Next on the list is this psychological thriller/horror film by Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar. Amenabar is known for his screenplays that play with reality (his film Abre Los Ojos was the basis for Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky, but we’ll talk about that one later) and The Others keeps in tune with this same idea. To explain what I mean would be to give away the big surprise of the movie so without going into too much detail, the film is an excellent example of the new breed of movies that plays the audience for the entire film and then reveals something that changes the entire nature of the film they have just seen. The story involves Nicole Kidman as a mother of two sickly children who is forced to care for them alone in a huge mansion while her husband is away fighting in the First World War. The children are allergic to sunlight, so they are forced to stay inside all day with the curtains closed, else they should have a terrible allergic reaction that could permanently harm or kill them. As if this wasn’t creepy enough, Kidman hires three paid servants to help her that seem to know more than they let on about the house and its strange history. As the mother teaches the children one day, the children tell her that they have seen another young boy in the house, as well as an old woman. The mother scolds her children at first but when she begins encountering strange sounds, opened curtains, and the unmistakable whispers in the attic, she begins to suspect that they might not be alone in the house. This movie is best viewed with a surround sound audio system because the back speakers play a big part in some of the cheap scares. It’s not the most disturbing or horrifying film I’ve ever seen by far, but it is the first film to make me scream in the theatre. Amenabar is masterful at building up the tension of a scene and lowering the audio to perfect silence so that when a startlingly loud and sudden moment occurs, it makes you literally jump out of your seat. The Others is not a horror film but more of a funhouse ride with a great surprise ending, incredibly stylish cinematography, a great acting job (courtesy of Kidman), and an idea that really makes you think and serves as a great conversation piece.