A Brilliant and Stylish Horror Film

Rating: 10/10 (19 February 2008)

In a few short and simple words, El Orfanato is a disturbing, frightening and very eerie film... It's a simple movie with strong character development, excellent acting, a very creepy atmosphere and a very well executed story with an intelligent script. All the actors in the film give outstanding performances and every scene is done magnificently.
There are many horror films in the world being made nowadays, not sure how many, but it must be a number somewhere in the thousands per year, but a very high percentage of those films are garbage. Bad scripts, bad acting, bad ideas, movies stealing from other movies and the worst Japanese remakes.
Where any other movie fails, El Orfanato emerges victoriously. I have stated this before in some of my other reviews: "Horror is a genre that needs to be handled with care" because If it is overdone, then it falls into ridicule. If it is too light, then it is not scary. If it is too gory then, it is too graphic and most critics kill it, and this list goes on and on
El Orfanato does none of the above; it stays loyal to the genre and does it with elegance and style. There are no monsters, no creatures, no gore, no torture, and no grotesque scenes. No need for any of these, with such a brilliant script, musical score and direction. The film grabs the audience from start to finish.
Highly recommended. A+