Intelligent, Atmospheric Horror

Rating: 8/10 (7 October 2001)

It's almost impossible to discuss The Others without bringing up 1999's already classic ghost thriller The Sixth Sense. Both are films that move deliberately slow, drawing in the audience with a fine eye for details and no special effects, creating a brooding atmosphere and getting frights from suggestion and small effects. Still, Amenabar's The Others goes even further with his minimalist style, constructing a film that becomes increasingly creepy with the slightest sound effect or plot point.
Nicole Kidman, in a bravura, chilling performance, stars as Grace, mother to two children with a rare disease that makes exposure to sunlight deadly. She lives in a mansion on an island, fog smothering their secluded existence, when one day three servants come looking for work. She hires them, and suddenly strange noises and occurences start descending on the house. Slowly, it becomes evident that they are not alone when her daughter begins to describe her experiences with a mysterious ghost boy named Victor.
The Others is an elegantly mounted film, and Amenabar succeeds in building an uneasy tension with striking cinematography that makes the light and darkness seem to come alive, as if it were a character in itself. At times, the look and feel of it seems more like a macabre Merchant-Ivory production than a haunted house movie. Amenabar's pacing is perfect; it's refreshing to see a summer movie that slowly and confidently ups the ante to the point where the audience doesn't know where the story is going to go. When the film finally reaches it's end, its quite a spine-tingling climax.
8 out of 10