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~Josh Gagnon~
“But mother, I am your daughter.” – Ghostly Ann
Plot: Takes place in 1945 in England. Mother (Grace
played by Nicole Kidman) and her two kids (Nicolas and Ann), live in a huge
house. Kids are allergic to the light. They put an advertisement out
for servants, and three people show up for the job, an elderly man and
women and a mute teenage girl. A strange household of religion and strict
rules, such as never leaving two doors open at one time or shutting
curtains whenever the children are around. Weird noises and voices come
along every once in awhile. Husband returns from war, then leaves. People
living in this house can’t seem to leave. Then a big twist comes, which
I won’t reveal, HA.
 : The setting of the place was quite cool, a totally
fogged out area of land, with this massive house sitting in the mist of
it. Nothing can be seen except for the house, some trees, and swampy
areas.
A lot of religion included into this movie with
scriptures and such being read over a lot, put an eerie tone on the movie. In
the background the children can be heard reading religious texts, and
nothing is scarier then little children speaking in monotone voices
reading aloud-religious verses.
Pictures of the dead; what a creepy and neat idea to put
in the movie. When someone dies their picture is taken of them, to keep
their souls alive. I thought that was one of the more strange scenes,
but played a big part in the movie.
The three servants played great roles in this movie, just
added to the atmosphere of something strange going on. I can’t talk to
much bout them, because it would ruin the movie, but they are a needed
part, trust me.
 : Okay this movie dragged like a mofo for the first
part, Alan came in mid-way and got caught up and enjoyed the movie more
then me because he didn’t have to sit through the beginning. I asked
myself many times, WHERE IS THIS MOVIE GOING?!?!
Nicole goes terminator on us and pulls out her shotgun
looking for whoever is making all this noise in her household. I found it
funny how she could go from a spooked, religious woman to pulling out a
shotgun planning on taking someone out. Her role as the communist-home
schooled mother got on my nerves a little also.
The soundtrack to this was same old, same old scary movie
music. Nothing too new, high-pitched violins, music building rapidly to
a climax (yawn).
End: This movie was a slow building psychological
thriller, plain and simple. I recommend fast forward about half-way through and
start watching, it’s easy to figure out what’s going on and not being
bored to death. What saved this movie was the ending; this movie has one
of the coolest endings to a movie that I’ve seen in quite awhile.
I give this movie 3 stars for just being damn slow for me.
I should say the ENDING of this movie gets 3 stars.
I give it a generous 2 ½ stars, for being so damn funny, when it was suppose to be a sci-fi/thiller
ENDING SPOILER, don’t read if you don’t want to know what
happens!
Ok just for you who didn’t get the ending, or are too
cheap to rent the damn movie to see it. The ending goes like this, the
servants are actually dead, Grace finds the “Pictures of the dead” that I
talked about later in the woman’s room. So her and the two children run
away from them, even shoot at them, because….guns…hurt…ghosts.
The children run away and the mother runs into a room and
finds 5 other people in the room with them kids doing a séance. What’s
this? Nicole and the kids are the ghosts and “The Others” or
“Intruders” are actually the living people in the house. Yes this movie was shown
through the eyes of ghosts living in a house. How f*ckin’ cool is that?
That blew me away, and I never really though about it through the
movie, although my FIRST note (and my mom is a witness) that I wrote within
in the first 10 minutes was “Everybody was so white, couldn’t tell who
was alive or dead,” man I feel cool.
So that means the father died in the war. That was the
reason they never could leave the house because that was where they
stayed. Also they didn’t have to worry about the light since the kids can’t
die TWICE. The mother apparently smothered both children the shoot
herself because the darkness and isolation of the house drove her crazy,
bummer.
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