VIDEO 'OTHERS,' 'HELL': BUMP IN THE NIGHT.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

Out this week on DVD are a ghost story - ``The Others'' - and a cutting tale about Jack the Ripper - ``From Hell.''

``The Others'' is smartly directed by Alejandro Amenabar, who also wrote the script. The story is set on the British isle of Jersey in 1945, where Grace (Nicole Kidman) is raising her two children - Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley) - alone on a large estate. Her husband has gone off to fight in the war and is presumed missing. And her two children are afflicted with a disease that makes them react violently to light.

Adding to this is the sudden disappearance of the servants. One day, three strangers show up. Grace believes at first that they are answering her advertisement, but, Mrs. Mills (Fionnula Flanagan) tells her, the three have worked in the house before and have come by chance, hoping to be employed again. Grace puts them to work, giving Mrs. Mills a set of keys, telling her that each door in the house is to be carefully shut so that light won't hurt her children.

It's not long before there are otherworldly happenings at the house. Grace is quick to dismiss them, saying there must be rational explanations. But it doesn't take long for events to change Grace's mind.

Amenabar, who directed ``Open Your Eyes'' (``Abre Los Ojos''), the basis for the Tom Cruise film ``Vanilla Sky,'' has created a small gem with ``The Others,'' the Spanish director's first English-language film. It relies on atmosphere - the silences work especially well - rather than special effects to keep the tension up.

The film gets a little muddled at times, but it benefits greatly from Kidman's performance. She is able to give a very nuanced portrayal of Grace, a woman who has bottled up all her conflicting desires.

Though it's a two-disc DVD, the extras aren't wonderful. There's a feature on the particular disease the children are afflicted with, and one showing Amenabar in action. There is also a short interview with Tom Cruise, the actress' former husband and one of the film's producers, in which he praises her performance. (If he didn't believe it, it was his best piece of acting.) Didn't Cruise play a vampire once?

JUST A JACKKNIFE: I'm not the only one for whom the 1888 murders by Jack the Ripper still hold a fascination. As one Ripper-ologist notes on an extra of the DVD ``From Hell,'' ``There is no hard evidence against anyone, which is why the mystery endures.''

Apparently even the film's star, Johnny Depp, has an interest. ``From Hell's'' directors - Allen and Albert Hughes - noted on the film's commentary that when they visited the actor to talk about the role as Scotland Yard detective Abberline, there were already books about the Ripper on Depp's shelves.

Based on the graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and artist Eddie Campbell, ``From Hell'' quickly departs from its source with a scene of Abberline drugged, on his back in an opium den. Abberline (the name of the real detective) has been transformed into something of a psychic. He dreams of the gruesome murders of the prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district, making you wonder whether he is somehow involved in the killings.

The script, written by Terry Hayes and then reworked by novelist Rafael Yglesias (the well-received ``Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil''), then dives into its own paranoid world involving the Masons, royalty and the lowlifes of London's East End.

``From Hell'' - the title comes from a note supposedly penned by the Ripper - is about sexual hypocrisy, says Yglesias, but what gives the movie its life (an odd word here) is the Hughes brothers' directorial style. Aided by cinematographer Peter Deming's distinctive muting of the bright palette of crime (think red), the film is a moody, dark and unsettling piece, rather than a graphic depiction of mayhem.

Like ``The Others,'' ``From Hell'' tends to undermine itself a bit in the end, but it's well-crafted and intelligent, with some fine performances, including Depp, Robbie Coltrane, and Ian Holm and Susan Lynch.

``The Others'' (Miramax) lists for $29.99 for the two-disc DVD, which includes a 30-minute documentary, a visual-effects featurette, a story about a family dealing with the disease portrayed in the film and an intimate look at director Amenabar. It's priced for rental on VHS.

``From Hell'' (Fox) lists for $29.98 for the two-disc DVD, which includes commentary by the directors, plus Deming, Coltrane and Yglesias; the HBO Special ``A View From Hell''; 23 deleted scenes with optional alternate ending; an interactive documentary; a making-of with the Hughes brothers; and a mini-documentary, ``Tour of White Chapel.'' It's priced for rental on VHS.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1) Nicole Kidman gives a tension-filled performance in the atmospheric thriller ``The Others.''

(2) Johnny Depp stars as a flawed Scotland Yard inspector looking for a savage killer in ``From Hell.''