Friday 5 Oct. Dinner 9pm Movie about 11pm The Others (2001) There are horror movies like The Silence of the Lambs or Alien that make you scream, clutch your date, or cover your eyes. Less typical is the film that draws you in so subtly you're almost unaware of being frightened until you feel the hair on the back of your neck suddenly rise. Jack Clayton's The Innocents (adapted from Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, the mother of all modern ghost stories) produces that kind of atavistic fear response. So too does Alejandro Amenábar's The Others, which parallels The Innocents' premise of a woman desperately trying to save the two children in her care from the hellhounds that have invaded their house.

High-strung and devoutly religious, Grace (a blond Nicole Kidman, looking like a more attenuated Grace Kelly) lives in a huge Victorian house on the Isle of Jersey with her daughter and son. World War II is nearing its end, and although Grace's husband has been reported as missing in action, she refuses to accept that he's not coming home. Because the children are afflicted with a mysterious allergy to light, Grace spends most of her time frantically racing from room to room, closing doors and curtains against the sun, only to find that someone has carelessly opened them again. Are the peculiarly condescending new servants to blame? Or, as her daughter claims, are there strangers living secretly among them?

Beneath the supernatural goings-on is an au courant tale of motherhood, madness, and religious repression. While occasionally using the children as foils, Amenábar filters most of the narrative through Grace's perception. From beginning to end, Grace exists in a state of barely suppressed hysteria punctuated by moments of abject terror, all of which Kidman registers with extreme delicacy. We've seen her play this kind of trapped character before—most notably in The Portrait of a Lady—but not with such sustained, unnerved intensity. This is one scary movie, not because we see ghosts or monsters, but because Kidman makes us feel her fear as our own.

by Amy Taubin in the VIllage Voice (NYC)

Sunday 7 Oct. 14:00 Old time radio in the Backroom come by today at 14:00 for our first Bridge Afternoon, Learning, playing and making lots of mistakes if Alan is your partner. All is possible great fun for all. Boardgames for the Bridge Illiterate and those who refuse to learn.

Tuesday 9 Oct. 9 pm Blithe Spirit (1945)

Blithe Spirit was the second of three Noël Coward adaptations produced by Lean's new company Cineguild. Ronald Neame, co-founder of the company alongside producer Anthony Havelock-Allan, was again the director of photography, and the film was another Technicolor production. Coward himself performed the witty introductory voice-over. With its cast of distinguished comedy actors, the film did well with post-war audiences, but Coward professed himself disappointed with the result, although Lean had warned him that 'high comedy' was not really his forte.

The film is stylish. The action is set at the Condomines' comfortable upper middle-class home in Kent, and great care was taken to ensure the right look for the set. An actor like Rex Harrison was quite at ease in the world of the play, but Lean himself reportedly found it not to his own taste. The special effects are convincing and Lean's lighting and framing give it visual interest. The action is stagey, so all depends on the cast and they play wonderfully, even though Harrison was considered by some to look too young for the role of the middle-aged Charles. Kay Hammond and Margaret Rutherford had created their roles on the stage; the play premiered at London's Piccadilly Theatre on 1941 and was still running when Coward invited Lean to make a film version.

Hammond, in her floaty green chiffon gown, green hair and pale make-up, is a sexy and mischievous Elvira, employing her throaty, theatrical drawl to good comic effect. The American actress Constance Cummings' Ruth, by contrast, is brisk and sensible. Margaret Rutherford's performance of Madame Arcati has passed into theatre legend and she recreates the role of the eccentric and rather incompetent medium effectively for film. Her joy at the realisation that she has actually managed to summon up a spirit is beautifully judged.

review by Janet Moat from the bfi Screenonline