My girlfriend came over last night after work with two pizza's and a copy of The Orphanage. We thought it was going to be some lame American ghost movie, but we were wrong. Instead, we got the Spanish version of a Sixth Sense and The Others hybrid.
Now, I haven't exactly seen many Spanish movies, and if I didn't know better I would be saying that most foreign movies are badly scripted and badly acted. The Orphanage, however, has superb acting, a great script and very good camera work. I was on edge throughout the whole movie and even jumped once or twice despite having to the read subtitles.
As you can probably imagine, the film is set in Spain. The main character, Laura, is an orphan that grows up and returns to buy the old decrepit Orphanage 30 years later, where she is subject to broken limbs and pulled nails when she gets chased by a child in a mask during the house warming party. The plan was for Laura to re-open the orphanage and to look after special needs children, but the disappearance of her adopted son (who is terminally ill) shatters her dreams and drives her a little nuts.
After about an hour of freaky encounters with ghosts, ghost hunters and dead bodies, the end comes bearing a clever yet understated twist. I won't share this twist, because you should watch the movie yourself.
Final Thought Byte : The Orphanage is a movie well worth watching if you don't mind reading subtitles. The storyline and acting is consistent throughout and can really draw you into the horror action. This movie should definitely be put next to Day Watch and Night Watch in the "Good Foreign Movies" list.
Tags : El Organato, Horror, movies, Sixth Sense, Spanish, The Orphanage, The Others
2 comments:
I agree with you that The Orphanage is a surprisingly good film. A few days ago I watched it with my boyfriend. We didn’t really know what to expect either (in a similar way to you we were expecting a low budget American horror film) At first the Subtitles did put me off - as I’d normally insist that films are meant for watching and books are meant for reading. However, I personally found that after the first twenty minutes the subtitles no longer seemed like an issue as the storyline was able to hold my interest. The film undoubtedly falls into the ‘horror’ genre but it approaches it in a far more effective way than some of the modern American films I mentioned before, Rather than throwing endless scenes of blood and gore at the viewer The Orphanage makes good use of suspense. There were many points through out the film where I ‘jumped out of my seat’ but more to the point my boyfriend appeared to be continually twitching throughout.
“One, Two, Three. Knock on the wall” is all I need to get a reaction now…..
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