Review: The Orphanage

The Orphanage (Orfanato, El) is a fantastic Spanish language horror movie directed by Juan Antonio Bayona with the help of the brilliant Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) as executive producer.

The movie tells a deeply dark and often emotional story of a young boy Tomas and his family living in the old converted orphanage where his mother grew up in early childhood. As time goes by we learn that Tomas and his family have their fair share of secrets and so (more importantly) does the old orphanage they now call home.

The movie begins with a little background information on our characters, delving into Laura’s history with the orphanage and her reasons for wanting to live there, but strange things soon start to take place when the young Tomas begins talking to his various ‘imaginary friends’ in the house and playing a series of bizarre games with them.

As the plot thickens an air of mystery and intrigue is created leaving viewers entirely unsure of how the movie is going to pan out, with various red herrings and some fantastic unseen plot twists this really is a thinking persons horror movie that genuinely hasn’t been dumbed down for Hollywood.

Beautiful, terrifying and moving beyond your wildest imagination this is more than just your standard horror, what The Orphanage delivers is a true masterpiece of a movie which manages to play on your mind in all kinds of different ways long after the final credits roll. It is refreshing and breathtaking to see a horror film with an ending that is so truly shocking and awe inspiring yet at the same time holds the ability to make you sit and weep like a small child!

The cinematography in this movie is simply stunning, every scene is a work of art that plays up to the eerie feel of the house and takes it to its maximum potential, rarely missing an opportunity to create that perfect camera angle at exactly the right time in moments of both extreme suspense and heart wrenching emotion.

There’s not really much more I can say about The Orphanage without giving away it’s plot completely so I wholeheartedly recommend that you buy the DVD and clear your schedule as soon as is humanly possible to watch what could quite possibly be our favourite horror movie of the year!