This horror movie, directed with great subtlety by Robert Mulligan, is practically guaranteed to keep the audience off center. Mulligan plays merry hell with the audience, keeping the viewer in the dark even though the film, set in the summertime, is brightly lit.
Summer 1935. Twelve-year-old twins Niles (Chris Udvarnoky) Perry and his brother Holland (Martin Udvarnoky), adorable little boys with a great deal of charm (Niles especially), are doing what little boys do in the summer: running here and there, drinking from the fountain in the yard, playing this game and that, and skirting up to the edge of mischief without actually going in.
At least at first. There is another character in this triangle: the twins' grandmother Ada Vedrenya (Uta Hagen, the great acting teacher from HB Studio in one of her rare film roles).
Hagen is a fascinating actress. Her film career was extremely short and usually consisted of dark roles such as the Russian grandmother here. Fans will also remember her in THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL and REVERSAL OF FORTUNE. She was a prodigious talent on the New York stage; film seemed to be her way of paying the bills.
Also in the family we have Alexandra Perry (Diana Muldaur), the boys' mother who is clearly haunted by something but we don't get to find out what it is until the last reel. The boys also have an adopted sister (Jenny Sullivan), who is in residence with her husband Rider (John Ritter in a VERY early film role), Aunt Vee (Norma Connolly), Uncle George (Lou Frizzell) and the twins' much- hated cousin Russell (Clarence Crow), a chubby boy who hates his cousins as much as they hate him.
Trouble is, things HAPPEN to anyone the twins hate. The first one to get it is cousin Russell, skewered on a pitchfork jumping into a haymow.
As the plot unravels, we discover that the peculiar events have something to do with Ada and "the game" she plays with the twins. This is the first film to deal with telekinesis: it didn't start with CARRIE but CARRIE was the apotheosis of the subject.
But as in CARRIE, things get out of hand and Ada quickly loses control over what she had thought was a harmless game.
The ending is a shocker with a 360 degree twist that I definitely did not see coming.
Splendid acting, a great script from Tryon's novel, and the work of a director with sure hands and an eye for what scares us.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is THE OTHER. Check it out!
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