Delightfully Spooky, Old-Fashioned Ghost Story.

Rating: 9/10 (30 May 2006)

"The Others" is an excellent blend of suspense, horror, and mystery. It has a great story, some great acting, and I thought it was pretty scary. But you have to like ghost stories to enjoy this. Nicole Kidman plays Grace Stewart, a mother who lives in a dark, old island mansion in the 1940's, with her two children, Anne and Nicholas, who are allergic to the sunlight. After some servants arrive to their darkened home, strange events begin to plague Grace and her children. As things get stranger and stranger, Grace becomes convinced that her home is haunted, and she begins to suspect something strange about the servants. Is the house really haunted? Or is there something even more disturbing going on?
Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar brings this delightfully eerie ghost picture to the screen, in the vein of Jack Clayton's 1961 chiller, "The Innocents", and Robert Wise's "The Haunting". The story is nicely crafted here, and while the similarities between this and "The Innocents" are obvious, "The Others" is definitely it's own movie. Fans of slow-going, old-fashioned horror films will love this, because of the steady pacing that still manages to send chills up the spine. It's a bit of a slow film in the beginning, but things do pick up, and there is plenty going on in the meantime to keep the audience intrigued. The entire movie is done in the style of those classic haunted house stories we know.
A very dark and Gothic atmosphere is prevalent as well, and director Amenabar captures some very eerie images and some excellently-constructed scare sequences. As for the twist-ending, I have to give some major credit for it. I never saw it coming, and it fit the story perfectly, completely reversing whatever ideas you had about the film. The acting is also great, Nicole Kidman plays her role as the eccentric mother perfectly, and Fionnula Flanagan plays one of the kindly new servants to the household nicely, as do the rest of them. And the children playing Kidman's son and daughter were also very remarkable in their roles.
Overall, "The Others" is a classy and Gothic ghost story, reminiscent of those haunted-house classics we all remember. This film sets up an intense atmosphere - very dark, subtle, and old-fashioned. I enjoyed it. If you like this kind of movie, surely see it, you won't be disappointed. "The Others" is a great example of what a genuinely good ghost story should be like. 9/10.