Moving and Intelligent Ghost Story

Rating: 8/10 (13 May 2009)

The Orphanage (2007) - directed by Juan Antonio Bayona and produced and introduced by Guillermo del Torro whose ghosts films El Espinazo del diablo and Pan's Labyrinth most certainly were the inspiration for the first time director. The films "The Others" and "The Stir of Echoes" also come to mind, as perhaps, Friday the 13 and the story of Peter Pan which may be the main inspiration for the film that looks at the story of the boy who never grew up and stayed in Neverland from the point of view of his mother. The orphanage is unsettling, scary, very moving and intelligent. It does not show the monsters, it implies. It makes us to identify with its main heroine, the orphan herself who after many years comes back to the very house she used to share with her childhood friends, also orphans and where she wants to open the house for the handicapped children. Little did she know that the old house has deep and horrifying secrets that may affect her life, sanity, and the lives of the dearest and closest to her. Very good film, creepy, and heartbreaking. The final moved me to tears.