El Orfanato (The Orphanage)

[¡Punk!]

For years I’d heard a lot about how George Sluizer’s Spoorloos (The Vanishing) was a classic horror film. Everything I’d heard about it—from its telling of a story through its characters, its sense of forboding, the way it played on your own personal fears—coloured me intrigued. I finally saw it two days ago and enjoyed it, no doubt, but it didn’t strike me as this classic horror film I’d been expecting. El Orfanato (The Orphanage) delivers in spades.

So take a little of Don’t Look Now, The Haunting, The Others and Ringu. Mix them up in with other ingredients, like the look of Pan’s Labyrinth and a freaky mask like in Nightbreed, and Juan Antonio Bayona has made a Catalan paella that draws on so many sources it should be a rip off but he makes a stone cold classic.

A woman who lived in an orphanage as a girl moves back there as an adult, years after its closing, to live there with her husband and son and open it up again as a home for “special” children (down’s kids by the looks of it).

Her son has two imaginary friends with whom he spends most of his days playing, but upon moving to the house he meets another in a cave. Before long he has six new “imaginary” friends. This is a ghost story—and a stunning ghost story at that—so you can guess who these friends are.

Or can you? Is this house haunted? Is the son just playing games as he’s a lonely boy? Has his mother gone a bit loco? Thankfully this film doesn’t give you any answers on a silver platter. The director trusts you enough to decide for yourself.

There aren’t many plot twists in this film. In fact, I’d say there were none. There is one part, close to the end, when so many answers raised in this film come together but, although it’s not obvious, it is a conclusion you’d probably drawn yourself. The ending is either so sombre it’s heartbreaking or so joyous it’s beautiful. It’s a simple ghost story told brilliantly and it's freaky as fuck.

The poor girl I went with couldn’t watch at one point and was clinging onto my arm for dear life when the mother plays a game of “one, two, three, knock on the wall” to lure the ghosts out. But, right from the start, this film has dozens of moments that will have you squeezing your partner in anticipation of the horrors that are about to follow. Anytime anyone has to go into a darkened room, down into a cellar or walk through a cave, the director, who’s been playing Resident Evil too much, shows us the journey they must take. Every time, you’ll think to yourself, “fuck that for a game of soldiers!”

I’ll admit to have having jumped half way out my seat on a couple of occasions, but the film doesn’t need cheap “scares” like that to be frightening and, unlike most films that do use that tactic, the scare doesn’t release the tension afterwards but instead increases it.

A ghost story with the horror of loss and redemption told through scintillating performances, believable and likeable characters, exquisite set design and no shortage of chances to get yer arm round the frightened wee thing you’ve took to the pictures with you. This is a stoating film that anyone with the tiniest interest in horror films should rush out and view immediately. Or at least before the American remake fucks it up.

El Orfanato is on release at selected cinemas now.

[Semprini]

The Orphanage (or El Orfanato, to give it the pre-translation title), is a Spanish horror film from Juan Antonio Bayona (and produced by Guillermo del Toro, to give the audience a name they might recognise). It stars Belén Rueda as Laura, a woman who grew up in the orphanage of the title, and moves back there with her husband in later life to open it up as a home for disabled children.

Her son comes with her, and he has a couple of imaginary friends. Once he gets there, he picks up a few more imaginary friends. But just how imaginary are they?

That's all the plot I’m giving you, anyone who's seen more than one horror movie in their life can probably work out where it's going.

This film is not revolutionary, it’s not going to usher in a new generation of film-making innovation, and it’s not going to do very well at the box office (mostly because it's subtitled, and far too many slack-jawed mouth-breathing morons run a mile at the first sign of that).

What this film does have going for it is that it’s superbly well executed. The atmosphere is genuinely creepy in places, the performances are first-rate, the plot lacks the planet-sized holes that many horrors contain, and it works on levels beyond the purely scary, with a subtext about the relationship between parent and child that never feels forced or shoehorned in.

Put bluntly, this is a textbook example of a movie doing what so many fail to do, and getting the basics right. It shows that you don't have to be different to succeed, that excellence is a perfect substitute for innovation.

There’s a Hollywood remake of this in production, but I implore you all to do yourselves a favour and see this version, because much like Dark Water (a film this work has clearly been influenced by - to say how would be to spoil it), you just know the Americans will fuck it up.

[Shannow]

I had misread the poster at first and assumed it was Del toro directing this, and in fairness, it's not a difficult mistake to make, as it's thematically and visually very similar to 'Devils backbone' and 'pan's labyrinth' excepting for the fascist spain background.

I was very impressed by this, didn't rely entirely on 'jumpy' moments for scares (though there were a fair few that caused my friend to nearly die as she leapt 9 feet out her chair), nigh on no cgi (that i noticed), great acting and a solid story.
Any american remake can go fuck itself.

[Woolies]

So it's not a remake of Dumbo then?

[Al K]

I thought this was absolutely fantastic. Go see.
Oh, and I agree on the sentiments regarding the inevitable American remake.

Get. Tae. Fuck.

[¡Punk!]

It's in pre-production

[Al K]

It's in pre-production

[¡Punk!]

del Toro to produce again tho'

[Semprini]

The joys of two reviews submitted independently of each other, eh?

del Toro to produce again tho'

Bayona was offered the director's chair again, but turned it down.

[grantmonkey]

brilliant. like everyone's already said it's so perfectly executed.
even the scene cuts were done perfectly.

and its. fookin. scary.

[¡Punk!]

Bayona was offered the director's chair again, but turned it down.

Yeah I heard that.

A good rumour I heard was Ron Perlman to direct?

[Bunnylingus]

I'd love to see this, but I'm far too much of a wimp.

[McLeary]

Let's not be pretentious here, this film's called 'The Orphanage'.

[Bunnylingus]

I was gonna say that - maybe put it in brackets?

The picture isn't big enough to identify it.

[McLeary]

It's a big pet peeve of mine, people going out their way to call a film by it's original title if it's in a foreign language.
"I say, old bean, did you see 'El Laberinto del fauno' last night?"
"Naw, I saw Pan's Labyrinth but".

As i say, it's pure pretentiousness. You don't see folk insisting on calling Die Hard 4 'Live Free Or Die Hard' just because that's its US title.