Diary of a movie-goer: As Davo has reported, he and I went to see The Others on Thursday night, and I have to say that I was singularly impressed. The evening was a bit of a farce really. The director was supposed to present the movie, was half an hour late, walked in said something to the effect of “Hello, this is my film” in a kind of Balky-style accent and walked out. This extremely bouncy PR lady kept smiling at us and saying happy things in an Ab Fab kind of way and then the film began.
And essentially it was stunning. It wasn’t particularly revolutionary – there’s no plot element in there that hasn’t been done before – it’s a straight down-the-line haunted house story with a couple of quirks that keep it interesting – but it’s so well done. The thing is, there are only so many plots connected with haunted house stories, and only so many possible twists – and we’ve seen them all before. But the way the plot brings them up as possibilities, shuts them down, distracts you completely, leads you in one direction and then pushes you in another – and in such a completely plausible and terrifying fashion – well it’s completely worth watching. Four and half stars from our London correspondent…