Rama’s SCREEN

THE ORPHANAGE is like The Sixth Sense meets The Others. It’s an original story advertising itself as horror/suspense but what most people don’t know yet is that at the same time, the story is very sad and heart-breaking but in a way that’d make you feel… glad it ends that way. I won’t spoil the ending but I tell you this much, the money you spend on watching this movie will not go to waste.

Laura was an orphan growing up in an orphanage with her five little friends. Years later she brings her husband and her adopted child, Simon to live in the house and they have plan to run the place as a shelter for kids with problem. Simon starts making invisible friends, at first it’s not serious but when Simon disappears, a secret from the past is slowly revealed and to find Simon back, Laura is forced to play the game they used to play when they were kids.

Guillermo Del Toro helped produce and he also lent his name to help promote the movie. The filmmakers of this movie probably figured why not get some household name who’s a friend to distribute this movie in America to see if has a shot of a box office hit. It’s foreign language, Spanish specifically, originally called El Orfanato so American movie-watchers would have to enjoy it with the subtitles on.

The boy wearing the sack mask is one of the creepiest horror movie characters ever.
The acting of the main actress who plays Laura has the power to capture your attention and you can see that she is experienced. I gotta hand it to the director Juan Bayona, he knows how to position his actors and he knows which angle and lighting that would work to bring the mood into something that would get the audiences to want to close their eyes but they’re not going to because the curiosity prevails. The same curiosity that would get viewers surprised by every single shock element.
There are scenes that will get you jumpy but shortly thereafter you’d find yourself laughing, relieved, the kind of feeling you get when you just got done riding a roller-coaster.

This is a movie that M. Night Shyamalan would be proud of, it’s a really scary movie that will demand our applause. The visual and the original score take us straight to horror and refrain for a moment or two and then return us back into the warm embrace of sanity and care. It’s not your grandma’s haunted house movie where ghosts just aim to kill whoever brave soul decide to stay inside,… this is different, THE ORPHANAGE allows you to enter and makes you feel at home.

* Place the cursor on the picture below to check my grade for this film