Movie review - El Orfanato/The Orphanage

Alright people. It is with a measure of disgust in myself that I will admit to not (yet) having watched Pan's Labyrinth. I don't know why I haven't - obviously if I had, it would have been reviewed here. But anyway, here's a Spanish horror movie I managed to watch!

Laura (Belen Rueda) returns to a long-abandoned orphanage on the Spanish coast, where she lived until the age of approximately 7, with her husband Carlos and their young son Simon, aiming to re-open it as a home for sick and disabled children (as it pretty much what it was like when she was there). One day after she takes Simon to the beach, he claims to have made a new friend, Tomas, which Carlos and Laura shrug off as Simon has always had invisible friends. Simon then reveals five new *invisible friends* and things start getting spooky-dooky.

So what makes a good scary movie? If you're a Hollywood producer, I would assume the answer to be kill and mutilate people in as many disgusting ways as you can. If you're from Europe, I think it's take a large house, make some noises, turn down the lights, and wait for the tension to mount. And does it ever mount - there was a point when Rachie and I started poking each other to disperse the tension! Pretty much all the horror is implied rather than gory, with the exception of once scene after an accident. The combination of plot, acting, lighting, sound and photography make the film look great and are the main factors in creating the spooky mood. The acting from Rueda is what particularly holds the film together as you follow Laura through the gamut of emotions to mental disintegration.

However, this movie may have been a little too good for it's own right. I define a *good* movie as something that keeps you talking afterwards, and while Rachie and I continued talking, with further analysis El Orfanato started falling apart with regards to the sequence and plausibility of various events. Implicit in the relationship between audience and horror movie is the willingness to accept the implausible, but since a great deal of this film's spookiness derives from the *real* aspect of the situation, the breaks cause me to feel a bit ripped.

Still, I recognise that this is a pretty damn good film. So giving it an initial 8/10 minus points for when you realise there are holes as large as cities in there, I'm still giving it a solid recommendation and pass.
7/10