Admirable atmosphere & setting.

Rating: 5/10 (12 January 2009)

I pretty much knew with relative certainty and from beforehand that "The Orphanage" wasn't going to be my cup of tea. Slow-brooding ghost stories almost never appeal to me and I didn't even care for producer Guillermo Del Toro's own and critically acclaimed "The Devil's Backbone". But, considering the hugely positive internet buzz as well as the endless amount of praising reviews on this website, I  being a devoted horror fanatic  simply couldn't afford to ignore this Spanish instant classic entirely. Well, the only thing I can conclude after seeing the film is that "The Orphanage" is exactly what you expect from a relatively soft, mainstream and overall ethically correct modern day horror production; whether it's made in Spain, Japan or elsewhere in the world. Obviously it's an extremely professionally made film, with a handful of memorable style elements and effective jump moments, but in the end it really isn't much more than just another derivative and predictable 'ghosts from the past coming back to haunt us' tale that lack the courage to go very far. Undoubtedly the qualitatively greatest aspect about "The Orphanage" is the naturally sinister setting. The events take place in an old and remote orphanage  duh  located near a quiet beach with an inactive lighthouse and a wide network of sinister caves. Laura, who spend her childhood here, returns with her husband and 7-year-old son and intends to re-open the orphanage specifically for orphans with a mental and/or physical handicap. On the day of the opening, however, Laura's own son Simon  who's also adopted and chronically ill  mysteriously disappears without a trace. Months go by without a sign of life and Laura understandably starts to get desperate. Was Simon kidnapped by the uncanny lady who arrived at the orphanage and posed as a social assistant shortly before his disappearance? Or perhaps Laura should have listened more to her son's stories about the invisible friends he made, as they seem to know an awful lot of accurate details about the orphanage's dark past. Somewhat to my anticipated frustration, "The Orphanage" contains all the clichés and stereotypes the sub genre of ghost stories has to offer. There's the overly fanatic mother versus the rational father, the eccentric and somewhat flamboyant spiritual medium, the morbid old lady that may or may not be real and of course a wide collection of pity-evoking long dead children whose souls are restless. The young and relatively inexperienced director J.A. Bayona does an impressive job maintaining the macabre ambiance all the way from start to finish, but sadly it isn't enough to qualify as a masterpiece in the genre. There's only just ONE that really made me jump towards the edge for my seat for a little while, namely the second confrontation with the elderly lady in the middle of a busy street. Although this is unquestionably a truly masterful sequence, it's nearly not enough as far as I'm concerned. Many fans glorify the finale, but the whole third act actually just confirmed to me that "The Orphanage" rather wanted to be a sentimental melodrama about the true values of family and motherly love. When it comes to (Spanish) ghost stories of the past 10 to 20 years, Amenábar's unique and already classic "The Others" is still the norm and "The Orphanage" is not likely to change that.