Hello and welcome to these introductory notes for the film screening of The Others at Milner Field Manor Ruins.

Set in Jersey the Channel Islands in 1945, this film centres around a young woman and her two photosensitive children who experience supernatural happenings.

The eerie nature of the film is set up right from the start with the opening titles being a collection of drawings on faded paper. They’re in a fairytale style with a macarbre twist, including a hanging puppet that may or may not have been decapitated, a wide-eyed child and a woman screaming.

There’s a transition from a drawn manor house to the real thing on a murky, foggy day. An alternative perspective later shows a rectangular pond that looks a bit like a swimming pool, but stagnant and utterly uninviting.
Elsewhere in the grounds is a collection of gravestones under a dead tree. And even an avenue of trees feels sinister in the relentless fog.

All the action takes place inside the manor, or in the grounds.

Inside the vast gothic house there is little that feels comfortable, with dark wood furniture, heavy tapestries on the walls and everything being shot through an oppressive sepia filter. There’s little warmth here and lots of dingy, shadowy darkness due to the thick brocade curtains always being closed. Even in rooms where the curtains are open, the air feels stifling, the atmosphere overbearing.
One room is full of furniture covered in dust sheets that gives the impression of ghostly apparitions.

The main characters we’ll meet are as follows..

Grace Stewart is mother to Anne and Nicholas. This is her house and the moment we meet her, we sense that she is drenched in anxiety. She is tall and elegant, her strawberry blond hair is beautifully arranged in soft curls around her face and she wears dark wool dresses with high necks along with sensible shoes that are slightly incongruous. Her face is pale with a haunted look about it – as if she’s seen things she’d rather forget.

Anne is about 10 and is pale with intense eyes and a face that rarely smiles, though occasionally smirks unkindly. She wears dark pinafore dresses.

Nicholas is younger, possibly 8, and has dark hair and pale skin. He is a serious boy and scared a lot of the time which shows in his eyes. He wears dark clothes.

Bertha Mills arrives at the house with Edmund Tuttle and Lydia offering their services. They say they worked at the house years ago.

Bertha is an older woman with long, wiry grey hair tied up in a bun. She has a knowing face and wears a black dress under a white apron.

Edmund Tuttle is also older and wears a black suit. He has white hair, smoothed back from his face, a moustache and grey skin.

Lydia is a young woman with pale skin, long dark hair and frightened eyes. She doesn’t speak and wears a neutral coloured dress under an apron.

Grace’s husband, Charles is a white man with short brown hair and searching eyes, that are full of horror but looking for peace. He wears a long khaki army coat and carries a duffle bag.

We hope you enjoy the film which is 1 hour and 44 minutes long.