El Orfanato (The Orphanage)
Sep. 20th, 2008 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feliciakwOr, "Dang but those Spaniards creep me out!"
Produced by Guillermo del Toro of Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth, and Hellboy fame comes quite possibly the creepiest, tensest, most chill-inducing spook movie I've seen in a long time.
El Orfanato (The Orphanage) follows the story of Laura, a woman who was adopted from the orphanage that she and her husband Carlos have just purchased with the intension of rebuilding to provide a home for half a dozen special needs children. Laura and Carlos have themselves adopted a child, Simón, who, as an only child, creates imaginary friends with whom to play. When Laura and Simón spend a day at the beach exploring the cave in under the lighthouse, he picks up several more friends, much to Laura and Carlos' dismay. Then, on the day the new children are scheduled to arrive, Simón mysteriously disappears.
During Laura's frantic search for her son, she uncovers horrific tragedies that took place in the house, and is forced to play the game Simón insisted his "friends" enjoy. "They hide one of your treasures, and you have to find it."
Truly, there was one point in the movie where I thought, "This is creeping me out. It makes SPN look like a tea party. Where are the Winchesters when you need them?"
There are some genuine scares of the "it's not what you see; it's what you don't see" variety, as well as the startling elements along the lines of The Sixth Sense--things that aren't there one moment are there and gone the next. Even George about jumped out of his skin at one point, and it was one of the oldest tricks in the book.
The climax of the movie truly horrified me--I mean genuinely horrified me in the truest sense of the word--yet it ended . . . well, I won't spoil you, but I didn't expect it to end like that. But it worked.
And in keeping with del Toro's apparently favored theme, this movie revolves around the lives of children.
I know it's still September, but if you're making a list of creepy movies for the month of October, definitely include this one. It's worth the Netflix.
Produced by Guillermo del Toro of Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth, and Hellboy fame comes quite possibly the creepiest, tensest, most chill-inducing spook movie I've seen in a long time.
El Orfanato (The Orphanage) follows the story of Laura, a woman who was adopted from the orphanage that she and her husband Carlos have just purchased with the intension of rebuilding to provide a home for half a dozen special needs children. Laura and Carlos have themselves adopted a child, Simón, who, as an only child, creates imaginary friends with whom to play. When Laura and Simón spend a day at the beach exploring the cave in under the lighthouse, he picks up several more friends, much to Laura and Carlos' dismay. Then, on the day the new children are scheduled to arrive, Simón mysteriously disappears.
During Laura's frantic search for her son, she uncovers horrific tragedies that took place in the house, and is forced to play the game Simón insisted his "friends" enjoy. "They hide one of your treasures, and you have to find it."
Truly, there was one point in the movie where I thought, "This is creeping me out. It makes SPN look like a tea party. Where are the Winchesters when you need them?"
There are some genuine scares of the "it's not what you see; it's what you don't see" variety, as well as the startling elements along the lines of The Sixth Sense--things that aren't there one moment are there and gone the next. Even George about jumped out of his skin at one point, and it was one of the oldest tricks in the book.
The climax of the movie truly horrified me--I mean genuinely horrified me in the truest sense of the word--yet it ended . . . well, I won't spoil you, but I didn't expect it to end like that. But it worked.
And in keeping with del Toro's apparently favored theme, this movie revolves around the lives of children.
I know it's still September, but if you're making a list of creepy movies for the month of October, definitely include this one. It's worth the Netflix.
