is ending their relationship and insults him, Quint, enraged, begins to slap her and throws her to the ground. Frightened by the violence, the children run off and Miles finally releases Mrs. Grose from the tree house. The next morning, the children reenact the fight in the turret, and Miss Jessel, realizing that she is a bad influence on them, decides she must resign. When Flora begs her to stay, the governess states that even though she loves Quint, she must leave. Later, as Quint is playing with Flora and Miles, Miles asks him about love and death, to which Quint replies that sometimes you want to kill someone you love. The night before Miss Jessel is to leave, Miles uses an axe to punch a hole in the side of the boat, then slips a note under her door asking her to meet Quint on the island. After casting off from the dock, the boat begins to sink and panicking, Miss Jessel falls overboard and drowns. From the shore, Flora watches and declares that she must stay with them because they love her. Miss Jessel's body washes up on the shore, where Quint finds it and carries it to drier land. At dinner, Mrs. Grose tells the children that Miss Jessel left to visit a sick relative, but Flora insists that she will come back. That dawn, the lonely Quint is strolling the marshes when Miles shoots him in the side with an arrow. After apologizing, Miles says that Miss Jessel is waiting for Quint, then shoots him in the head and pushes him into a bog. Soon after, the new governess arrives and Mrs. Grose introduces the children to her as "exquisite young angels".