It often seems as if the only way to get A-list actors to be in a horror film is to disguise the film as something else. This is a sentiment I can't relate to at all. If I was a star, I can assure you I would tell my agents “Yes, I'll do your blockbuster this summer. Yes, I'll do your Oscar winner this Christmas. But dammit, sometime this year I'm being decapitated by a machete-wielding psychopath!” Then again, that's just me.
The word “thriller” is frequently applied to Silence of the Lambs, as it can't possibly be a horror film about serial killers that swept the Oscars. In the same way, the period piece seems to be a popular method of making a horror film seem like a not-horror film. I certainly don't mean to bash period horror. Indeed, one of my favorite horror films of all time is The Woman in Black, starring Daniel Radcliffe as a 19th-century lawyer (and a single parent, for even more “I'm a serious actor!” cred).
That said, The Others is the latter: a horror film set as a period piece so that Nicole Kidman could dare to show her face in it. I can't help but think that she resented the project a bit. It's rare for me to be truly uncertain whether the contempt I feel is for a character or the actor playing the character. Personally, I feel that Kidman's character was written to be fanatical, but sympathetic, and she really didn't care enough to draw sympathy from her performance. Instead, we end up with the children being “protected” by an insanely controlling, religious lunatic.
The basic setup of the movie is that it's World War II. The father of a large house (Christopher Eccleston) is away at war, and the mother (Kidman) is trying to keep her light-allergic children (Alakina Mann and James Bentley) safe. The servants have all left, but new ones arrive (Fionnula Flanagan, Eric Sykes, and Elaine Cassidy), who seem very strange, and claim to have previously worked in that very house. Meanwhile, she and the children begin seeing strange apparitions. The house is surrounded by fog, and the husband mysteriously returns to the house.
Do I hate the movie? No, certainly not. There are far worse films out there, staring far worse actors. But, since I missed the movie's attempt to emotionally hook me, I found myself fairly uninterested in what was to follow.
Since I make no secret of my willingness to spoil, I enjoy the privilege of addressing the twist directly. That twist being that Grace lost her husband at war, killed her children and committed suicide. They're living eternally as ghosts. The things they thought were ghosts were actually the new residents, attempting to contact them. The servants are also ghosts, and are trying to help them find peace. Looking at the movie in that light, it becomes about the acceptance of their deaths.
To me, the real horror of this film is the idea that a person like Grace can be healed and become a loving parent. To me, the film should have ended with a rejection by her children, who should have left her alone in the house. Why? Because abusers don't change! The belief that they do is what drives the cycle of abuse in the first place.
Is this a terrible film? No, certainly not. It's a story not worth telling, that's told moderately well. The visuals are just as black and unpleasant as the film itself, and I find myself completely unable to locate a single experience in this movie that I have any real desire to experience again.
