Much of Juan Antonio Bayona's gothic
Spanish horror film The Orphanage feels familiar. There's a piece of The Others here, a touch of The Sixth Sense there, a pinch of Poltergeist, a smidgen of Friday The 13th, and even a streak of Pan's
Labyrinth (which
shouldn't be too much of a surprise, since Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro
produced The Orphanage). But while some of the trappings and even some of the plot elements
could easily be called unoriginal, Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez
arrange them in a fresh way, crafting an emotionally resonant, nerve-jangling
experience.
Belén
Rueda plays a former orphan who, as an adult, buys the orphanage where she grew
up, intending to turn it into a home for handicapped children, including her
HIV-positive adopted son, Roger Príncep. But on the day the facility is
supposed to open, Príncep—who spends his days talking to and playing with
imaginary friends—disappears, and Rueda becomes convinced that his
invisible pals have spirited him away somewhere, and that she can find him if
she can just figure out the elaborate game of Treasure Hunt that the ghosts
have devised.
The scares in The Orphanage derive first and foremost from
Bayona's skillful deployment of horror-movie grammar. He gives the audience the
tension of a close-up, followed by the relief of a long shot—where bad
things rarely happen—before dropping us straight into the "Oh hell,
what's that"
tension of a medium shot. The Orphanage also plays off the embarrassment of awkward social
situations, and some common parental anxieties—and he plays off them a
little indiscriminately. (Anyone with children is advised to think twice before
buying a ticket.) Bayona and Sánchez serve up a clever story with some fiendish
surprises and killer nightmare-fodder, and though it's not much more than that,
the movie will still leave a lot of viewers weeping and quivering, because it
confronts some primal questions. Who's under that mask? What's beneath that
wallpaper? And is there something creeping up behind you?