Well Paced and Unnerving Ghost Story

Rating: 9/10 (25 March 2008)

After seeing the trailer for this movie I had great expectations for the film to follow and, unlike numerous other horror/thriller film trailers, I wasn't disappointed.
Unfortunately nowadays you seen an awful lot of tinkering with films, often making the endings make little or no sense, but The Orphanage had none of these. A consistent plot concentrating on the characters and events rather than trying to distract the viewer with red herrings and tricks led to an exceptional, although possibly not surprising, conclusion.
Acting was fine from all the ensemble cast and it has been a while since I have been unnerved by anything I have seen in the cinema. Subtitles were also bold but not invasive and did not distract from the films beauty and excellent camera work. Music was used to great effect as well.
I felt the final scene was unnecessary however as the scene prior to this allowed the viewer (a'la Taxi Driver) to make their own minds up about the end.
This is a minor comment on a wholly excellent film and I will be looking out for the directors subsequent works.
As a small aside I saw this during a school holiday and a large number of 15 year olds had come to see the film and were disappointed by the subtitles but - to the films credit - they all stayed to the end and I definitely saw some jumps and cries from them during the movie.