The Orphanage is no orphan, in fact it's actually related and linked to several other recent films.

Rating: 5/10 (10 October 2008)

In a way, I feel sorry for El Orfanato director Juan Antonio Bayona, a man who has had a lot of studio backing from a lot of different companies, all of which pop up at the beginning of the film; a man who is under a lot of pressure to perform following the backing of said studios and a certain Guillermo del Toro whose 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth is clearly an inspiration for this piece; and I feel sorry for the director in the sense the film has come off as rather a dud, recycling old material and presenting us with few freights on top of a hollow film viewing experience.
I mentioned Guillermo del Toro just a second ago; the aesthetic of this film and obvious visual inspiration from Pan's Labyrinth is clear, making El Orfanato come across as an attempt to cash in on said film's recent US and European success by way of quickly churning out another Spanish language film; with del Toro's name splashed all over it; that falls into the genre of horror but perhaps ambiguously so and recreating the exact same mood and visual image. For Spain but maybe more so for Mexico, Pan's Labyrinth now comes across as these two nation's golden ticket  their Spielberg's 'Jaws' if you like; a film that if marketed correctly, with the right names all over it and one that falls into an array of genres, it'll draw in the crowds and the money.
I for one loved Pan's Labyrinth, but when it is used to be manipulated into an excuse for further films that carry the same look and feel and 'presented' (whatever that means) by the same man who directed the film that started it all, it saddens me. The Orphanage, to give it its English title, comes across as one long procession; grinding us through scenes set in big 'spooky' houses with kids that see things that perhaps aren't really there as everyone runs around trying to find 'the truth'. Primarily the film borrows too much from Pan's Labyrinth and 2001 Alejandro Amenábar film The Others, another film with a dark look about a woman stuck in a large old house trying to figure out why her kids can see things she can't.
Like Pan's Labyrinth and The Others, The Orphanage places its child character in a situation that threatens them physically. In The Others, the kids had an illness that would see them react harmfully to sunlight whereas in Pan's Labyrinth, the protagonist was under constant threat from the war around her and was placed in a number of 'imaginary' situations that could've caused her harm. Here, young boy Simón (Príncep) is HIV positive and it acts as his psychical 'scar' if you like, following an adoption by couple Carlos (Cayo) and Laura (Rueda).
Then the film has the audacity to take one of the most effective scenes from The Others and recycle it for its own gain. I may not have liked The Others as much as everyone else did but my favourite scene from that film was when Kidman's character came across her daughter's drawings of her imaginary friends. This worked brilliantly because Kidman, as do the audience, sees what we're all supposed to be wary or afraid of through a child's sketch which is of course filtered through its own memory anyway. We got this rather than an out and out shot of one of them or a glimpse of one of them which would have acted as a gimmicky 'jump' scene. In The Others, we are given a crayon drawing we must take in, absorb and think about  it was chilling and quite effective. The Orphanage pillages this scene by having Simón draw a young kid wearing that ridiculous mask that's on all the promotional posters and the cover of the film anyway. It's not spooky and it's not effective and if any of us have memories that go back beyond seven years then it's not clever either.
So if the film is a bit of a rip off, is it as enjoyable anyway on its own merit? Well, not really. After a bit of chin scratching; head scratching and behind the scenes bank balance checking, the film peels off and becomes a story told purely from Laura's point of view following a scene in which she (as do we) catches a glimpse of one of Simón's 'friends'. From here, The Orphanage banks on the old psychological horror trick; the 'am I going crazy?' routine and what follows is a series of scenes dedicated to finding clues, running about the house and gardens and pulling dramatic faces while panting once or twice all during which the audience must endure necessary set ups and non-existent payoffs.
It's easy to knock a film for its logic if you look hard enough but on this occasion it's worth asking would Laura really be left alone in the house if people were aware of her possible fragile mental state? I doubt it. She'd already assumed to have spotted people she's supposedly seen before in the street and she admits to seeing someone else who wasn't really there one time on a beach so would it be right to leave her home alone? Probably not. The Orphanage has some interesting ideas even if they're borrowed and one scene much nearer the end that revolves around a game in which you look away and try to catch people sneaking up on you is effective enough to make you shuffle in your seat but I hope too many people aren't fooled by this copycat horror film in the long run.