Simply the most stunning ghost film I have ever seen

Rating: Null/10 (10 August 2001)

I just got back from a sneak screening of this, and I have to say I am absolutely breathless. My heart was pounding in my ears toward the end, and that hasn't happened since "The Gift", coincidentally another ghost film. But "The Others" is riveting in the classic sense that absolutely no special effects were involved, except for a few papers in the air briefly, which worked. I sensed no studio intervention. The brilliant writer/director was able to make his film the way he wanted, which comes across clearly in the remarkable, original, and stunning way this film is written, shot, acted and directed. A truly terrifying ghost story. All of the details are there that make it perfect: the children are dependent for their lives on the curtains; they can't bear the sunlight or they die. The mother gets migraines easily at any loud noises; one of the houskeepers is a mute. Every day is thick with fog, shrouding the house in even more of a sense of forebodness and confusion. While I knew early on what the twist was, this is not to say that it was predictable at all, only that I have read plenty, and I do mean plenty, of ghost stories, so I pick up early on a lot of the time. But that doesn't change the fact that this film is sheer and utter brilliance. Perfect camera angles involving the ghosts, which I, of course, will NOT be revealing here. Dark figures walking through fog to dark, spiraling gates, with rotted trees next to graveyards, postmortem pictures of the dead in the house. Absolutely PERFECT. I tip my hat to the director, who was talented enough and lucky enough to make his film with practically zero intervention of any outside force. Do you realize how little that happens nowadays? But then again, I can almost be sure that everyone who read this spectacular script knew it had to be made the way it was. It just had to be. And it was. And I will watch this film and love it for the rest of my life. It was simply the most stunning ghost film I have ever seen.