"Classic Ghost Story gets an Upgrade"
Alejandro Amenabar's THE OTHERS gets a UHD, Blu-ray and DVD with new extras (as well as the archival ones ported over) from Studio Canal.
Jersey, 1945. Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman) lives with her two children Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley) in a remote country house, the curtains of which are always kept closed because of a condition from which the children suffer. Their life is interrupted by the arrival of three servants seeking work who claim they were employed at the house before. Meanwhile Anne claims to have a ghostly friend called Victor who visits her regularly and when the piano begins playing itself Grace becomes convinced the house is haunted. Things are further complicated with the arrival of Grace's husband Charles (Christopher Eccleston), thought to have been killed in the war. The strange occurrences continue until an ultimate, shocking revelation.
It was certainly shocking back in the day when THE OTHERS was released and it still packs a punch today. There aren't many films that deserve the appellation 'instant classic' but writer / director / composer Alejandro Amenabar's film was rightly compared with genre classics like THE CHANGELING (1980) and THE INNOCENTS (1961) pretty much from the off and if anything time has merely served to cement its reputation as one of cinema's all-time classic ghost stories.
Studio Canal's new disc comes with a couple of new extras. A Look Back at THE OTHERS is a 51 minute compilation of new interviews with Amenabar, producer Fernando Bovaira, and stars Kidman and Eccleston, covering all aspects of the production and discussing the movie's cinematic antecedents. Amenabar's role as composer is covered in a separate 5 minute featurette.
Other features have been ported over from older releases, including a making of (21 minutes), and pieces on visual effects, the director, and Xeroderma Pigmentosum, the light-sensitive skin condition suffered by the children in the film. There are also the usual still galleries and a trailer.
Alejandro Amenabar's THE OTHERS is out on UHD, Blu-ray and DVD from Studio Canal on Monday 9th October 2023
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