Product Description

Screen sensation Nicole Kidman (MOULIN ROUGE, EYES WIDE SHUT) delivers an utterly unforgettable performance in this scary and stylish suspense thriller. While awaiting her husband's return from war, Grace (Kidman) and her two young children live an unusually isolated existence behind the locked doors and drawn curtains of a secluded island mansion. Then, after three mysterious servants arrive and it becomes chillingly clear that there is far more to his house than can be seen, Grace finds herself in a harrying fight to save her children and keep her sanity. Acclaimed by critics everywhere, the unpredictable twists and turns of this compelling hit will keep you guessing as it keeps you riveted to the edge of your seat!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27439 in DVD
• Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
• Released on: 2002-05-14
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .42 pounds
• Running time: 104 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
A welcome throwback to the spooky traditions of Jack Clayton's The Innocents and Robert Wise's The Haunting, Alejandro Amenábar's The Others favors atmosphere, sound, and suggestion over flashy special effects. Set in 1945 on a fog-enshrouded island off the British coast, the film begins with a scream as Grace (Nicole Kidman) awakens from some unspoken horror, perhaps arising from her religiously overprotective concern for her young children, Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley). The children are hypersensitive to light and have lived in a musty manor with curtains and shutters perpetually drawn. With Grace's husband presumably lost at war, this ominous setting perfectly accommodates a sense of dreaded expectation, escalating when three strangers arrive in response to Grace's yet-unposted request for domestic help. Led by housekeeper Mrs. Mills (Fionnula Flanagan), this mysterious trio is as closely tied to the house's history as Grace's family is--as are the past occupants seen posthumously posed in a long-forgotten photo album.

With her justly acclaimed performance, Kidman maintains an emotional intensity that fuels the film's supernatural underpinnings. And while Amenábar's pacing is deliberately slow, it befits the tone of penetrating anxiety, leading to a twist that extends the story's reach from beyond the grave. Amenábar unveiled a similarly effective twist in his Spanish thriller Open Your Eyes (remade by Cameron Crowe as Vanilla Sky), but where that film drew debate, The Others is finely crafted to provoke well-earned goose bumps and chills down the spine. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
Nicole Kidman, with a hairdo that makes her look like a red-headed Grace Kelly, plays an upper-class Englishwoman living in a big house on Jersey at the end of the Second World War. Her husband is off fighting, and her two small children are so sensitive to light that the curtains must always be drawn and anyone passing from room to room must shut one door before opening the next. The electricity is out, and the house is covered in fog. One rather misses a beast howling on the moors or a madwoman in the attic, but there are voices, many voices, and the servants make creepy remarks. The Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar works by suggestion much of the time: he favors ambiguity rather than outright horrors, and the sepulchral gray light of the house and grounds can be elegant. But the movie becomes monotonous; it's like a sluggish computer game in which movement is limited to one room at a time. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Review
A welcome throwback to the spooky traditions of Jack Clayton's The Innocents and Robert Wise's The Haunting, Alejandro Amenábar's The Others favors atmosphere, sound, and suggestion over flashy special effects. Set in 1945 on a fog-enshrouded island off the British coast, the film begins with a scream as Grace (Nicole Kidman) awakens from some unspoken horror, perhaps arising from her religiously overprotective concern for her young children, Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley). The children are hypersensitive to light and have lived in a musty manor with curtains and shutters perpetually drawn. With Grace's husband presumably lost at war, this ominous setting perfectly accommodates a sense of dreaded expectation, escalating when three strangers arrive in response to Grace's yet-unposted request for domestic help. Led by housekeeper Mrs. Mills (Fionnula Flanagan), this mysterious trio is as closely tied to the house's history as Grace's family is--as are the past occupants seen posthumously posed in a long-forgotten photo album.
With her justly acclaimed performance, Kidman maintains an emotional intensity that fuels the film's supernatural underpinnings. And while Amenábar's pacing is deliberately slow, it befits the tone of penetrating anxiety, leading to a twist that extends the story's reach from beyond the grave. Amenábar unveiled a similarly effective twist in his Spanish thriller Open Your Eyes (remade by Cameron Crowe as Vanilla Sky), but where that film drew debate, The Others is finely crafted to provoke well-earned goose bumps and chills down the spine. --Jeff Shannon --Amazon.com essential video