Review of The Others (2001) by Jesse O — 08 Sep 2010

This movie is so great. It's actually only the second time I've watched this. The first being when it first came out in 2001 NINE years ago. I don't know what it was, but ever since I saw this movie for the first time, I've had some really fond memories of it.

Back when I was 13, I didn't take into account the intricacies and subtleties in the art of filmmaking, so looking back now, I don't know why I had fond memories of this flick, because at the time, I was very immature and I liked things immature teenagers would like.

But something about this film, permeated and stuck with me enough for me to look back on this film with good memories. I think part of it is, that when I originally saw it, the theater was fucking PACKED and people were scared shitless with the movie.

And it's not one of those movies where the scares are cheap. For example I went to see The Boogeyman (2005) and the theater was also packed and people got "scared", yet it didn't feel the same.

The scares were really cheap and absurd. Like you usually see with shitty horror movies. Me and me friends were just laughing at the idiots being scared by this stupidity. Anyway, there's something about this movie that's absolutely terrifying.

Especially when you find out the twist and everything is put into perspective, there's something scary about that. Thing is, this movie really doesn't have a lot of JUMP scares, but the atmosphere and the tension builds and builds throughout the movie, with help by an excellent performance from Nicole Kidman, that it's really just really well crafted movie.

Spanish filmmakers have always been very good at making ghost stories. And this film is perfect proof of that. They don't give you a lot, as I mentioned before, a lot of jump scares. It's a movie that doesn't take the easy way out.

The thing with movies like the Boogeyman is that they keep throwing jump scares out at you, so that nothing, in the end, really stands out because it's a movie that uses the same tricks over and over and over.

This movie, on the other hand, really does take a minimalistic approach and just lets cinematography and atmosphere do a lot of the work for them. There's a reason this movie is more memorable than Boogeyman even though this movie came out FOUR years before Boogeyman.

One thing I will complain about and that's the child actor who played Nicholas. What an annoying little child. He always had the same scared expression on his face and after seeing his scare expression for the 15th time, I was just ready to kick my TV whenever he appeared.

Just an annoying child. On the other hand, the actress who played Anne was really good. And, as I mentioned earlier, Nicole Kidman is fabulous in this movie. Of all the movies I've seen her in, this is one of her best performances by far.

But anyway that's about it, this movie is excellent and it's even better watching the second time around knowing what's going to happen and looking for clues hinting towards the twist, and the clues are there.

I'll even go as far as to say that I think this movie is better than The Sixth Sense. The Sixth Sense was made by the twist, and in a lot of ways, so is this film. But I felt this movie was far more consistent in its storytelling and pacing than The Sixth Sense was.