The Others

Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan, Alakina Mann, James Bentley
Directed by Alejandro Amenábar
Rating: A

A widow and her two children inhabit an American mansion during World War II. One day the servants walk out of the home with no word and soon after she becomes convinced her house is haunted.

Mystery and suspense are the two key elements of The Others, which makes it a successful horror film. This isn’t your average jump-scare movie. The Others makes you question the sanity of the family from the beginning when Grace (Kidman) shows her new housekeepers around. There are two strict rules they must follow: first, every door must be locked before opening a new one, and second, the curtains must be drawn all of the time due to her children’s allergy to sunlight. This automatically creates a suspenseful atmosphere for a haunted house story.

The new housekeepers have a secret of their own. An old couple followed by their mute daughter appear out of the blue before Grace has even advertised the positions needed. They seem to be familiar with the house before they have been shown around. They creep around the house but they aren’t responsible for the bangs and bumps Grace keeps hearing.

Another unreliable character is Grace’s young daughter, Anne, who believes ghosts are people covered in a white sheet with chains clanking as they move. When Anne talks about the mysterious boy she has become friends with who lives in the house, viewers are left to wonder if she is just too naive to realize she has been talking to a ghost.

The Others is a great horror movie without getting into too terrifying of an atmosphere. It gets psychological and the ending is a twist not many will see coming. Between creeping around in a dark mansion and hearing things that shouldn’t be there, this family doesn’t know how to fight their ghosts. This isn’t a movie that will leave you scared to sleep at night. It’s a movie that will keep you thinking about how clever it was.

The Babadook

Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman
Directed by Jennifer Kent
Rating: A

A sinister book disguised as a children’s story haunts a single mother struggling to help her child move on from believing in monsters.

Amelia and her son have difficulties with living in the real world. Almost seven years have passed since the death of her husband in a tragic car accident- which occurred while she was in labor on the way to the hospital. Amelia cannot move on from accepting her husband’s death as she deals with what came out of the situation: a fatherless child. Her son, Samuel, believes it is his duty to protect his mother from monsters. He spends his days at home building clever contraptions to injure and capture the monsters.

Every night Amelia reads to her son a book but it is the one night that she lets him pick the story out that makes her believe monsters are real. The Babadook is a graphic pop-out book that rhymes with a bone-chilling ending. Though she does not finish reading the book aloud to her son, Amelia can’t shake the words she had read from her mind. Even after disposing the book, the Babadook comes to life to haunt her.

The Babadook is more than just a scary bedtime story. It’s psychological, making Amelia face something she has tried to repress for years: the little bit of resentment that her son lived and her husband didn’t. The Babadook grows stronger as she denies her emotions and it takes control of her. Her possession becomes a battle of whether she lets her grief absorb her and destroy her family or if the only family she has left is worth keeping.

The movie sets up the viewers sympathy with Amelia as a single mother raising a disobedient child. Samuel frequently screams at his mother and can’t play well with the other children at school. Between the stress of her job and keeping Samuel in a school who can properly take care of him, Amelia falls apart. As the Babadook takes over her, sympathies switch to Samuel whose smart inventions help save his mother.

At the end of the movie, take a few minutes to let the ending sink in and understand what it means. To me, that made all the difference of judging it as a bad movie to good. The thrills and suspense are all there, a decent plot is clear, and the resolution is satisfying. The Babadook can’t go away but Amelia’s acknowledgement and acceptance for her emotions tame the beast.