You know how some people think that pasta is really better on the second day, after you take the Tupperware out of the fridge and microwave it: you would think that it would be better fresh on the plate the way God intended it, but somehow it is just better the second time around- and that is the short version of how one could describe The Others. The first time I saw this movie back in 2001 in the cinema I thought it was a good film but looking back on it and knowing how it ends I realize the pure genius of this film.
Watching the movie this time, for 31 Nights of Terror, I saw all of the little winks and foreshadows of the surprise ending, a sort of ‘the answers were there all along’ which you only really recognize when you know you should be looking for them. They are, of course, important the first time around because they prepare you for the Grande Finale, but their presence is doubly valuable in terms of replayablity because it is gratifying to see something new the second time around in a movie, helping you feel like you are living a new experience and perhaps even getting to know the characters a little better than you did the first time, which might sound a bit silly but if you think about films whose fan base has gone global à la Lord of the Rings, it is exactly that kind of connection which perpetuates their existence.
Last night, Mimic showed us just how boring a standard can be but in contrast, The Others is a great example of how generic can be exactly the right thing so long as you know how to use it to your advantage. There used to be a TV show in Great Britain where contestants would bring something like eight simple grocery items and then see what kind of exquisite plate an expert cook could make with it and I think that is a pretty good analogy of what director Alejandro Amenabar has done here.
When I was a child there was a black and white movie I watched a million times over with my siblings called The Uninvited, a simple ghost-in-the-mansion story which was made all the way back in 1944 and it is amazing to see how little has changed in 2001 when The Others was written. It is still the story of a big old mansion with a dark and hidden past which will be uncovered by the main characters after having their living wits scared out of them over 100 minutes or so.
The Others could be any ghost movie with those elements and some good direction, but where it really pulls ahead of the other horses is in the little plot details. The most famous of these is that the children in this film are photosensitive, a real medical condition in which sunlight can quickly kill them, and thus they must remain at all times in the dark. The dark is always an enemy in horror because of its uncertainty and obscurity and by making the light equally as deadly, The Others strikes an amazing tone of fear in its audience leaving them nowhere to feel safe. Some of the worst scares in this movie are when we see plain daylight blasting in through the windows: imagine the power of the director capable of doing that.
The setting is also perfect, layered like a mille-feuille cake so that the atmosphere is so heavy it drowns you: stuck on a small, barely inhabited island off the coast of the island of Britain outside of the nearest town in the countryside in the fog in a mansion in rooms locked the one behind another in the dark. The very idea of having to live under such conditions helps the audience sympathies with some of the decisions made by our heroine, Grace Stuart.
The Others deserves extra credit for doing the unthinkable, which is making a movie which centralizes in large part around two child characters, both well balanced so that they feel neither unrealistic nor teeth grindingly annoying in scary moments as I am persuaded children would be in the real world should they be confronted by psychic old ladies with mushy eyes.
Alejandro Amenabar impresses me even more because he not only directed the piece to almost-perfection but he also wrote the original script as well as the score, which was good though the film might have profited from someone a bit more experienced in the scary music department.
My one major gripe, however, is a completely unneeded and dragged character appearance half way through the film which practically grinds the story to a halt before said character ups and leaves as suddenly as they appeared without adding anything to the plot or resolving anything by their presence; in fact if you really want to knit pick, within the established suspension of disbelief, the very presence of this character makes no sense. The whole thing feels out of place and is annoying because it is undeniably there though small enough to be forgiven.
The colors are perfect, scenes well shot, dialogue well written, and characters acted to perfection. Speaking of characters, I loved how this film is almost entirely character driven: sure, there is a scare here and there and there is always the feeling of some kind horror waiting for you around the next locked door, but so much of the story revolves around who these people are and caring about that makes the film all the more enjoyable.
The Others is an amazing film which should not be missed and definitely belongs on my Top 10 Best Movies of All Time list which, my wife reminds me, is most likely a hundred films or so long at this point.
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