cinema history class: the others (2001)

The session: Creepy Kids!
Four weeks of films featuring creepy kids. Or is it creepy films about kids?

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: The Others (2001)
Directed by Alejandro Amenabar

My Level of Prior Knowledge
Never heard of it.

Plot:
World War II has just ended, and a scared woman is living with her photosensitive children in a darkened mansion. She is sure the place is haunted -- and, in a sense, she's right.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

The Others starts out slow, but it’s the kind of slow burn that makes every creak and whisper in that sprawling mansion feel like it matters. It’s a gothic, foggy setup—the classic sort where half the suspense is watching Nicole Kidman lock down every room, hiding her photosensitive kids from the sunlight like some paranoid Victorian ghost hunter. Honestly, for a while, I found myself wondering if anything huge was going to happen, but the tension ramps up beautifully until that big twist.

Now, about that twist—it’s cut from the same cloth as The Sixth Sense, and, like that movie, you know something supernatural and game-changing is coming. I figured out early on that the family’s relationship to the ghosts was off, but I couldn’t quite peg exactly what was going on. When they finally reveal that Grace and her kids are actually the ghosts haunting the place, it’s wild to realize you’ve been rooting for the haunting instead of the haunted the whole time.

If you’ve seen The Changeling (which we did a week earlier), the similarities can’t be ignored. Both films play with haunted house architecture—staircases and endless, shadowy hallways that feel right out of an Escher drawing. I noticed that off-kilter, looping quality while watching, but I didn’t realize that it was intentional until Keith pointed it out afterwards. It did a great job of messing with my perception of space. It’s almost like The Others is The Changeling flipped on its head: in one, the living confront a dead presence; in the other, the dead realize the living are the intruders.

Villains? Not really. The Others, just like The Changeling and The Sixth Sense doesn’t give you an evil monster or nefarious ghost to hate. Everyone in that gloomy house is a victim wrestling with loss and confusion. Even the infamous séance scene feels like an homage—pulled straight from The Changeling (and appropriately reversed), right down to the frantic pacing and eerie detachment from reality.

Honestly, this movie should have been a modern classic, and it’s a shame it never reached iconic status. It came out in August 2001, and the timing—it was right before the world changed with 9/11—meant it got overshadowed and lost in the shuffle. Some of the film’s mysteries get left hanging, but it didn’t bother me. The strange, claustrophobic mood and gradual revelation kept me hooked, and by the end, the twist on the classic ghost story trope left me utterly out of breath.

The Others is worth revisiting, especially for fans of chilly, intelligent horror with atmosphere galore and a satisfying, eerie payoff.