The Orphanage. Not really scary, but creepy enough to be cool. (*******7/10)
Guillermo Del Toro has made some of the best films of recent years. Dark, brooding, beautifully filmed movies like Blade II, Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth. And he must have an eye for other great directores, because as a producer he has achieved a great succes with The Orphanage. Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, The Orphanage is not really a horror movie, although it was marketed as such. There are definitely some creepy scenes and scary moments, but it’s the atmosphere that tells the story as much as the scares and the characters themselves. Belen Rueda plays the main character, Laura, a woman who returns to the orphanage where she was raised in order to build it up again, and take in some more kids. She lives there with her husband and her own son, seven-year-old Simon. But when Simon begins to talk to a series of imaginary friends, and soon goes missing, Laura tears her life apart to find him, and that means unearthing some long-dormant secrets and spirits in the orphanage.
The movie may be reminiscent of several others. Hallowe’en, Poltergeist, Final Destination, any number of Peter Pan movies, and Del Toro’s own The Devil’s Backbone. But it’s the Peter Pan theme that holds the key to The Orphanage. Suppose the Peter Pan story was, instead of being a kids’ tale, the work of some deviously evil murderous freak show? I know, I know, I’m describing the Neverland Ranch. But Michael Jackson aside, only Bayona has managed to make the Peter Pan story this creepy. Rueda, as Laura, undergoes a transformation that is part obsession and part a growing belief in the spirits that surround her in the house, and it is a remarkable acting performance. There are red herrings, but not too many. There are many characters that come in and out of the movie with varying degrees of effectiveness. The best is the old lady who gets dispatched in a fairly memorable and gory fashion.
The Orphanage is a good, creepy, evocative flim, with terrific camera work and a genuinely gothic sense of foreboding. The direction is first-rate, the acting is for the most part excellent, and the film is very much worth watching. A few quibbles prevent it from being a truly great movie, like the pacing and the length, which I think is a little unnecessary. But all in all, a quality movie experience. Oh, but it has subtitles. So it isn’t for those who hate to read.