'Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll Begin...'

Rating: 10/10 (21 May 2002)

`The Others' comes from a short line of well made, serious-horror films since the early years of cinema history. It scared me! It filled me with awe as to the power and effectiveness of film (today, many filmmakers are truly clueless)
Among these aforementioned serious films are `The Uninvited,' `The Innocents' (based on Henry James' novelette `The Turn of the Screw') and, most recently, `The Sixth Sense.'
`The Uninvited' (itself a film based on Dorothy Macardle's novel, `Uneasy Freehold') offered a plot twist (one good ghost, one bad) at the end of the story, answering the audience's possible question, why is the ghost trying to kill her beloved, living daughter?'
`The Innocents' were motherless children (one boy, one girl) who, suppressing their knowledge of the possibility of ghosts ended in the death of one of them, somewhat indirectly, at the hands of their governess, a sexually frustrated, yet well-meaning heroine.
Along came `The Others.' This is a clever reworking of Turn of the Screw' (the governess' here is now the children's religious, overprotective mother) and continues the cleverness in plotting, as seen in `The Sixth Sense."
Watching `The Others' I quickly realized that the director relishes good, old-fashioned ghost stories, and doesn't make a habit of insulting the general intelligence of his audience. Throughout the production, we are given hints as to the very super-nature of the narrative (the fact that the curtains must always remain closed, hints at the metaphor of the mother's unwillingness to see the light' of the truth).
The Others' cast rises to the transcendental occasion. Flanagan is a seasoned stage veteran, and years ago appeared in the excellent television horror film `The Legend of Lizzie Borden,' here again playing a house servant. Doesn't the young actress (playing the mute girl ghost) look something like Anna Paquin (although I know she's not her)?

Like "The Innocents," the adult, female lead character walks alone about the mansion, night surrounding her, carrying a candle-holder and expecting... Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll end this review here, I've said too much already!