The Orphanage - Das Waisenhaus 2

This movie is so bad. They changed the name to the orphanage and it's just horrible. I felt like I was watching a junior college project filmed in a dorm. Nothing good about this movie at all. I feel like the name was changed so that people might accidentally rent it thinking it's the horror classic of the same name. I wish I could have that 97 minutes of my life back. The camera work was weird, The acting was weird, The dialogue was weird. This review might be weird but the movie was such a train wreck it made me feel weird. What were the film makers thinking? Were they high or are they retarded? I fee that they might be all three. I feel bad for the kid who starred in this rubbish.

Where do I begin? So bad...let me count the ways...

I wasted an hour and a half on this horrible movie. No one can act, nothing makes sense, you don't know what the point is, none of it is realistic.

Oy vey! Run away!

First of all, let me say that this movie is terrible. Really REALLY bad. The camera work is pedestrian, the acting is scraping the bottom of the barrel. The kid was the only decent actor in the movie. The dialog is truly ridiculous at points, and the details propelling the plot forward don't make any sense. This is further confounded by the way the time line jumps around, making for a movie that lurches along like a wounded animal. The story, at its core, is good, and the movie could have been truly great had it been made by entirely different people. Using haunting as a metaphor for the true horrors that are frequently faced by orphaned children, and ward B as a symbol of the powerlessness of children who are designated wards of the state, could have been crafted into a truly poignant, moving, and ultimately unforgettable work of cinematography, but, unfortunately, this clumsy attempt at that, fails in every way. If Scorsese had made this film, it would have been a masterpiece.

Flat story, acting, everything! Steer clear of this monstrosity.

Dear Reader, Bearing in mind the film was released in 2013, a wider or broader context and evaluation is worth considering. I'm not going to dwell on peripherals such as low budget aspects but instead I will draw your attention to historical precedents and actions which are brought up to date during the drama. Those of you who study and value the apparent lessons we were meant to have learnt from the past see immediately that we are trapped in an endless prison of cruelty and violence . This is what the film is about. It requires a level of perception which some individuals do not possess nor are capable of ever seeing. With hindsight, a lot of the plot becomes very obvious, drawing on Dr Mengele, for example, Lord of the Flies, and Clockwork Orange. The reign of terror and intimidation within this orphanage carries on unchecked and un monitored. All the comments on this production either shy away from this or maybe the writers were watching an entirely different film? The message is powerful but the very fact that non-action is as sinful as action brings the evil out into the open. The smuggled camera ruse was brilliant - how else to garner vital evidence? This in itself may be a fictional drama / plot but behind the fiction lies a hideous world where such actions take place and are taking place unchecked. Looked at from another angle and this film is a wake-up call in every regime built on brutality, torture and total disregard for human lives.