Dir. Alejandro Amenábar, Spain/France/US, 2001, 104 mins
Genre: Drama / Horror / Thriller
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Fionnola Flanagan, Christopher Eccleston
Review by Carol Allen
The art of terror in the movies is what you don't show - something Alejandro Amenábar understands perfectly. The Others is a first class, spine tingling, serious ghost story, totally devoid of the self conscious, post modern cynicism, which is often the norm today in horror movies.
Kidman plays Grace, a young mother living with her two children in a mist shrouded mansion in Jersey during the Second World War. The children are allergic to light, so all windows must be shrouded, all doors must be kept locked, which creates a spooky atmosphere from the word go. Her servants have inexplicably disappeared and when three new ones arrive to replace them, who claim to have worked in the house before, strange things start to happen. Her daughter claims to see ghosts, a piano plays by itself in a locked room, crying children and scampering feet can be heard but never seen. And the new servants are a rum lot; the dour Irish housekeeper (Flanagan), the mute skivvy (Elaine Cassidy) and the distinctly odd gardener (Eric Sykes). There is also an effective cameo from Eccleston as Grace's husband apparently making a brief return from the fighting front.
Kidman is superb as Grace, an uptight, coiled spring of a woman with more than a touch of religious mania and the children, particularly Alakina Mann as Anne, a self possessed, bossy girl, are real kids as opposed to "movie cute". Amenábar uses sound and music to great effect in building the tension and a sense of unease, in which we're never sure what is real and what is in Grace's mind, there are moments which make you jump out of your seat and the film has an intriguing and unexpected dénouement.
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