NoFace for Film

Title: The Others
Year: 2001
Director: Alejandro Amenábar
Starring Cast: Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan
Rated: PG-13

NoFace for Film rating: 3.5 out of 7

When I first saw The Others a few years ago, it scared the living shit out of me. I couldn’t sleep for about a month afterwards. Recently, I decided to rent it again and see if it would have the same effect. After having watched it a second time, I realized that it wasn’t scary after all. Still creepy, but not “sleepless nights” scary.

The Others takes place near the end of World War II. Grace (Kidman) is a young mother whose husband Charles (Christopher Eccleston) had left to fight in the war. Grace and her two young children live in a big, old house in one of the Chanel Islands and are essentially cut off from the rest of society.

When Grace’s servants leave unexpectedly, she puts an ad for new servants. The ad is quickly answered by an old woman (Flanagan), an old man (Eric Sykes), and a mute girl (Elaine Cassidy). The old woman, Mrs. Mills, becomes in charge of the children, who are suffering from a rare photosensitivity disorder -if they’re exposed to sunlight, they would become sick and die. The children’s illness forces the entire house to be forever bathed in darkness. When the children are in a room, all windows are covered with heavy, thick curtains. Meanwhile, the doors are locked to prevent them from accidentally entering another room with drawn drapes.

The children reveal to Mrs. Mills that there are “others” in the house- intruders that they can’t see but hear. Believing that there are spirits in the old house, the children also tried to tell their mother, but since Grace is a strict Catholic, she refuses to believe her children and chalk it up to their imaginations. However, as the strange events in the house continue, even Grace starts to question what is really going on around her.

The Others has that creepy, The Sixth Sense feeling to it. The house is dark and gloomy, the kids are pale and withdrawn, and the servants are dressed in black. The music matches the mood as well- depressing and glum. But as creepy as it is, The Others is rather drawn out and slow, in spite of it short 100 minute running time. The first third of the movie is actually kind of boring. Yes, it establishes the children’s relationship with their mother, Grace’s character as a super strict and highly religious mother, and the overall environment -what it’s like to live in a big, dark house on a secluded island. But it’s still slow and drags quite a bit. Things start to slowly pick up when the children start mentioning the “others”, and you realize that everyone in the house has a secret that are just itching to be revealed, but won’t be until the last 10 minutes of the movie.

As for scariness factor, like I said- when I first saw The Others, I got scared. But what scared me the most weren’t the revelations near the ending. Actually, part of the ending is almost comical rather than scary. No, what scared me was the scene where Grace discovers an old photo album in the attic. The album was full of pictures of what seemed to be sleeping people. As it turned out, these people weren’t sleeping- they’re dead. Yes, it’s a photo album of the dead. Apparently, during the 19th century, when people (especially babies) died, families took pictures of them. The reason was that photography was still a new science back then and most people didn’t take pictures because they couldn’t afford it. Therefore, many families tended to have just one picture of their loved one- in death.

Anyway, that scene creeped me out the most, especially because only a couple of days later, I was watching the History Channel or something like that and guess what? They had a segment on the books of the dead. This was real! And yes, they showed real pictures of dead people in the show. Knowing that the books of the dead were real was just too unsettling for me. Yet when I watched The Others a second time, I wasn’t scared anymore. Maybe it was because I was already exposed to it- desensitized, perhaps.

Overall, The Others was a nice, light, scary movie. Rent it in October in preparation for Halloween.

Nicole Kidman, The Others, book of the dead, photos of the dead, hauntedhouse, ghosts, photosensitivity