very excellent

Rating: Null/10 (19 October 2002)

I really liked this movie - as someone else had commented, it's one of the few to literally send chills down my spine. It takes a lot to get that kind of reaction out of me.
It's also one of the few to be described on the cover as having a "surprise ending" that I didn't see coming in its entirety, though in retrospect, all the clues really were there. It is, actually, very unlike a Shyamalan movie, though the comparison to "The Sixth Sense" has been made. The clues in "6th Sense" were ridiculous and mostly useless - the "red" thing for example. The only times that the colour red stands out as remarkable are the shots of the doorknob - otherwise: people wear red clothes, and have red balloons at parties, so no one will notice or care. The clues in "The Others" are more subtle than the red doorknob, but not subtle to the point of being uselessly obscured by their common-ness.
The pacing, I thought, was perfect. Any faster and there wouldn't have been enough time for the fact to sink in: there is something really not right about this household. Any slower and it could have become a very tiring thing to watch. This film is very much like being strapped into a medieval torture device handled by the most excellent Marquis de Sade himself - it's not in the pain of the device or the surprise of the ending, but in the anticipation of it that the thrill lies.
Very moody film, highly recommended!