Review

During a meet and greet party for possible applicants to Laura and Carlos' home away from home thing Simón disappears. A search of the house and grounds doesn't turn him up but Laura does break her leg badly. Six months later and the police still haven't found Simón though Laura isn't giving up hope. Not helping is increased activity in the house that can only have a supernatural explanation. Laura calls in the Ghostbusters, Carlos calls in the Police psychologist, and things start to escalate. Can Laura discover the secret of the house and find Simón?

Not quite sure why Guillermo Del Toro's name is plastered all over the DVD cover for this movie as he apparently had no involvement in it. Anyways to get the elephant in the room out of the way upfront, yes this movie is in Spanish with English subtitles. Don't let that put you off, Director J.A. Bayona knows what he is doing and nails a traditional haunted house outing with some mighty fine flourishes.

The cinematography is as deep and rich as one would expect with plenty of Hammer Horror styling for the long shots of the spooky house itself and a lighthouse that actually becomes pretty crucial to the movie in the final block. Bayona lays on the dark and stormy weather, keeps his lighting low when required, and goes for broke with a number of scenes, thankfully not relying on jump scares. So yeah the movie visuals are on the sumptuous side of the leg brace, and I was for sure digging the interiors of the house. Perhaps my only issue was a bunch of CGI backdrops that were notably CGI.

As one would expect the standard haunted house tropes are rolled out which might have some readers groaning. We get the wife who believes the paranormal shenanigans are somehow linked to Simón's disappearance, her husband disbelieving even when the supernatural leaps up and bites him on the arse, and a team of paranormal investigators hoping to make that one undisputed recording of a haunting. Laura pretty much works; she has lived at the house previously and is more attuned to the creaks and groans of the old pile. The Director does well in gradually getting Laura to believe in the existence of ghosts during the first block of The Orphanage, when all other explanations are exhausted y'all. Not working so well is Carlos, who is so steeped in science and hence a committed sceptic that he refuses to believe even as the evidence of something supernatural happening builds to a crescendo. He gets backed by the Police psychologist character, who I have to admit is pretty superfluous to the plot and should have been edited out. And finally the paranormal investigators bring the machine that goes ping and records some EVP which underlines the existence of spectres in the rambling mansion. Naturally Carlos doesn't believe what he hears as he is a man of science and hence pretty much a moron yadda yadda.

Very solid haunted house outing that doesn't try to be anything else

Without giving too much away the actual haunting is pretty logical with some chilling scenes. Loved the use of shells to indicate an unseen presence has followed Laura and Simón home from the beach in an early scene. We do get some standard tropes going down, Laura in bed with what she thinks is her husband, only gasp, it's not, the whole EVP thing, doors slamming by themselves, and the ever popular psychic who can contact the other side while in a trance. If you have seen The Others then you'll know what you are in for. I wasn't overly concerned, the Director adds some great atmosphere and the old parlour tricks work whether you have seen them before or not, and was more than pleased that we weren't presented with Amityville style shenanigans - talking the remake here.

Like all good haunted house excursions The Orphanage presents a mystery with something tragic in the past to uncover. Except here we have multiple mysteries, what happened to Simón, who is the kid with the sack over his head who appears to be an evil force, and who is the old lady who visits late one night. There are some twists and turns here that will have you glued to the screen, and that's about all I wrote on this aspect, catch the movie to work it out.

For gorehounds yes there's a single scene that will have you howling at the moon, I was actually shocked at it as it came out of the blue in a sort of Grudge fashion. And no T&A isn't happening, sorry to disappoint but hey, serious ghost story folks. Director Bayona makes up for his short falls with plenty of atmosphere and tension.

Acting by all involved is pretty sweet, I was a believer which is about what the cast hope to achieve in this sort of a flick. The language barrier wasn't an issue as all the major and minor characters were emoting like they needed the work. Sorry didn't take note of the score, was fully engrossed in the rough housing going down in the haunt aisle.

The Orphanage is one of those classic horror flicks I kept meaning to catch but somehow never quite got around to. Actually there's a bunch of classics we need to make time for. I had a good time with the movie, always a sucker for a haunted house outing, and got exactly what I expected covered in enough atmosphere to have this little black duck checking out if the Director has hit the dark genre again. While tweens probably won't dig the slow pace, and let's face it brain dead teens aren't going to thrive on the sub titles, true horror fans should however be across the movie like it's going out of fashion. High recommendation folks, The Orphanage is certainly a place that you can call home, just be careful of the basement.