The Other

Summer 1935, a farm in Connecticut. The twins Niles and Holland grow up in the same house, one gentle and one cruel. Strange deaths begin around them, and their grandmother Ada realises that a game she taught Niles has got out of hand. The film is not interested in horror effects. It is interested in the reality childhood constructs for itself: what is play and what is real is given from the boy's point of view, and the audience is kept inside that view for a long time. The form leans on summer heat, wheat fields and daylight. The fear arrives at noon rather than in the dark, which runs directly against the usual rules of the genre. The source is Thomas Tryon's 1971 novel, adapted by Tryon himself. He had been an actor before he became a writer, and this was his first novel. Robert Mulligan directed. The twins are played by Chris and Martin Udvarnoky, neither of whom ever made another film. Ada is played by Uta Hagen, known mainly for the stage. Who it is for: viewers who like the calmly paced horror of the seventies and child-centred suspense. Who it is not for: anyone after fast frights. The film is slow, explanatory, and loses much of its force for anyone who knows the twist.