A Ghost Story of the Old School

Rating: 7/10 (2 February 2005)

Ever since the success of The Exorcist and similar films in the seventies, serious horror films (as opposed to the tongue-in-cheek variety) have normally been overstated. By this I mean that such films have been dominated by special effects, with plenty of blood and gore and everything shown explicitly. Before that, however,there was a tradition of making more subtle, understated horror films, where the horror is implied rather than shown directly. Examples that come to mind are The Spiral Staircase and the original versions of Cat People and The Haunting.
Although it is a recent film, The Others falls within this earlier tradition. It is set on Jersey in 1945, shortly after the liberation of the island from Nazi occupation. Grace Stewart lives in an old manor house with her young son and daughter. The two children suffer from a rare allergy to sunlight, which means that they cannot go outside but must stay indoors in darkened rooms. Grace's husband, who was fighting with the British Army, is missing, presumed killed. The children begin to believe that the house is haunted by the ghosts of an old woman, a married couple and a boy named Victor. At first Grace does not believe them; she is a devout and strict Roman Catholic, who dismisses belief in ghosts as superstitious. The strain of living in such a lonely, gloomy house and her worries about her missing husband and her children's health, however, are beginning to tell on Grace's mind. The strange behaviour of the three servants she has engaged is another source of worry for her, and she starts to wonder whether there might be something behind the children's stories.
The film ends with a sudden, shocking twist (which I will not reveal). I have read in other comments on this board, and elsewhere, that the twist is an obvious one which anyone can see coming. I suppose that it might be obvious to real horror film buffs; all I can say is that it certainly took me by surprise. Too often a surprise ending merely serves to show off the scriptwriter's cleverness, without any thought being give to the film's internal coherence, but in the case of The Others, although the twist was unexpected, I found the film had a satisfying ending that made sense in the context of what had gone before.
Establishing a suitably eerie atmosphere is an important factor in the success of a horror film, and The Others is extremely atmospheric. The film was shot in a rambling old house (actually in Spain, although it looks very English). For most of the time we see the house shrouded in dense mist. The children's rare illness, as well as being relevant to the plot, also serves as a device which enables the director to ensure that most of the interior scenes, even daytime ones, are suitably gloomy. Light only enters the house at the end, when the mysterious housekeeper opens the blinds against Grace's strict instructions. This development leads straight into the surprise denouement; the physical light of day and the metaphorical light of truth enter the house at the same time.
There are some effective performances, especially from Nicole Kidman as Grace. Grace, who starts off as a strict, authoritarian parent and gradually becomes more and more disturbed, is portrayed as that very dangerous type of individual, the control freak who is losing control. There are a number of holes in the plot; it is never, for example, explained how Grace's husband managed to escape from the German-ruled island to join the British forces. The sudden reappearance of the husband halfway through does not really add much to the film. Overall, however, I found this an impressive and genuinely frightening ghost story; proof that, even in the twenty-first century, one can still make an effective horror film without resorting to explicit violence or stomach-churning special effects. 7/10