Very good film with a pair of distractions.

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2008)

When I first saw that Del Toro's name was attached to the movie I got a little nervous. I'm a very big fan of Mr. Del Toro's work...all of his work. So when hearing this, I got nervous, thinking that he may turn into the next Eli Roth or Tarantino. But thankfully, The Orphanage is a movie any director should be proud to relate himself to.
The Orphange is about a mother trying to figure out how and why her little boy has disappeared. Strange events are taking place, but instead of taking off and leaving the spooky house, Mama Laura bucks up and stays strong on course to figure out what happened to her child.
The Orphanage is a incredibly well shot and directed film. There are many, many creative uses of cinematography. And with a smart mix of cinematography and direction, the movie truly shines when the eerie and powerful music takes hold. The acting itself is pretty good, not anything truly award-winning, but mostly very believable. One scene in particular, the scene with Laura running on the beach panicking, that was not impressive on any account. It was shaky camera, and just a weird jumbled "mess". They may have been going for a true panicky situation, but it really just felt silly and over-played. Besides the fantastic production values and respectable acting, the movie moved at a quick pace and had some truly creepy and tense filled moments. One thing I applaud the movie is the way they use the tension and scares. They take the scenes of tension and build them up to pretty great levels, but there really isn't a "payoff". It's mostly just a lot of big build ups. This is not a bad thing. Today's horror films all use very cheap means to scare the audience. I, for one, am completely sick of films that use scenes of cheap tricks to jolt the audience. Incredibly fast shots mixed with very loud sounds is all that is I see these days. For example, in the previews for this movie, they showed Jessica Alba's new movie. It's the American remake of The Eye. The final scene of the trailer is exactly what I'm talking about. A film with genuine tension and build up is rare these days, and this a film with it. One other film that uses this technique well is the somewhat underrated The Abandoned. Films like The Changeling, Suspiria and An American Werewolf in London, they all happen to use build-up and true horror tension rather than cheap technical bullsh!t.
ONE other thing! Or should I say TWO. The mother, her breasts. To this day, I haven't stared at a pair of tits more in my entire life. For a homely, motherly wife, she had the fakest pair of tits around. The woman was gorgeous already, and when she's bouncing around in those tight shirts, it seriously became a distraction for me. Gorgeous, gorgeous woman, with a fantastic pair of fake breasts. Not really a problem for me overall, but hell, they WERE distracting for a large part of the film.
Overall, there are plenty of things to complain about with this movie. But in the big scheme of things horror related, this is a breath of fresh air. It's beautiful, chilling and entertaining. If you enjoy horror/mysteries ala Devil's Backbone, this will be right up your alley.