The Orphanage (2007)

The Orphanage (2007)
orig El Orfanato
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Writer: Sergio G. Sánchez
Cast: Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep, Mabel Rivera
A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, where she opens an orphanage for handicapped children. Before long, her son starts to communicate with an invisible new friend.

'The story follows Laura and her family, which are husband and doctor Carlos and her adopted child Simon (who's HIV+ and needs daily medication). They buy a run-down closed orphanage; she herself once lived in as a child. The house is in a beautiful location, even overlooks an old lighthouse. Everything seems well in their new home until Simon starts to make up and play with imaginary friends. These are headed by a freakish sack covered child called Tomás. The film looks and sounds amazing; I’m sure having Guillermo del Toro on-board as producer helped. But it’s the director Bayona and its writer Sánchez who should be applauded for taking the film in a different direction than it could of gone in during its first half. "Subtle, genuinely creepy and ... SUBTLE" This is taken from an imdb comment of The Others a film that springs to mind a little during watching this. It also can be used to sum up The Orphanage; in fact it’s the perfect way to sum it up. As the true key to what makes it tick is how subtle it is, so much so by the time the end credits role you wonder if you've really been watching an horror film at all. For an horror film it has alot of poignant moments like the scene Simon likens himself to Peter Pan knowing with having HIV he will never grow old, with so much sadness its wonderful that it manages to spin out a fairy tale feel ending. I could ramble on about how much I loved this film for ages, I’ll wrap it up though I hope without giving away to many spoilers and say it’s highly recommended. Made me wanna punch the sky and scream out how much I love horror films, something I rarely do these days.'

(9½ out of 10)

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