 James 's novella The Turn of the Screw has been much analysed in academic literature , and , given that it has been frequently reinterpreted in the arts , discussion of many of the adaptations has found a place in the academic literature on Henry James and neo @-@ Victorian culture . Considering the frame narrative of the film , Anna Viola Sborgi , a literary theorist , argues that the fact that Ann begins the film in a sanatorium conveys the impression that the character is mad , resulting in a loss of ambiguity . Consequently , the film is left less a horror story and more a psychological thriller . Sborgi argues that the film is explicitly made psychological through particular narrative and visual choices ; for example , Miles appears at the train station in a ghost @-@ like way through a cloud of steam . The fact that the film is a thriller , she argues , is further expressed through the use of a collage of images before the opening scene . However , the use of horrific imagery ( including an open grave ) in the collage " highlight [ s ] the contradiction inherent in this rendering of the novella " : while the story is presented as psychological , the viewer is nonetheless drawn into the film as a horror story . Other than the atypical frame narrative , Sborgi considers the adaptation fairly conventional with regard to both setting and costume . 
