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THE ORPHANAGE
The Orphanage
 When a young boy goes missing, his mother suspects otherworldly forces are at work and begins an extraordinary search to find him. score

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Cast
Belen Rueda, Roger Princep, Fernando Cayo, Mabel Rivera, Geraldine Chaplin

 Director
Juan Antonio Bayona

 Screenwriter
Sergio G. Sanchez

 Country
Spain / Mexico (subtitles)

Rating / Running Time
MA / 105 minutes

Australian Release
May 2008

Official Site
(c) moviereview 2006-2008
ABN 72 775 390 361
 It must be something in the water. Spain has produced some of the most disturbing horror films in recent years – Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone foremost among them. Guillermo del Toro (director of the aforementioned) sits in as producer of this latest, Latin shocker set in a remote, country house. Bayona’s film has all (and I do mean all) the necessary ingredients: a neo-gothic mansion, thunderstorms, caves, ghosts, an abandoned lighthouse, a psychic medium, a creepy old lady, a distraught mother and a young boy with ethereal friends.

Having set up the parameters of his paranormal parable, he then throws a curve ball that takes a while to present. For The Orphanage is more of a ghostly whodunit than a tale of otherworldly vengeance. That said, it still arrives overstocked with tension, fear and frights. One scene involving a woman, a pram and a truck has the capacity to trigger heart failure.

Laura, her husband and young son Simon have moved into the orphanage that was once her home. It’s a rambling house with more than a few skeletons in its closets and as soon as things go bump in the night, they start bumping in the day. Simon makes some imaginary mates then suddenly disappears. Laura fears the impossible despite rational pleas from her husband and embarks on a one-way journey to find her son.

And it’s in this adjunct that the hand of del Toro is most felt. While The Orphanage has the capacity to scare the impressionable witless, it also plays a redemptive, sorrowful card that gives the film its edge. Bayona capitalises on solid performances and a truly, haunting atmosphere. This is as far from the current flavour for slasher films dressed as horror as one could expect. It’s a simple, scary movie made the old-fashioned way. And one that’s all the better for it.

// COLIN FRASER