Effectively bone-chilling, but there's more to it than that.

Rating: 9/10 (12 March 2011)

Rating: **** out of 4.
Sadly, there are fewer and fewer movies horror stories like THE OTHERS being made nowadays. Ask even some horror movie fans and they might pick SAW or Friday THE 13TH over THE INNOCENTS or DON'T LOOK NOW any day, and to an even lesser extent, some of the horror fans of my generation prefer the PG-13 junk to any of those classic 70's horror thrillers. Well, it's a good think that once in a while, great horror movies like THE OTHERS come out and bring us back to horror movie heaven where we truly belong.
THE OTHERS is one of the better horror movies to have come out in years. I can't believe I have only seen it recently! Consider this one of the movies in my "Should have seen it earlier" list. Director Alejandro Amenabar takes us on a psychological horror mind trip rather than the latest disposable PG-13-level release. It's scary but not in ways you expect. There are an occasional number of "boo" moments, but Amenabar handles them better than most; taking full advantage of our expectations and than catching us when we least expect. The whole theme of the story too is far more mature than most films of the genre. Perhaps it ain't as thought-provoking as, say, THE INNOCENTS (a film THE OTHERS takes a few notes from), but it's brilliant in its own clever, mind-blowing way.
Having only recently landing a role in MOULIN ROUGE as a playful, sumptuous Can-Can dancer, Nicole Kidman takes an opposite turn playing a dark, fragile character as Grace, a woman who lives alone with her two children, Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley), in an old dark mansion while her husband Charles (Christopher Eccleston) is away at war. Grace hires a trio of helpers - housekeeper Mrs. Mills (Fionnula Flanagan), a mute named Lydia (Elaine Cassidy), and gardener Mr. Tuttle (Eric Sykes) - to attend to the house. Then strange occurrences start happening, prompting Grace to believe that the house is haunted by "intruders". Anne starts seeing a boy she calls "Victor", as well as an old woman she believes is a witch. Plus something may or may not be all right with the new help.
THE OTHERS returns to the classic horrific atmosphere of those old-school horror movies - the candelabra-lit walks through dark hallways, doors being slammed shut by other things than the wind, and specters that look even creepier without the use of gruesome make-up effects. Even without the use of a lot of "jump-out-and-scare-you" moments (though there are a couple here), Amenabar keeps us interested because, unlike recent throwaway fare, he has an excellent story and an interesting array of tragic, unstable characters, and an atmosphere than effectively (literally) keep us in the dark throughout the movie.
Amenabar has not made an outright horror outing since (he did make TESIS prior to THE OTHERS, but nothing else after), which is sad. The genre needs more like him these days, one that can perfect the balance of good writing, performances, atmosphere, and scares and delivering a ideal entry in the much under-utilized genre.