Hey.
This post contains spoilers
for the movie The Others. Don’t read on unless you’ve already watched
it.
And if you haven't, you need to.
The Others opened like any good horror movie
should—with a scream. Okay, maybe it did strike me as a little cliché, but I
didn’t mind the cheap gag. The producers were forgiven as soon as the camera
panned out to include the antique architecture and décor—I could watch that all
day. In fact, since this movie was filmed on location rather than on a sound
stage, I watched it a second time just to focus on the set.
So here's
what happens: A mom and her two allergic-to-light kids live in a fabulous old
house in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Oh, and that house is probably
haunted. The mom hires random strangers as house help, and the audience gets
the definite idea there’s something dodgy with them, but they’re more likable than
the main character. The kids allege that the house is haunted by a boy named
Victor—which is a scary effing name if you ask me (I’m talking about you,
Cypert)—and a lot of not much happens, but I think we’re supposed to be
frightened by paranormal occurrences and the diminishing sanity of the mom. The
husband/father comes back from WWII. Then he leaves because he’s not real. The
mom gets crazier. The ghosts (or the Others) manifest until we realize that
they’re the real people and Nicole Kidman and her kids have been dead all along.
And, oh yeah, she killed them. That was the scary part—a mom who loves her kids
can kill them in a fit of insanity.
I’d be
lying if I said I didn’t find this movie scary at all—and my husband would
totally call me out on it because he was trying to sleep and I kept waking him
up to keep me company. (That’s happened a lot this semester.) But it took a
long time to build tension. I don’t mind that so much—I wasn’t bored—I just
wasn’t scared. I doubt anyone was terribly surprised to find out the house-help
were dead, or that the war-scarred husband/father was also dead, so in that way
I started to smell an element of The
Sixth Sense, and even said so to my unconscious husband. And still, after
saying it aloud to him, it didn’t even cross my mind the flip the writer would
pull, with the entire main cast being ghosts, haunted by the living in their
spaces. And I do so love that concept. Imagine ghosts being terrified of the “normal”
activity around them. Clever. Better than Beetlejuice.
I know
we’ve talked about that good surprise/bad surprise thing in our Horror RIG discussions,
and in that conversation several of you talked about disliking the twist for
the sake of the twist or something like that. Because it gets old. And, yeah,
it probably does, especially if the writer/director makes a habit of it, and you
expect it. So maybe in this genre the more widely read you are, the less you
enjoy the experience—picking up clues and patterns faster. But I didn’t see it coming
this time. And I flipping loved it. But when I watched it the second time, it
was really just some boring stuff that happened in a beautiful old house.
The
Others.
Dir. Alejandro Amenábar. Perf. Nicole Kidman. Buena Vista, 2001. DVD.
Chris Daniels
ReplyDeleteKristin, unfortunately I had the pleasure of seeing this years ago and knowing the ending, so my 2nd time watching was exactly that: some boring shit that happened in a beautiful home. (Kaz's home???). While I did like the concept flip of ghosts being haunted by the living, and while I do really really enjoy Nicole Kidman's performance (I love her), and while I did like the attempt a twist...it was all in error. I feel like I'm just ranting at this point, but there was no point. No plot. It all served as a build up to the twist, and then nothing happens. The servants served no purpose, because they HAVE TO have a reason to hide the secret from Grace and her kids. Maybe there is a consequence to them finding out? Nope. Maybe she needed to discover the truth on her own to move on? Nope. Maybe the light will be her children going to heaven? Nope. Maybe the humans will threaten their ghost existence? Not at all. So where are we at the end? The same place as the beginning, just was a realization of what they are. Ugh. It's not a bad film, it's just a try-hard Sixth Sense wannabe. Wasted potential. Could've been so much more if the emotional weight was behind it. But, again, I rant and vent. Solid post!! :) Now lets see if my comment actually posts in less than an hour this time... Hmm....
You are so right about the pointlessness. I didn't see it myself, but I found the resolution dissatisfying. And that's because the plot lived for the twist, but nothing mattered beyond it.
DeleteKristin, I liked that you mentioned Beetlejuice in this review. Yeah, I got the Sixth Sense echo, but I missed the Beetlejuice one - how annoying would it be for ghosts to be haunted by living people? Especially since there are so many of them!
ReplyDeleteIt IS a scary name! One of the scariest! :D
ReplyDeleteYes, the whole was pretty far-fetched. It felt--forced, contrived, and awfully predictable.
It seems like I liked this movie more than most, but I can absolutely get behind the idea that it's in the same mold ad "The Sixth Sense" in terms of the twist. If anything I liked it more as a psychological look into the mind of a mother that knows (at some level) that she done fucked up. Now, she kind of thinks its just some low-level henpecking and emotional abuse, but I still liked the element of her character trying to deal with the stress of raising kids on her own and worrying about her missing husband.
ReplyDeleteYep, I'm with you--really cool, fun watch the first time, not so much on a second-go-round. But you brought up a good point about the beauty of film and the fact it was filmed on location and it maybe made me even sadder, lol. Because this film has so much going for it--it's shot really well in a gorgeous setting, it's spot-on in terms of atmosphere, it's just the writing alone that really makes it fall apart on second watch. It's a shame, really.
ReplyDeleteThat settles it. It's time these producers start consulting amateur film critics and novelists-who-haven't-published-anything before releasing these works. We could've told 'em how to do it better.
ReplyDelete