Movie Scene
First rate writing, acting make ghastly thriller 'The Others' a delicious horror film

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

THE OTHERS (PG-13, with moments of ghostly intensity) Three-and-a-Half Stars (Good-to-Excellent). The classic English ghost story – of the "dark, old house" variety – is marvelously reworked in this spooky thriller. Nicole Kidman stars as the mother of two children in a haunted house in 1945. Alejandro Amenabar writes and directs. Dimension Films, 105 mins.

It's 1945 and Kidman is Grace, the mother of two young children in a fog-shrouded, secluded country manor off the English coast. Her husband is off fighting the Nazis in the final days of World War II.

As the film opens, Grace welcomes three servants i a housekeeper, a gardener and a maid i to help her run the sprawling mansion. (Her previous servants have all left; we don't know why.)

Grace gives the servants only a few quirky rules, primarily the need to close and lock each door in the house before opening the next door as they go from room to room. It seems Grace's children suffer from a condition that makes sunlight dangerous. They live out their young lives in the shadows, reading and playing by candle and fire light.

Grace also tutors her children, and depends mightily on religious values.

But the children sense spooky goings-on i slamming doors, footsteps, a piano being played i the classic activities of a ghostly infestation.

Grace is initially skeptical i but is soon convinced.

"The Others" eschews the special effects, fast-paced editing and gore that typically define horror today. Instead, it favors darkly suggestive atmosphere, strong characterizations, and first-rate writing.

In that sense, "The Others" is more in the grand gothic tradition of "Rebecca" and the original "Haunting" than most fright flicks today.

It's also somewhat akin to "The Sixth Sense" in tone and temperament, though "The Others" is set in a quite different time and place.

Fans of fast-paced action might be frustrated by the film's moody, dreamlike pacing. Hopefully, they'll hang on long enough to be rewarded by the film's creepy aura and shocking finale.

Kidman is remarkable as the frustrated, tightly strung single parent, trying to stay in control of her emotions i and her children i while spectral forces assault her sense of reality.

Writer-director Alejandro Amenabar also impresses in his first English-language production. The Spanish filmmaker of "Open Your Eyes" has penned a clever script (in his second language), and he directs Kidman and the other actors to engrossing performances. If that's not enough, Amenabar has also composed atmospheric music that swirls suggestively around his film.

All in all, Amenabar has created a ghost story as evocative and authentically English as the mist on the moors.

Rated PG-13, with moments of ghostly intensity

Jack Garner is chief film reviewer for the Gannett News Service.