Survived Halloween? Well, just when you thought it was safe to return to the stalls, along comes the year's most chilling ghost story.

The Others, written and directed by young Spanish auteur Alejandro Amenabar, finds Nicole Kidman as Grace, the mother of two young children living a secluded life on Jersey at the end of World War Two.

She lives in a sprawling house with young Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley) who must remain in the shadows as they apparently have an rare allergy to daylight.

When three new servants arrive to replace the ones that have inexplicably disappeared, strange things start to happen around the house.

Noises are heard in empty rooms, doors slam and lock by themselves and young Anne will not concede that she is making up her stories about playing with other children in the house.

The servants Mrs Mills (Fionnula Flanagan), Mr Tuttle (Eric Sykes, for it is he!) and Lydia (Elaine Cassidy) seem to know more about the happenings than they are letting on, but Grace is so highly strung that she will not listen to them.

When her husband, Charles (Christopher Eccleston) returns from the war one creepy, fog-bound afternoon, Grace hopes everything will return to normal. Some hope.

To reveal any more would be to spoil an elegant twist in the tale which is far more original than some may give it credit for. Amenabar has fashioned an old school chiller, using a slow, deliberate narrative pace speeded up by flashing movements and held back again by his use of a sparse, melancholic underscore.

The slightly bleached out, autumnal colours only add to the atmospherics and heighten the sense of claustrophobia; while the repeated religious references make it all the more creepy.

The Others is superbly constructed, a paranoid exploration of primal fears. Wonderful.

- Out now.

November 12, 2001 16:30