| release date: | Wednesday December 26, 2007
Tuesday May 6, 2008 (dvd) |
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| genre: | Horror |
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| running time: | 100 min. |
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| director: | Juan Antonio Bayona |
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| studio: | Christal Films |
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| producer(s): | Guillermo del Toro |
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| screenplay: | Sergio G. Sanchez |
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| cast: | Belén Rueda, Fernando Caya, Roger Princep, Mabel Rivera, Montserrat Carulla, Geraldine Chaplin |
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The Orphanage Movie Synopsis
Laura spent the happiest years of her childhood growing up in an orphanage by the seaside, cared for by the staff and fellow orphans whom she loved as brothers and sisters. Now, thirty years later, she returns with her husband Carlos and Simon, their 7-year-old son, with a dream of restoring and reopening the long-abandoned orphanage as a home for disabled children. The new home and mysterious surroundings awaken Simon’s imagination and the boy starts to spin a web of fantastic tales and not-so-innocent games... A troubling web that begins to disturb Laura, drawing her into the child’s strange universe which resonates with echoes of long-forgotten, deeply unsettling memories of her own childhood. As the opening day draws near, tension builds within the family. Carlos remains sceptical, believing that Simon is making everything up in a desperate bid for attention. But Laura slowly becomes convinced that something long-hidden and terrible is lurking in the old house, something waiting to emerge and inflict appalling damage on her family.
The Spanish have a way with horror films. They're bringing such a distinctive and creepy new dimension to horror, and I'm always excited to see more. This is such an unsettling film because it's such a departure from what we as North American audiences have come to expect from ghost cinema. Here's what we're used to seeing: a woman defending herself against pissed-off and malevolent ghosts that want to drag her to hell and bring her family misery (The Grudge). Or, an evil child has become a more murderous and insane entity after its death, and it's up to our precocious hero to find a way to send it away or, at the very least, survive it (The Ring). This is not what we get. In fact, I don't k
I just loved the movie. it was very sad at the end but the movie has a message.
It’s little kids that always provide the biggest scares in horror movies. The sound of a screaming small child pleading for his life is something that I don’t find easy to shake. Director Juan Antonio Bayona realizes this and milks the creepy The Orphanage, for all the prepubescent chills they could possibly provide.
The Orphanage is an unnerving, tightly wound horror flick that keeps the audience riveted. It abandons the blood and guts displays, and creates a dark, tense atmosphere that’s just as scary as its crazy little characters. It’s an approach that creates an interesting horror film, instead of the cheap, thin, torture porn made popular by the Hostel and Saw series.