The Others

When I was little, it seemed that every time I was babysat there was some sort of creepy haunted house film on telly – or The Blob yet again. Many years on, such tales still hold a special place in my heart. With today’s tendency towards over the top and ickily graphic gory blood-soaked effects, quick-buck shoot’em, cut’em and screen’em mentalities, a penchant for naked breasty bits at any opportunity and popstar-like creepy bad guys, The Others enters the fray as a delightfully traditionally styled spooky flick that relies on good old fashioned suspense and quality writing to get across the finishing line.

As with the best thrillery, spooky mystery-type films, to give away too much of the plot would be stupid (and would also most likely have my inbox flooded with hate mail – umm, no thanks), so all you get is this...

‘Our Nic’ is the rather prim and proper Grace, a woman struggling to raise her two sick children alone in a rather grand manor, under the weight of losing her husband to the (second world) war. Said sick children are the rather precocious Anne (Alakina Mann) and the somewhat less confident Nicholas (James Bentley) – both of whom suffer a rare allergy to daylight, contact with which apparently renders them all scabby, sickly, covered in sores and potentially dead. After her previous domestic help just up and disappeared without notice, she is greeted one morning by a threesome looking for the job – a forthright nanny suffering under the name of Bertha, a mute maid named Lydia and an incredibly old gardener in Edmund. Relieved at finding help to look after her rather large mansion, Grace decided to employ the three – then later realises that the advertisement she had placed for help never actually ran in the newspaper...

Still, Grace isn’t without her own eccentricities. She has a convoluted system whereby no door may be unlocked before the previously opened one has been secured and an elaborate set of various keys for different parts of the house. Prone to migraines, she prizes silence highly – the house has no telephone, no radio – not even electricity. And needless to say the curtains remain drawn day in and day out.

All seems as well as can be expected, until Grace starts hearing strange noises. Crying, phantom pianists, sudden knocks and the most classic of freaky-outty things, the clomping footsteps above when she knows nobody is there. Needless to say she is seriously spooked by all this, and those around her start to have concerns about her sanity. Ah, but what of the creepy servile threesome?

That’s it. No more – you’ll just have to see this for yourself to find out more. Whilst it does all tend to build slowly, in fact possibly too slowly for some, The Others has a stylishness and a certain classicism redolent of the old fashioned thrillers and perhaps even a hint of Hitchcockian intrigue to it, delivering a sort of creeping dread that gradually leads up to a twisty climax to rival the likes of The Sixth Sense - and quite a few genuine scares as well. And did I mention that there are no naked breasts?

"There isn’t always an answer for everything..."

Boasting the exact same transfer as the rental release which came out earlier in the year, as you may expect, visually The Others is a very dark film – something which can spell trouble for many a transfer to DVD. Thankfully, however, this transition to disc has been handled particularly well, with excellent shadow detail and perfectly black blacks to spare in all its 1.85:1 anamorphic glory.

Admittedly the colour palette would hardly have a rainbow breaking out in sweat at the competition, as it consists predominantly of greys and browns of varying shades; however all comes up quite fabulously. Other than some minor aliasing that is virtually unworthy of mention, the one let down in all this is that the predominance of darkness unfortunately shows up the one slight flaw with this transfer – quite an alarming number of white specks. Those which would most likely go virtually unnoticed on most films end up becoming reasonably invasive. It isn’t like the film is infested with them, but there are a surprising number for a transfer of a film of such recent vintage. The layer change comes fairly late in proceedings, and situated as it is on a scene change it manages to not be too intrusive.

Audio-wise we’re served up a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, which does a perfectly good job with all it is asked to. The surrounds are used to support the score to great effect, with some lovely use of all channels for effects as well. Whilst not a huge workout for the subwoofwoof, it is still utilised effectively if not subtly to enhance the whole creepy experience – especially that fabulous old thriller cliché of having a really quiet bit followed by A REALLY LOUD BIT. Dialogue is perfectly synched, and is clear and distinct at all times.

Obviously not one to shy away from a workload, as well as writing and directing The Others, Alejandro Amenábar also provides the film’s score. Whilst you could never claim that it is particularly original in any way, it has a certain familiarity to it that suits the whole spooky experience really well.

Just like most any Buena Vista release of late, this too suffers from Pioneeritis – a dreadfully insidious disease that makes anamorphic menus cough, splutter, wheeze and generally misbehave when in 4:3 mode on what seems to be most every model of DVD player from Pioneer. Why BV persists in letting this slipshoddiness continue, or indeed why they don’t check such things before unleashing these discs on the world, is anybody’s guess – after all, it must be a headache for them as surely anybody unsuspecting would be returning such discs for refunds? Considering the super-selling mega-huge Monsters, Inc. also suffers from the same fault this seems an extraordinary thing to do an ostrich impression to – wake up Mickey!!!

Getting past this major gripe, this retail version delivers to us all the extras that featured on the Region 1 release all those months ago, all sprawling across a second disc.

Documentary - A Look Inside The Others: This 21:58 presentation starts off a little worrisome, what with it’s cheesy American Trailer Guy voiced intro, however pleasingly he’s out the door straight away, leaving cast members, Alejandro, producers (yes, including Tom) and even a couple of critics to espouse the virtues of The Others. All the major factors involved in the making of a film are brushed upon, from casting through scoring, locations through effects. We also get a quick peek at the director’s previous work Open Your Eyes, and all up this is a cut above the usual popcorn-fattened advertising pap that masquerades nowadays as documentary footage.

Featurette - Visual Effects Piece: At just 4:28, this is a rather brief, but quite interesting look at some of the effects used in the film – effects you’d be hard pressed to notice, and would scarcely believe necessary. The brevity of this featurette isn’t such a bother when you realise there is only so much interest that can be sustained from seeing the creation of effects such as fog, fog, fog, fog, fog and more fog, although the way it is presented in split screen style with different elements zooming into and out of prominence is quite unique .

Featurette - Xeroderma Pigmentosum: What is it? The Story of a Family Dealing With the Disease: Well, after that rather long-winded intro, there doesn’t seem much left to say. This fascinating 8:56 featurette concentrates on interviews with Caren and Dan Mahar, the parents of Katie who suffers from XP – a disease which is decidedly rare, with an estimated 1000 or so cases known worldwide. Bolstered by interviews with a doctor specialising in the malady, we also see the lengths these wonderful parents have gone to in order to provide some semblance of a normal life for Katie, and indeed others afflicted with the dreadful disease.

Featurette – An Intimate Look at Director Alejandro Amenábar: Really this 8:13 presentation is a collection of fly on the wall behind the scenes clips recorded during the making of The Others. Whilst scarcely vital, it does hold interest for those who like to get a peek at what happens on the other side of the camera.

Still Gallery: A sizeable collection of 88 photos are included, mostly in colour. Vaguely thematically presented, they include many behind the scenes snaps and promo stills of all the cast (including the house!)

Theatrical Trailer: Hmm, I saw this in the theatre and it certainly wasn’t in a ratio of 1:33 – somebody’s telling porkies... Otherwise it’s 2:25 in length, carries Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, and somewhere amongst the seething mass of grain is a quite cleverly constructed trailer which highlights the film’s creepy-factor well, without giving the whole game away.

Alejandro Amenábar’s visual flair is right here on the screen for you to savour, in a quite old fashioned creepy thriller that fans of the genre should adore. The video is pretty good, audio is perfectly suitable and the extras, whilst not needing the second disc as there aren’t that many, do provide some good further insight for fans of the film.