Full of symbolism - spoilage included here DO NOT READ if haven't seen

Rating: Null/10 (25 August 2001)

If your kind of scary movie is "I know What you did Last Summer" or "The Haunting" where most of the suspense comes from special effects or blood-thirsty killers, this is not the movie for you. It's an old fashioned ghost story plain and simple. There are not many visual effects at all, it forces you to use your imagination. Kind of like the original JAWS when you knew there was a killer shark in the water, but until a good way into the movie you never saw it; it was left up to your imagination to ponder what lurked in the deep, blue abyss. What I found most intriguing about The Others, however, was the symbolism. I assume since the director is of Latin descent that he is most likely Catholic, which makes the mother's near-obsession with the faith quite intriguing. Her whole speech to the children about what limbo is and where you go when you die, makes the ending that much more powerful (in my opinion) because you begin to wonder: were they in limbo, or did they just enter limbo? The mother says Anne needs to learn to ask for forgiveness and then we hear her asking the same from the Lord when the truth is revealed, and also from her husband when he discovers her. I would like to go back and see the movie again to try and uncover some of these seemingly small clues and discover, hidden in the midst of a bone-chilling ghost story, a touch of religious commentary and certainly a fair amount of symbolism.