Disc Reviews

The Other Review

• 4th Mar 2015

There is something about children in horror films and psychological thrillers that add a degree of subtlety and an edgy frisson of terror that is often missing in other sub-genre horror films. Think of the creepy children in the chilling The Innocents (1961) or even the innocents in The Nightcomers (also made in 1972 and adapted from the Henry James novel, ‘The Turn of the Screw’) and The Others (2001). Released by Eureka! is the almost forgotten The Other where children are put in an American gothic scenario in a 1970s minor cult classic. Similar to and cotemporaneous to there is the more mainstream and violent horrors of The Exorcist (1973) and The Omen (1976). Meanwhile The Other is also not too far removed from Macaulay Culkin’s creepy kid in The Good Son (1993).

The film is set in 1935 rural Connecticut just after the Depression. The community is tight and the locals have known each other for generations. 10-year-old Niles is playing a game with his twin brother and the pair play together for much of the time. They live with their mother with grandma also living with them. The family are trying to recover from the loss of the father of the household who appears to have died in an accident. Other the course of the rest of the film people close to the family begin to die or badly injured in mysterious circumstances: their mother struggling to come to terms on her own, falls down the stairs and is left paralysed and dumb, their podgy bullying cousin dies after falling on a pitchfork and an elderly neighbour dies from a heart attack after Niles gives her a rat. But are these deaths mere accidents or is there something more sinister at work? It soon becomes clear that the apparent innocent Niles often gives way to the sinister and cruel influence of twin brother Holland and without giving anything away (the reveal comes about halfway through the film) it builds to a terrible climax and conclusion.

It is hard to speak about much of what happens in the film for fear of giving too much away. It would be fair to call the film a slow burner that builds in tension and drama, particularly by the films second act. Yet this is not a well-known film and failed at the box-office. Much of that is due to the lack of stars. The only known name is Uta Hagen, a well-known Broadway stage actress who, then 53-years-old was here appearing in her first film. Her talents as an actress come across well using facial expressions with her dawning realisation that there is something wrong with Niles, as well as Holland and is from here on in a perpetual state of denial until the tragic final act. Other than Uta Hagen there are no other known names. Behind the camera there is renowned cinematographer Robert Surtees who had a very distinguished career behind him in which his rich corn coloured hues comes across in the film, played out particularly well with the Blu-ray transfer giving more detail to the misè-en-scene. The director, Robert Mulligan too had cut his teeth 10 years previously to this with the loss of innocence among children in the classic Oscar winning directorial work in adapting of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and this smaller film loses none of the power of the better known film.

The Other is based off a source novel by Tom Tryon, who’s first novel this was. Tryon himself adapted the novel to the screen and was himself a Hollywood actor. Previously to this Tryon had played the young boyfriend to the ill-fated Janet Leigh in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) who she is running to when she is murdered by Norman Bates before making a couple of films to the notoriously vicious directorial taskmaster Otto Preminger resulting in Tryon’s mental breakdown and subsequent retirement as an actor before becoming an author. Although the film was not a hit it has endured the passage time well and its surface ‘Waltons’ type of surface has something very dark underneath.

Chris Hick