Can so many people be so sheltered?

Rating: 2/10 (12 January 2005)

I'm astounded by the hype.
When The Others was first released on these shores, people were talking about it as if it represented a groundbreaking new genre. It was as if the critics had never seen a haunted house movie before - and despite the glowing recommendations and boundless praise, the 'highlights' that got screened on TV to promote the movie seemed cheap, obvious and just plain silly.
So, in light of all the hype, I avoided the movie until it was screened on TV this evening.
What a load of cobblers.
For a start, The Others isn't creepy in the slightest. Robert Wise's original version of The Haunting was creepy. And some of the scenes in Peter Medak's The Changeling were unsettling in the extreme. The Uninvited got it right as far back as 1944, and yet The Others succeeds in doing little more than rattling chains and shouting BOO! Perhaps part of the problem is the lack of subtlety - I got the whole story at the end of the séance sequence. It said all that needed saying. But just in case you weren't paying attention we're treated to a painfully contrived monologue that renders many of the most effective sequences utterly redundant. It's this lack of regard for the viewer's intelligence that ultimately lets the movie down, as it degenerates into cheap cliché rather than genuine chills.
Or maybe the problem is its lack of originality. I love horror movies. In particular, I love the really scary ones - which are usually very different to the really gory ones. In watching The Others, it seemed as if Amenábar were simply making a list of 'things a ghost story should have'. At times, I felt like I were being treated to selected scenes from The Haunting or The Changeling, but without the tension or elegance of either.
And - spoilers ahoy - the moment I saw Eric Sykes cover those gravestone, I saw the ending coming a mile off. But let's not have any more comparisons with the Sixth Sense, as we'd already seen the same shock ending in movies like Dead and Buried or Blade Runner - and I'm sure they weren't the first to do it either.
In all, The Others proved to be as engaging, frightening and unsettling as Jan De Bont's laughable remake of The Haunting.
If you've never seen a haunted house movie before, please have fun and enjoy The Others. If, like me, you've been spoiled by all the really great stuff that came before, and genuinely enjoy a good cinematic scare, give it a very wide berth. Check out The Devil's Backbone instead - it's pure undiluted terror by comparison.