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Missing the mark again: The Others
by Christian De Matteo

Wimpy

Not two days before were Mike and I discussing what made The Sixth Sense a great movie and Session 9 not.  And here I sit, typing out a review that is about that same thing.

What made The Sixth Sense a great movie was that every minute of the film served the purpose of making sure that particular minute was good.  Even if it was establishing a point for the finale, it stood on it’s own as an exciting or interesting or engaging moment in cinema.  And this is where The Others fails.  The film feels like every moment of the running time is in service of the last fifteen minutes and that this payoff is supposed to be worth the often disjointed, ridiculous, campy and mostly boring hour and a half preceding it.

And it is not.

The payoff itself is an excellent concept that falls prey to a) constant and very distracting Sixth Sense similarities, and b) an extra anti-climactic reveal at the most frightening moment of the movie.  What should be shocking and chilling is too familiar and not done well enough to overlook that fact.  I realize a movie should be viewed on its own and not in comparison to other films, but director Alejandro Amenábar doesn’t give the audience of much of a choice but to fixate on The Sixth Sense, a mistake to be sure, due to the superiority of Sense.

All of this is a shame because the movie has massive potential.  First of all, Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, To Die For), seemingly on a crusade to be recognized as the excellent actor she is, is superb in the part of the mother, acting often just via facial expressions and doing terror very, very well.  Unfortunately, the script calls for her to be mostly unlikable, a factor that gives her an even harder job to do.

Secondly, the film is visually beautiful, trying successfully to capture the feel of old horror movies, and almost making itself look like color black and white.  The lighting is excellent and the set is wonderful.

But alas, the movie plods along slowly without enough scares and tons of exposition that doesn’t matter or work in the film except for retrospectively, and that certainly doesn’t make it worth it.  An entire subplot of Kidman’s husband seems like a separate story, almost having the relevancy of a commercial to a television show, only makes sense when contemplated with the twist at the end, and honestly doesn’t do much for that either.  The husband scenes assume we the audience knows something that we aren’t supposed to know till the end, making the scene ridiculous.  I can explain no further for fear of ruining the surprise, if you feel it is.

Worth seeing for all those interested in Kidman’s increasing screen presence, and for a few very well done scenes, but on the whole disappointing and saddening because it makes one wonder when we will again be given a film with real scares.

My recommendation is to tide yourself over by renting The Sixth Sense and What Lies Beneath.

The Others Type of Horror
by Michael Flanagan

Solid

The Others plays out like an extended episode of the old Twilight Zone series.  Which, of course, is based on even older books, comic books, and radio programs.  Basically, The Others is an old-fashioned type of story told in new-fashioned cinema, and, while a good attempt, the transition doesn’t always hold up well.

The movie feels long.  Not too long, but certain scenes play out slowly, and for no greater purpose.  Some of the dialogue doesn’t fall in with the characters.  This is especially relevant with Fionnula Flanagan (represent!), who’s character, as the mystery unfolds, changes in such extremes that for a time I thought she was schizophrenic.  Scenes with no dialogue and not setting up a scare seem to just sit there, out of place, sometimes in the wrong movie.  The setup is a bit too long for the type of payoff that results.  All in all, the pace and balance needs to be reworked, maybe even for the director’s cut DVD that hasn’t been talked about.  (Off-subject note: remember, directors, they didn’t put the word “cut” in that phrase for nothing!)

The Others does have some very qualifying merits.  Nicole Kidman is great as the temperamental, sometimes just mental mother of the two children.  The children are great as well: loveable, yet menacing and creepy all at the same time.  The look of the film is fantastic.  A traditional eerie fog sits around the house so that you can’t see past the yard.  The house is massive with so many crevices and turns that it’s hard to tell where you are.  And the brilliant plot-device of children with deadly allergies to the sun allows most of the movie to be filmed in the dark, lit by candlelight, bordering the screen in shadow like a frame.

And director Alejandro Amenábar knows how to set up a scare and follow through.  He uses old techniques and new to make you want to pull those close hands over your wide eyes.  He can hold out a dark scene for just long enough and then jolt you with the shock of its reveal.  He can hold out a scene similarly, then leave it, letting you relax…until the next one.  He uses these techniques extremely well.  What he keeps away from is the sudden jumps.  There are very few moments in the movie where the scene is quiet and calm and something jumps out and…well, you get the point.  He stays away from this, warning us every time he’s about to scare us, and the warning is just as frightening as the scare.

The conclusion is no “grand finale.”  Like so many twists of The Twilight Zone and Tales from the Darkside and so many other horrors of pulp fiction, the finale is surprising, quirky, and, yes, twisted.  It works well with the story of the film, if only there had been less time spent telling that story.  A movie like this one hasn’t been to the screen in a while, and it’s worth checking out, especially in the crowded darkness of a theatre.

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