It’s a rainy, rainy day. And it calls for a true, misty, gothically dark and spooky movie.

I’m not just cold because my house has no heat, I’m cold with the chills of recalling this movie.

When I began to think about this project, I wanted to try to document movies that may not be the go to for everyone thinking about a Halloween movie. I wanted to bring movies to light that may not always pop up on AMC or what not in October. To me, this is one of them.

This movie is terrifying in some parts, sad in others. It’s fears are both human and inhuman. The loneliness and desperation is palpable in a way that we will never understand. We read about the decimation of World War II, but we can’t truly understand it. We can’t understand what it did to some areas of Europe and what it did to some families who were left with nothing.

Grace Stewart (played fantastically by Nicole Kidman) lives in a hulking and isolated mansion on “a channel island once occupied by the Germans” thanks to my good friends at Wikipedia. Her children, Anne and Nicholas, have an allergy to sunlight, which is of course the perfect allergy for a vintage goth ghost story. I think I have an allergy to sunlight sometimes myself.

To help care for the children and this enormous house, with her husband presumed dead in the war, Grace hires three servants who appear out of nowhere since she never actually sent for any despite needing them — the previous servants, the “others,” just disappeared.

Mrs. Mills is the leader of the group of servants, along with a Mr. Tuttle (who btw was also the name of the caretaker The Changeling. He must be with the paranormal servants agency.) There’s also a young lady named Lydia who can’t speak.

Strange things begin happening in the mansion. Pianos play themselves. Anne says she sees other people including a young boy named Victor who claim it is their house. Grace believes the house may be haunted by a ghost. At one point, all the curtains she has set up to block the sunlight are removed and no one admits to doing it.

A small graveyard is located on the property and Grace believes that it might be related to the hauntings. The servants have previously served at the home and seem to know more than they let on. What is their agenda? Hmmm.

Grace also finds a book of mourning photos, which is a real but super creepy tradition in early America. Google it. Or maybe don’t. It is profoundly disturbing. Photos were set up and taken with those who have died. While I am personally freaked out by it, given the diseases and early lack of medical care, often families lost loved ones at early ages. Mothers died in child birth, sometimes with their new babies. Young children were susceptible to fever and tuberculosis. So while I don’t enjoy looking at them, I can understand why people wanted to remember these family members and death was a familiar bedfellow vs. something strange and frightening.

Grace, who naturally is extremely devout in her faith, is preparing Anne for her first communion. A terrifying scene happens when Anne is allowed to try on her dress and Grace stumbles upon an old woman in her place, with her voice, in her dress and veil. Yikes.

There is the additional dynamic of Grace and Anne at odds constantly, which can be the case with mothers and daughters specifically. Anne is acting out and asserting her independence, Grace tends to take out her anger and frustration, her fear and sadness on Anne more than any others.

The servants also tend to earn her wrath to the point where she eventually orders them out of the house.

At one point, Grace’s husband returns through the mist and fog. She is shocked as she was sure he was dead. But is he? His return is very odd. She is of course joyful to see him, as are the children. When Anne is alone with her father, she confides in him how things have gone in his absence. Charles tells Grace that Anne told him what happened. We aren’t sure what that is.

The next day, Charles is gone.

Little by little, the tension continues to rise in the old house. The servants eventually return, whether Grace wants them to or not, and now she fears them with their foreboding images. It is time for their secrets to be told. Grace fights them but their agenda is unstoppable. They are coming in.

When Grace and the children finally learn the truth, it is shocking to them, and to us.

It is true that some things cannot be unlearned, but whether we want to or not, it is often best to rip the blinders from our eyes, let the sunlight in, and only then can healing and renewal begin. Grace’s stern adherence to order, discipline and control crumbles around them. It has to. It is the only way forward. And finally, they can truly say, “This house is ours.”

This house is ours.

This house is ours.