Works in the theaters, not on TV

Rating: 5/10 (24 June 2002)

Like "What lies beneath", "The Others" is a movie that probably work very well on the big screen, but on the TV (I rented it on video), it falls completely flat. I can easily understand that this movie is scary when you see it in a dark room on a big screen with stereo sound, but when you rent it at home and watch it...what a disappointment.
The acting is great, the cinematography is great etc..but it's all so very boring. Hardly anything ever happens, and when something happens it usually doesn't make a lot of sense. You have no empathy at all for the characters: two whining little kids and an overly harsh mother. Plus, it's not even remotely scary (on TV). Granted, the ending is adequate and does clear things up, but it didn't shock me nearly as much as "the Sixth Sense", a movie with a similar theme, did. I'd even go as far as to call this a rip-off of the Sixth Sense.
Well made, but very boring and derivative.
** out of **** stars