Scary, beautiful, breathtaking!

Rating: 10/10 (10 April 2008)

Two years ago Guillermo Del Toro unleashed one of my all time favourite films, Pan's Labyrinth. Pan's Labyrinth is an original, beautifully told, beautifully acted grown up fairy tale set in war. It was shockingly original yet heart touchingly beautiful, Del Toro created a true masterpiece. Ever since that movie I vowed to see every single one of his movies. While The Orphanage might not be a Del Toro movie, but it has his finger prints all over it. The superb revelation of this movie definitely has to be its director, Juan Antonio Bayona. Bayona was pretty much mentored by Del Toro, and this film unveils a director who might just be as brilliant as Del Toro. The Orpahange you see to be blunt is a masterpiece, it has its flaws, but it is still undoubtedly a masterpiece. The film is the finest, and damned scariest, horror movie that I have seen in many a year. But to call this movie a strict horror movie does not really compliment the movie, its more a horror/drama, a powerful piece of cinema where you genuinely care for the characters and yet are absolutely terrified. Bayona takes time in intensifying the scares and doesn't really overly rely on jump scares. Sure I jumped twice (the second being a huge jump) but I preferred watching the creepier moments. These moments are made better by the superb performances and the fact that you genuinely care for the lead character. The story might not be overly original, and some plot points not really as explained as much as I would have liked, but to take notice of these flaws is to overlook the sheer brilliance of this superb movie.
The lead actress of this movie is perhaps the second largest revelation from this movie. Belen Rueda plays the lead, Laura. The mother who takes over the orphanage and whom these creepy events start to unfold around. Laura is a truly realistic character, and that is something very refreshing. She isn't some blonde bimbo who goes running round screaming, she isn't a cliché of a horror character. She seems like a genuinely interesting woman, a mother desperate to find out what has happened to her child, a mother perhaps on the verge of a mental breakdown. So many issues are touched on with her that it makes the storyline so much more intriguing. Rueda plays her perfectly, every emotion conveyed so perfectly. As the movie reaches its terrifying climax Rueda's performance just gets better and better, one of her final sequences is superbly acted. Fernando Cayo does a great job as the husband, a man desperate to find his son, but worrying about how increasingly paranoid is wife has become. Cayo is pretty much the voice of reason in the movie, his character admittedly never is explored all too well but the performance is still great. Geraldine Chaplin is by far my favourite actress in the movie, but her character is sadly barely in the film so we never see her enough. She plays a psychic who goes into the house to help, I won't ruin any more but she is definitely in the best sequence of the movie. The child stars are also extremely noteworthy.
So let me talk more about the scares of The Orphanage. The Orphanage is a scary movie, however it depends what you want from a horror. If you want yet another Japanese horror movies remake with thousands of jump scares but no lingering scares then this will not work for you. This movie slowly terrifies. The jump scares are few and far between and the movie takes at least half an hour for any scares to truly begin. But there are three sequences here that are just hard to watch they are so tense. My favourite of which involves a night camera sequence, the sequence isn't jumpy, but the scene gets gradually more and more tense, much like a coiled spring. I guarantee that sequence will make your heart thump. The film is also an emotional roller-coaster, the last ten minutes are amongst the most emotional I have seen in some time. The movie goes through several plot twists, some obvious, some not at all obvious, and leads to an ending that Hollywood executives would have a fit over. Its a highly original and dark movie, yet oddly touching and beautiful. As I mentioned the ending doesn't quite deal with every plot point, some points are left hanging in the air completely. Thankfully what the ending does deliver is a series of different ways to interpret the movie. At first it seems like one straightforward ending, yet once I got home and started thinking I realised just how layered the movie was.
The Orphanage might not be as good as Pan's Labyrinth, but it is still a movie to relish. The film is scary yet beautiful at the same time, the film lingers in your mind long after you leave the cinema and is a film I cannot wait to get on DVD. I urge you watch this movie as soon as you can.