 In this stylish and atmospheric psychological thriller reminiscent of  Henry James (I)  (qv) s Turn of the Screw, a widowed English writer brings a young, glamorous new bride to his bleak, isolated home in rural Spain. She soon becomes obsessed with her 12-year old stepson, who she learns has just been expelled from school for mysterious offenses; while the boy enjoys, exploits, and feeds her increasing paranoia about him. That he is a brilliant and lonely child is obvious. But is he the victim of a neurotic woman s overwrought imagination-- in Shakespeare s words, the innocent flower, or the serpent under it?