Although an original story written and directed by a Spaniard, Alejandro Amenabar (Open Your Eyes, The Sea Inside), in the 21st century, The Others perfectly captures the tone and style of a classic British Christmas Chiller. Its influences in this area are obvious, most clearly Henry James' entry into the Christmas ghost market The Turn of the Screw, but it has enough style and confidence to stand out on its own account. Nicole Kidman, riding high from the success of Moulin Rouge! earlier that year, gives a career best performance as Grace, slowly unravelling in a remote house in Nazi occupied Jersey while her husband (Christopher Eccleston at his most depressing) is away fighting in the war. This setting, a reminder that the Nazis did invade and take control of British territory, is an original one, as is the device that allows Amenabar to shoot most of the film in suggestive low light and shadows. Grace's two children are extremely photosensitive, meaning that they must remain shut indoors with all doors and curtains shut at all times. Not only does this give them a creepily pale, ghostly appearance, but it means the whole film is full of suggestive shadows and a moment of a room being filled with sunlight becomes something truly tense. Some criticism has been levelled at the film for sharing a similar conclusion to The Sixth Sense, released two years earlier, but The Others suggests its twist with greater subtlety than Shyamalan's film, which telegraphs it from the start, and the specifics of this narrative make for a more emotionally powerful conclusion. Amenabar was nominated for a Bafta for his screenplay, an extreme rarity for a horror film, and, regardless of whether you know the ending, it is very easy to get sucked into the atmospheric elegance of this haunted house picture.
