They're creepy and they're spooky....

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2002)

Seems like when folks talk about the good old days of movies, they talk about movies that made you think, movies that scared you not by showing you something scary but by not showing you something at all. The fear of the unknown, conventional wisdom holds, is the ultimate fear. We do not fear the dark because it is dark; we fear it because of what it masks.
The Others harkens back to those oldtime scary movies, a haunted house movie that answers some questions, invites many more, and always keeps you on the very cusp of collapsing into hysterics. It's not just a neat ghost story told well; it's practically dripping with atmosphere.
Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman) lives in a gigantic old mansion with her two young children, Anne and Nicholas, waiting for her husband to return from World War II. The kids have developed a sort of photosensitivity disease, and cannot be exposed to any light more than that of a candlelight. This leads to the house being shrouded in darkness much of the time, and Grace even goes so far as to direct that no door may be opened without the previous door being closed, so as to prevent extra light from shining on the children.
Grace hires a troika of housekeepers and handyman to help around the house and with the kids, but the three older people seem... well, a little off to her. And soon the Stewarts come to believe they are not at all alone in the expansive manse, as daughter Anne insists she has seen and spoken to a little boy named Victor.
Who's behind the spectre appearances? Is it the hired help? Are the kids fibbing to their stern mother? Or is it all in the mind of Grace herself? Adding to the confusion is the return of Mr. Stewart to the house - like the help, he seems more than a little bit off-center. What is going on?
The mood is positively eerie, and it's accomplished by a pronounced lack of musical accompaniment. In most horror movies, one hears a melodramatic chord or two, leading up to the victim being slaughtered. Not in The Others. Silence is deadly and heightens the tension and suspense immeasurably.

This is probably Kidman's finest work, and in my mind it mostly erases the painful memory of watching her attempt to act in Eyes Wide Shut. Stripped of the baggage known as Tom Cruise, Kidman is simply superb, mesmerizing the viewer to the point of feeling a deep empathy for her plight. The plot's no slouch, either, full of twists, including an incredible denouement. As ghost stories go, The Others is one of the best I've ever seen.