Starring: Nicole Kidman (right), Elaine Cassidy, Christopher Eccleston
Director: Alejandro Amenabar
Category: IIA
Chilean director Alejandro Amenabar has produced an intelligent excursion into the afterworld with The Others, a haunting tale that creeps up on you like a cold.
Nicole Kidman (last seen vamping it up in Moulin Rouge) plays a steely, religious widow holed up in a mansion on Jersey after World War II. She has two children, both of whom suffer from a condition that has left them ultra-sensitive to daylight - something their mother combats by shutting out all light from the house.
When three servants knock on her door looking for work, we float through the house as they are shown around and told the rules of the manor; no door is ever to be left open for fear of letting in the sun's rays. Faint whispers echoing through closed, darkened doors, footsteps sounding from the floors above and a mist enveloping the house and its surrounds combine to give the film a chilly feel from the outset.