The Others: Souls on Board (1.6)

I've always thought planes are a great location for horror movies, since you're naturally confined into this tiny bubble, surrounded by people you don't know, and have no means of escape. It's just a cool environment for creating fear among a group of characters, and it's no real surprise that The Others sets an episode almost entirely on board one. Being this show, spookiness naturally occurs, and while most of the jump moments aren't particularly groundbreaking, there's an energy to the hour that proves effective.

Each episode so far has had a distinctive visual flavor to it, and that theme continues here with horror veteran Tobe Hooper, who creates something impressively claustrophobic. I loved the steadicam as he frantically zoomed between the seats of the plane, as well as the jittery hands smashing into the plane's windows. Like practically every other episode, I also enjoyed all the little innovations that help project a sense of possession, or of characters being taken over by spirits. Like that cool moment with Marian in the bathroom, scribbling onto toilet paper as the spirit inhabiting her tries to convey a message from the other side.

One of the major themes that the show explores so well is the sense of unfinished business from the great beyond. A lot of the elaborate horror sequences in Souls on Board are mere window dressing to an all-together more human message, spirits desperate for somebody to fix the hydraulic leak and prevent further disasters. Unlike the procedural messiness of Unnamed, this episode was all about the misinterpreted hauntings and the pretty mundane explanations for why they occur. I like that contrast between high-concept science fiction and the ordinary, and it's something that The Others as a show is depicting so successfully at this point. B+

Credits
Guest stars Dale Dye (Ken Radley); Diane Salinger (Karen); Rachel Wilson (Tandi); John Aylward (Albert McGonagle)
Writer Daniel Arkin Director Tobe Hooper