The chills haven't stopped

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2001)

I'll admit straight out that I get scared easily. I couldn't sleep for months after watching "The Sixth Sense", and I really want to watch "The Exorcist", but I fear my heart wouldn't be able to take it. "The Others" is one of those movies that I know would scare me senseless, that I should avoid if I want to sleep in peace, but the more I realise that, the more I want to see it. It's a funny thing, human nature, it's almost masochistic. I can never understand why I enjoy scaring myself so much.
(spoilers) "The Others" concludes on basically the same note as "The Sixth Sense". Like I said, the latter film scared me, but I found "The Others" somewhat more chilling and thrilling. In "The Sixth Sense" (a very good film too), I was scared by the images of the ghosts, like the woman in the kitchen. But in "The Others", I was scared by the POSSIBILITY of what haunts the house. We don't get to see who's behind the mysterious closing and opening of doors and things like that until the very end, and it's a good thing, because it allows the viewer to exercise his/her imagination. The film doesn't show the audience its scares; it suggests them, and it's a lot more effective than creating a CG ghoul that floats about and have it boo at the audience every few minutes.
I have another confession to make: I screamed out loud at possibly the scariest scene in the movie, during the climax. The last time I did that was during "Scream 3", which wasn't scary, but everyone in the theatre was screaming, so I thought it would be fun to join in (it was). But here, I didn't scream for fun; tension was building up, and you're dying to see what's behind the closed doors (I wouldn't say what doors), and when you finally do, you see a sight that is so...grotesque that you can't help but scream. Needless to say, I got laughed at by my dad, but even he admitted that that scene sent chills down his spine.
Throughout the whole movie I kept feeling goosebumps all over my body, and in fact, still do now, when I think back to the film. Its geographical and period setting, its small cast, its music, its cinematography, everything contributed to its creepiness. I was surprised to see that Kidman was actually good in this, after her unintentionally comical performance in Moulin Rouge!. She displayed a range of emotions and daringness that I did not expect. Very much like "The Sixth Sense", the truth that was revealed was more tragic than scary (though it did scare me), and Kidman, along with the two kids, evoked a pity in me that almost made me forget how scared I was. That, I think, is a real accomplishment.
The movie boosts some of the greatest props I've seen in a while. I absolutely hated the photographs of the dead. They're old and yellowed and the most important photograph made me want to hide behind my cushion. The film also doesn't have any special effects or elaborate CG images. It's all atmosphere and mood, and it works very, very well. This is a brilliant and subtle horror movie that is well worth watching.