While I applaud the avid creativity it took to make the classic romance into a supernatural horror, the film’s lack of fleshed out thoughts left me wanting more.This spooky retelling takes place after the events of the original story have concluded. Spoiler alert - Heathcliff’s lover, Catherine (Elle O’Hara), died tragically in childbirth and Heathcliff is beside himself. However, the haunting reimagining begins here, when Healthcliff (Sky Cheema) raises Catherine’s spirit and, essentially, damns her to an eternity in the Wuthering Heights estate. We then fast forward to a new face, a landlord named Lockwood (Ross Townsend-Green), who travels to the estate to greet Heathcliff for the first time. Alas, this visit will prove to be detrimental to Lockwood’s physical and mental wellbeing. He begins seeing visions of a veiled woman wandering the halls, and having nightmares about horrific things happening in the estate. His visions, though completely outlandish on the surface, appear to come true, and Lockwood suspects that Heathcliff may be hiding a terrifying secret.For starters, I must say that this is not a direction I ever imagined Brontë’s dark romance story going. I applaud the creativity it took to combine a well-known classic with a supernatural horror element; the novelty of this genre helps it stand out amongst larger features. However, the way that the horror is executed throughout The House of the Damned is frankly unimpressive. The story spends a lot of time using flashbacks that call out the original story, which serves as a good reminder at times, but impairs the viewer’s ability to engage with the new elements of the story. It was also difficult to ignore the frequent use of jump scares, many of which occurred in a similar pattern: Lockwood awakes at night and wanders the house, and then he sees a terrible image of a bloodied woman in a mirror or something. The scare factor wears off after the first two attempts, and after that it becomes a bore.The repetitive nature of many of this film’s plot aspects are truly what holds it back from being a semi-decent horror-classic twist. As with the jump scares, so many of the novel ideas in this film are clouded by attempts to copy the style and feel of other writers. The dialogue (especially during the flashbacks) at times felt like it was pulled directly from the original novel, which typically would not be a point to critique, but it often felt clunky and out of place. The actor’s actual delivery of the lines sounded almost Shakespearean, which took me out of the horror more than once while watching. Not to mention, the accents the actors were forced to put on were painful to the ears, especially Catherine’s and Cathy’s (Anna Coupe). The delivery of these accents paired with the overdramatic dialogue created a dynamic that is typically only seen in community theater. The ideas behind The House of the Damned are refreshing in the horror world, but these ideas were buried by an attempt to fit in with the crowd.Wuthering Heights: The House Of The Damned feels more like a sketch than a completed work of art, but I truly admire the real attempts made in The House of the Damned to create something unique that still recalls an original story. I think it’s safe to say that, despite its flaws, this film ultimately took me on a different journey than I expected to go on. I hope to see more films like this in the future, perhaps not with fake British accents. (Heidi Krull)
The characters and some similar plot points are here, but they are twisted into more overt horror archetypes. The foundation of this movie is in Heathcliff’s mission of killing people as sacrifices in an attempt to bring Catherine back to life. From the write-ups I’ve read, it sounds like the movie mostly adapts parts of the second half of the book. But, again, it’s all twisted up in blood and gore. (Chris Catt)
The House of the Damned has a few great ideas, but it lacks the creative inspiration to execute them well. Fennell’s Wuthering Heights has absolutely no ideas, but it’s way too busy masturbating to care. I’ve been in both camps — especially the second one — and I honestly can’t tell you which one is better. ( Rob DiCristino)
The result is a film that respects the atmosphere and emotional foundations of its literary inspiration while gleefully embracing the possibilities of horror filmmaking.There are moments of genuine unease, moments of unexpected humor, and moments of gloriously excessive practical gore. But beneath those pleasures is a thoughtful appreciation for the craft of filmmaking, evident in the relationship between camera movement, editing, production design, costume, performance, music, and sound.Rebecca J. Matthews has found a wonderfully wicked way to breathe new life—and perhaps a little undead life—into Wuthering Heights. And damned if it isn’t fun! (Debbie Elias)
I have always been a Brontë girl rather than an Austen one — it is not really something that I have to think about; the dreamy, desolate moors excite me much more than Jane Austen's books, where one very acclaimed, very viral review stated that the her novels were only about going to each other's houses.Charlotte Brontë too thought that Austen's works were devoid of warmth, enthusiasm and deep emotion, stating that 'the passions are deeply unknown to her'.I confess, I had arrived to the same conclusion in different words. Austen wasn't for me, she lacked the fiery passion of Wuthering Heights, the fierce steadfastness of Jane Eyre and the determination of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I first encountered Pride and Prejudice in the second year of university and I did enjoy it, but I loved how my teacher taught it more than the actual experience of reading the novel. Her prose often felt too stiff, and the characters too restrained. (Treya Sinha)
3. MarianneAusten’s Marianne is certainly passionate, romantic, and sensitive, but the new film (played by Esmé Creed-Miles) takes her wildness to another level. Instead of a spirited young woman navigating the restrictions of polite Regency society, she often feels like she’s one minor inconvenience away from running barefoot into the woods. Hard relate, but not the time and place.And that distinction matters. Austen’s heroines are daughters of gentlemen. They’re ladies, and they exist within a very specific social world — one governed by manners, money, reputation, and, of course, the marriage market. Marianne may push against those rules, but she’s still a product of them.In this adaptation, though, that carefully constructed social world sometimes feels like an afterthought. We get less of the young woman trying to reconcile her romantic ideals with the expectations placed upon her, and more barefoot-in-the-woods Marianne. It’s giving Emily Brontë’s Cathy. (Fleurine Tideman)
And Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre has inspired well over twenty movies and series, including a whole slate of silent films from the 1910s. Something about these nineteenth-century novels has kept each new generation of filmmakers coming back. Perhaps they are uniquely timeless in some way; maybe they are simply in the public domain. [...]We’re entering something of an adaptation renaissance. The last time this happened was around 1995, a period known as “Austenmania,” when it seemed like all of Jane Austen’s novels were hitting the big screen at once. Now, thirty years later, following the commercial success of Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights—which raked in over $80 million (US) globally on its opening weekend—a slate of new nineteenth-century adaptations is set to be released. [...]A currently under-production series will see Aimee Lou Wood portray Jane Eyre. [...]In an essay for The New Yorker on Fennell’s remake of Wuthering Heights, which has been adapted over thirty times, film critic Richard Brody contends that novels are not harmed by sloppy adaptations because “even the worst filmmakers aren’t burning the books, just misunderstanding them.” In other words, a bad adaptation doesn’t alter the text of its source material. As long as the great novel that inspired the shoddy film can still be checked out at the library, then no harm no foul, right?It depends on who you ask. The most popular review for the film on Letterboxd (an online platform for rating and discussing movies, frequented by annoying people such as myself) reads: “emily brontë died of tuberculosis 177 years ago yet this adaptation is still the worst thing that has ever happened to her.” Sure, hyperbole is the language of the internet, but over 100,000 people have liked this review, signalling some level of agreement with the idea that a bad adaptation isn’t just disappointing or aesthetically displeasing but actually offensive.The other school of thought, of course, is that “Wuthering Heights is SO good when you don’t have an English major in your ear telling you it’s nothing like the book.” That’s a post on X with almost 10,000 likes and over 5 million views. And while Brody doesn’t seem to agree that the film is “SO good,” he does put forward his own version of this sentiment. “Rushing to defend a literary source against a supposed cinematic mauling,” he says, “is often little more than an attempt to signal culturedness and education.” Books don’t need protecting, Brody suggests. Only our fragile egos do.Is that true? Is a bad adaptation a victimless crime? I can tell you that there was at least one victim of Fennell’s adaptation: me. I saw the film in theatres with friends when it came out. I’ve been a fan of the Brontë sisters since before I outgrew young adult novels, but I figured that, even if Fennell’s movie presented a shallower version of the story, it would at least be fun. Reader, it was not.But those are the stakes of making any movie: you might bore people, or irritate people, or offend people. But you’re not usually accused of making “the worst thing that has ever happened” to Emily Brontë or to anyone else. What, then, are the stakes of a bad adaptation? [...]And for what it’s worth, the posters for Fennell’s Wuthering Heights self-consciously place the title in scare quotes, signalling an emphasis on Fennell’s personal interpretation of the text, rather than fidelity to Emily Brontë’s original writing. [...]And, despite being based on a novel about abuse and trauma, Fennell’s Wuthering Heights was marketed as an adaptation of “the greatest love story of all time.” The film, which replaces class and race with sex and angst at every turn, has been dubbed the “smooth-brained” version of the novel.No book exemplifies the tension between surface text and subtext better than Charlotte Brontë’s 1849 novel Shirley, a brilliant novel but perhaps too bloated and unwieldy to ever receive a Netflix adaptation. Set against the backdrop of the Luddite riots, the novel follows two young women navigating love and friendship as their small Yorkshire town undergoes a period of rapid technological change. At the end of the novel, the titular Shirley accepts a marriage proposal from a man. This is hardly a “spoiler”; marriage was basically a necessity for any young female protagonist written in 1849. While Shirley’s story hits the beats of the marriage plot, suggesting a romantic conclusion on the surface, Brontë’s word choices imply an unhappier ending. Images of captivity haunt the language of the novel’s final pages; Shirley is “fettered,” “conquered,” “bound with a vow.” The surface text may follow the rules, but the subtext protests them—loudly. It’s no wonder that Shirley hasn’t received a big budget adaptation in over a hundred years. [...]Shortly after watching Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation, I encountered a woman who told me that her adult daughter had watched the movie in theatres and loved it, having never heard of the book. This unsettled me. Maybe Wuthering Heights really is SO good without the English major in your ear. But, now, when people think of Heathcliff—who is coded as a person of colour in the novel and who experiences racist abuse at the hands of his older brother—they might be picturing Jacob Elordi. Surely something has been lost. (Amarah Hasham-Steele)
‘Jane Eyre’ (2011)Cary Joji Fukunaga directs this adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 gothic romance novel. Mia Wasikowska portrays the orphaned governess Jane Eyre, who secures employment at Thornfield Hall under the service of the brooding Edward Rochester. Jane and Rochester develop a mutual affection, but dark secrets within the estate threaten their potential future together. Michael Fassbender co-stars in a narrative framed through non-linear flashbacks that highlight themes of class division, moral integrity, and resilience. (Arthur S. Poe)
Adapting a novel for a dynamic theatrical production presents a unique challenge. For director Jin Shengquan, the key lay in capturing Jane's rich inner life and translating her psychological journey into striking visual and musical language."When reading the novel, what stands out most is Jane's attitude toward the world. She is a woman with a rich, full inner life," Jin, who also plays Edward Rochester, told CGTN. "The biggest challenge for the stage was finding a way to externalize those internal thoughts and emotions. That led us to put Jane’s personal growth at the absolute center of our adaptation."To bring her internal conflict into sharp relief, the production introduces a creative recurring device: an "inner courtroom." In these stylized sequences, Jane faces trial under the absurd charge of "seeking affection" or "falling in love." Through resisting these voices of judgment – both external social expectations and her own internal self-doubt – Jane gradually breaks free, realizing her independence.Rather than producing a faithful Victorian period piece, the creative team deliberately localized and modernized the narrative to resonate deeply with today's Chinese audience."When interpreting a classic work like this, we must bring our own perspective," Jin explained. "We didn't want audiences to feel a sense of distance – whether from a Western literary classic or a Victorian setting."This contemporary lens dynamically reshapes the story's classic archetypes. The religious austerity of St. John is softened to reveal his human vulnerability and suppressed personal desires.Meanwhile, Edward Rochester sheds some of his traditional darkness and aggression; in an edgy modern twist, he makes his entrance riding a scooter and delivering lines through hip-hop, making his character arc and bond with Jane more relatable to contemporary viewers.Even Rochester's faithful dog, Pilot, is brought to life by a human actor whose physical performance and animalistic movement design add a vibrant, humorous energy to the stage.For lead actress Guo Yaorong, who first read Jane Eyre under her blanket as a middle school student, stepping into Jane's shoes revealed deeper layers to the iconic character."Through portraying her inner world on stage, I discovered a side of her that is sensitive, fearful, and at times unsure of how to face the world," Guo said. "Jane Eyre is a story people can truly relate to. Whatever you go through, you need to hold on to your principles, make your own choices, and set your own goals."Asked what Jane Eyre would be like if she lived in 2026, Guo believes she wouldn't necessarily be a celebrated figure. "She might just be an ordinary young woman – stubborn, staying true to her heart, particularly in her career, and living an ordinary life like anyone else."The enduring relevance of Jane Eyre in modern China – where it remains on the Ministry of Education's required reading list for students – underscores the universal power of world literature."A literary classic is a classic because it transcends national borders, languages, and generations," Jin noted. "In the global landscape of culture, we should embrace greater integration and mutual appreciation."At its core, this Chinese adaptation strip away historical distance to honor the timeless quest for self-actualization. As the musical's central anthem boldly proclaims: "I don't need to be defined. I will be myself." (Guo Meiping)
This moody gothic earns all the back-cover comparisons to Rebecca and Jane Eyre, and then some! Set in Nigeria during the lead-up to civil war, The Water House follows a reform school graduate, drifting through life and fake-engaged to a brooding widower; when scandalous revelations put an end to her relationship, she returns to her family home, a decaying estate concealing a terrible secret. (Molly Odintz)
This is a long novel, ostensibly comprised of 11 short novels, but what makes it so propulsive are the tendrils of detail that fasten each section to the next. The author presents 11 characters from birth to death, every one in some way connected to the Drayden sisters, born in a Yorkshire village in the early years of the 19th century, the daughters of a taciturn parson. Their short lives are distinguished by tragedy, but also by tremendous creativity. They each write and publish a single novel and are recognised, though fleetingly, as authors of talent and promise.If this sounds familiar, it’s because The Song of Stork and Dromedary is based on the story of the Brontë sisters. Although it ought to feel strange that it was originally written in Dutch while being set predominantly in England, this is not so; such is the skill of the author, as well as the proficiency and dynamism of the translation by David McKay. (Sara Baume)
The countryside in Austen’s novels is “an empty pastoral landscape” in which members of the gentry can roam, flirt and picnic. In Jane Eyre, by contrast, it is busy with working people of a different socioeconomic class to Charlotte Brontë’s heroine. Of the book’s 71 speaking characters, 22 aren’t named. This, allied to the impersonal, transactional exchanges that “orphaned, friendless, solitary” Jane has with these coachmen, ostlers and shopkeepers, captures the indifference of the modern, commercial world. Interestingly, Menon posits that in a narrative about someone trapped by their situation, this kind of alienation might also be liberating. (Chris Power)
The Brontë Sisters UK publishes a video about Jane Eyre 1973.
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