The Orphanage

If you love a well-told ghost story, then you should enjoy THE ORPHANAGE. It's packed with mystery, dread, and perfectly-placed chills.

Laura (Belen Rueda) returns to the titular institution of her youth in order to turn it into a home for disabled children. With her husband and young son in tow, all seems fine at first. When tragedy strikes, Laura's world collapses, leaving her at the mercy of a supernatural game.

This movie deals as much with the agony of loss as it does with the paranormal. The ending is as poignant as it is terrifying. Recommended for those seeking intelligent horror films...

Ingeniously weighing the elements of supernatural & psychological horror, The Orphanage is an expertly crafted horror film from Cinema of Spain which with its welcome absence of cheap scares & more emphasis on its plot turns out to be one of the finest examples of its genre. Cleverly plotted, it dares to take its time to create the required atmosphere rather than prematurely rushing into scaring its audience like so many horror films do nowadays.

The Orphanage concerns Laura; a former orphan who returns with her husband & son back to her childhood home which used to be an orphanage for handicapped children, which she hopes to reopen again. Things are set in motion when her son Simon, who claims to have invisible friends, goes missing one day after an altercation with her. Convinced of others' presence in the house, Laura tries to uncover the secrets about the orphanage that dates back to the time when she used to live here with the hope that it may provide some hint about her son's whereabouts..

Directed by J. A. Bayona, The Orphanage is his debut feature & he has done a really good job with the provided story. The film is very well scripted too with proper time devoted to its lead character & her plight, and it also benefits from its arresting cinematography, smart editing, sincere performances & outstanding use of sound as well as its score. On an overall scale, The Orphanage is an intelligently crafted chiller that scares as well as amazes & is primarily a tale of how far a mother is willing to go to find her son. Highly recommended.

Let me begin by saying I DON'T like horror movies. I don't enjoy jumping in my seat. I don't like being afraid of the dark for the next 2 days, and I usually HATE Spanish movies. So usually I only see the big horror classics, and that is because I've read enough spoilers to confront the movie in a laid-back way.

Having said this, I was dragged to see this movie against my will. And I was right! I have never, EVER, been more uneasy, uncomfortable on any movie, from the Exorcist to the Prophecy, from Psycho to Halloween. The story seems obvious; the cliché-horror themes are there, and while I saw them coming, I was comfortable enough. But then comes the movie, the script, the score, the acting, all in perfect harmony... and you jump, and you chill and you shout and you wish you had never entered that dammed cinema.

It is good. It is great.It is moving and horrifying. It does not need CGI, sound effects or unreal characters. Its there. Its real. Its haunting. It WILL be a classic.

Chapeau!

I went into a screening of this today knowing only that it was about a woman who buys the home she lived in as an orphaned child, planning to open it to other orphans, that it mixed fantasy and reality, and that Guillermo del Toro of 'Pan's Labyrinth' had a hand in it. I didn't have any expectations. Even if I did, I certainly not have expected what I got. 'El Orfanato' surprised me first in successfully thrilling me with its surface, and surprised me again in how deeply it moved me with its core.

When Laura (the marvelous Belén Rueda) moves back into the house that used to be the orphanage she lived in as a girl, she is thirty-seven, married, and she and her husband have adopted a son - Simón, a little boy with HIV who doesn't know that he's terminally ill or adopted. Simón is wildly creative - he has several imaginary friends and a penchant for treasure hunts, mind games, and the story of Peter Pan. One day shortly after a mysterious visit from a social worker and Simón's revelation that he knows the truth about his adoption and illness, Simón disappears. The rest of the film follows Laura's desperate search for her son as she comes to terms with her loss and her own past as well.

Screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez does a masterful job of balancing the thriller with the drama. Laura's attempts to connect with everything that haunts her and her home are darkly touching, though slightly psychologically twisted. The acting is strong, and the directing, editing, cinematography, and music all work together well. Some of the sound effects - the constant creaking, wind blowing, etc. - got wearisome as the film went on, and some of the thrills were a little cheap - I won't ruin it for anyone by revealing them - though, admittedly, they were effective all the same. The story dragged a little towards the end and during the scene with the medium - cutting it just a little shorter might have been equally as effective and easier on the viewer.

Bottom line: even if you don't like "scary" movies (like me), you'll probably still appreciate and enjoy the more thrilling aspects. If you're a horror flick buff, you'll probably find some of the thriller elements a little tired and overdone. Either way, it's still worth seeing - the exploration of Laura's heart and mind are both lovely and tragic to behold, and though the film is morbid, it is beautiful as well.

As a child Laura was in an orphanage until she was adopted young. Years later she has returned to the building with her husband and adopted child Simón with the aim of making it both their home and also a place for the care of special children.. Simón has his own challenges, one of which is his reliance on imaginary friends, but when he claims to have met one in particular, Tomás, things take a very dark turn for the worse.

After a few weeks of listening to mark Kermode praising this film, I got myself along to a cinema to see it. What I found was not the amazing, earth-shattering film that some had claimed – but this is a common thing for good foreign films, they tend to be extra praised because they are foreign. Don't let my sentences put you off though because this is a very effective and enjoyable ghost story. Director Bayona uses the devices that you'll have seen other films of the same ilk using but the thing is he does it really well. The creeping camera is used several times without a related payoff, producing a constant air of tension that is almost a relief (in a perverse way) when a proper scare does come. As many others have said it is very unnerving rather than gory, with slow movement replacing jump scares and so on, all to good effect.

The story is no slouch either and it is built on the desperation of Laura and the loss of her treasure. This puts a very human heart to the ghost story, engaging the viewer and making it easier for scepticism to be put to one side, even if only for a few hours. The narrative carries a satisfying arch that is ultimately as tragic as it is "happy" and as relatable as it fantastic. To put it another way, when a specific scare was not happening/about to happen, I was still interested in what was happening and boredom never occurred. The cast deliver well too. Rueda is the heart of the film and she is convincing throughout. Cayo's Carlos is a lot less important but he plays his character well. Príncep's Simón is the right kid for the job as his matter-of-fact lack of fear adds to the story. The rest of the child cast are weaker but mostly their creepy silent presence is all that is required.

The Orphanage is not anything new or brilliant then but it is very efficient and effective. The story is a strong base for a consistently creepy air that is expertly delivered by Bayona, who makes it all look easy.