The Others (2001)

Director: Alejandro Amenábar
Writer: Alejandro Amenábar
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Christopher Eccleston, Fionnula Flanagan, Elaine Cassidy, Eric Sykes, Alakina Mann

Perhaps it's due to nothing more than the ubiquitous Twilight Zone reruns which were weekday after school viewing staples for me growing up, but I have an almost inerrant ability to predict supposed "twists" in film from virtually the moment the film starts. Unfortunately for my wife, who usually accompanies me to the theater or is by my side when we watch at home, I always want to announce my conclusions just to prove that I've outwitted the filmmakers early in their own games. Having been raised on the artful last minute surprises dished up by Rod Serling, Richard Matheson and all the other fantastic writers who made Twilight Zone such an unforgettable phenomenon, I have rarely been surprised by shocking revelations delivered in modern films. The Sixth Sense? My suspicions were instantly raised with the segue from the shooting scene and as soon as Haley Joel Osment looked directly at Bruce Willis and declaimed that famous line about what he saw, the game was up for me and I knew exactly what was going on. Similarly, I figured out the main ruse of The Others almost from the get-go, but it's to the film's credit that even though I knew what the "big twist" was going to be, it really didn't defeat the film's energy or moodiness for me, and I doubt even those who may be able to figure out who's haunting whom in this evocative ghost story will mind very much if they sense the reality behind the illusion of this well crafted and suitably spooky 2001 film written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar. Amenábar, a Chilean-Spanish filmmaker, works in a somewhat similar style to Guillermo del Toro, at least insofar as del Toro mines the hallucinogenic dreamworld of children a lot of the time. Though The Others is ostensibly told from the point of view of seemingly neurotically overprotective mother Grace (Nicole Kidman), it's the presence of her two young children Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley), both of whom suffer from an allergic reaction to light (an actual, albeit rare, disease called xeroderma pigmentosum), who give the film its emotional heft and most disturbing aspect. Taking place in the immediate aftermath of World War II on the Channel Islands which were of course invaded and occupied by the Germans, The Others is a wonderfully Gothic, incredibly atmospheric piece that brings to mind a long series of ghost or possession pieces like Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, where the audience is never quite sure if the hauntings are figments of an overactive imagination or something more sinister at work.

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