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"The world of the dead gets mixed up with the world of the living." Now, where have we heard that before? Oh yeah--in every suspense movie hoping to hop on The Sixth Sense bandwagon. But in the new thriller The Others, starring Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge), the two worlds combine for a creepy, frightening film.

Grace (Kidman) is a beautiful woman whose husband went off to fight in World War II and never returned. She's left to raise her two children Anne and Victor on their large, old estate, but the coterie of servants has vanished under mysterious circumstances. So it seems somewhat providential when three new servants suddenly appear at the door one day.

As the servants quickly realize, all is not right in the house. The children are convinced that ghosts are living in various rooms. Anne even claims to have seen them. Though Grace staunchly denies that tale, her own equilibrium appears unstable, as if she's hiding some awful secret.

It soon appears that the servants have secrets of their own. Why did they show up to this estate when Grace hadn't even had a chance to place a 'help wanted' advertisement? What's the gardener doing out by the old graveyard? Why is the young servant mute? The mysterious servants combine with the house's other unsettling aspects to push Grace over the edge, as she rushes through the rooms, looking for the "intruders."

One of the best aspects of The Others is how it switches between the objective and the subjective. At times, the audience watches Grace and her children with detachment--seeing them react, with fright or nervousness, to things that we can't see. But then the movie subtly but explicitly changes to the subjective--where we hear what Grace hears and see what the children see.

This fluidity heightens the scare factor considerably. There's a tremendous scene where Grace has heard the piano playing (we hear it, too). She rushes to the music room but arrives to find no one's there. We watch as she recoils in fright. Then, the camera quickly and almost imperceptibly switches to Grace's viewpoint. As she gets ready to head back to her bedroom, the door suddenly slams in her face knocking her (and us, as the camera quickly falls) to the ground. If we had always been watching through Grace's eyes, we would've been prepared for a jolt, but watching objectively fools us into thinking we're safe; and the shock of being thrown to the ground is that much greater.

This alternation of objective and subjective also creates a marvelous ambiguity. Our initial reaction is that Grace is mentally unbalanced and that the noises in the house are all in her head. But when we start hearing the noises and seeing the doors mysteriously shut, we're not so sure anymore.

In this way (and many others), The Others echoes The Sixth Sense. The difference is that The Sixth Sense was interested in exploring the psychological aspects of loss and death, while The Others is content to be merely an effective thriller.

And effective it is. Director and writer Alejandro Amenabar (in his English-language debut) paces the film with aplomb, ratcheting up the tension just when we get comfortable. The film's final reel is a genuine fright-fest, invoking the hoary but very scary motif of walking up the stairs to see what's behind that closed door. Helping immeasurably is director of photography Javier Aguirresarobe, whose use of darkness and shadow is exquisite. And Isabel Diaz Cassou's sound design is a wonderful mix of echoing floorboards, heavy doors, and claustrophobic "dead" noise.

Nicole Kidman, who bears a strange resemblance to Grace Kelly in this movie, continues her roll of good roles. Her woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown is compelling and frightening. The children, played by Alakina Mann and Alexander Vince, are both eerie and believable. Their sibling tension feels right, and their own anxiety is palpable.

The rest of the cast, including the three servants, don't have as much to do. Amenabar makes the mistake of revealing too quickly the servants' ulterior motives. By making explicit what the audience has already intimated, he deflates the story's mystery. He makes a similar blunder in the film's denouement when he explains everything that's already happened, as if we weren't smart enough to figure it out.

The film also has a somewhat disconcerting subtext as it conflates occultism and Christianity, equating the Bible with superstition. If this were developed further, it might have had a greater impact, but it's diminished considerably by its superficial nature.

Nonetheless, The Others is hugely entertaining, a ghost story that's actually frightening, a thriller that's genuinely suspenseful. Though The Others is quite scary in places, it eschews the usual blood-and-gore, making it wonderfully old-fashioned and appropriate for both young and old.

J. Robert Parks 8/29/2001