15 Favorite Horror Films - #9

The Orphanage - (2007)

     I remember seeing this film in theaters.  I was living in Wilmington, North Carolina at the time, as I went to college there.  I had seen very glowing reviews for this Spanish ghost story, and that it was produced by Guillermo Del Toro.  Now, Del Toro had amazed me the year before with Pan's Labyrinth, which is to this date still his strongest film.  I figured if he was producing it and it got good reviews from just about everyone, it must be fantastic.  So I went to the not-so-great movie theater in midtown...  The movie theater that was obviously THE movie theater in town in the early 90s, but hadn't been well kept since the new theater opened across town.  They were the only theater showing the film.  I went with two friends who had also loved Pan's Labyrinth, and we all went in not knowing exactly what to expect.  The trailer was pretty vague.  Well, what we got was a damned good ghost mystery thriller.  (And one jump scare that got all three of us.)

     The movie is about a woman, a man, and their son moving into an old orphanage where the woman is from originally.  She plans to reopen the orphanage for disabled children.  Her son starts to have seemingly imaginary friends, and they apparently show him information that he's not only sick, but he has HIV.  Then after getting in a fight with his mother one day, the boy disappears... and it seems as if an old lady social worker may know what's up.  Then there's ghosts, paranormal teams, that sort of thing.  It may not be the most original film in the world, but we get so few ghost films that don't rely on CGI or cheap scares every few minutes that it really does stand above most other films of the type.  

     This is a ghost story in the style of The Haunting or The Woman In Black.  The scares are based mainly on the gothic stylings.  It owes a lot of it's feel to Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and it's brilliant film adaptation The Innocents.  There's that feeling amongst the surrounding characters that the mother may be going crazy, which is a plot point in The Haunting and The Innocents as well.  The big difference between those two films and this one is that this is in color.  I found the creepiest scene in the film to be one filmed completely in night-vision, as we see the medium going through the rooms in a seeming trance linked to the past, and the mystery of the orphanage on a tv monitor.  She describes what she sees, which we as the audience don't.  She sees children writhing and sick in bed.  In pain they call for help.  There's one ghost in particular that wears a type of scarecrow mask.  Apparently the child is grotesquely deformed beneath the mask.  And he likes to startle the mother in the film...  The mystery apparently has a lot to do with this kid.

     Then there's the scenes where the mother tries to get in contact with the ghosts.  To do this, she plays a children's game.  It's a variation of the game 'Statues'.  Here's what wikipedia says about how the game is played.  (I'm not great at explaining rules.)

1. A person starts out as the "curator" and stands at the end of a field. Everyone else playing stands at the far end (distance depends upon playing area selected). The object of the game is for a "Statue" to tag the Curator, thereby becoming the Curator and resetting the game.
2. The Curator turns their back to the field, and the "Statues" attempt to race across and tag the Curator.
3. Whenever the Curator turns around, the Statues must freeze in position and hold that for as long as the Curator looks at them. The Curator can even walk around the Statues, examining them. However, the Curator needs to be careful - whenever his back is turned, Statues are free to move.
4. If a Statue is caught moving, they are sent back to the starting line to begin again (or thrown out of that round, whichever way is preferred.) Usually, the honesty of the Curator isn't enforced, since being a Statue is more desirable.

They call the game Knock On The Wall in the film, and honestly I've never seen a childrens game become so darned creepy.  Now the orphanage holds a pretty startling secret.  And only the ghosts know what it is.  The movie also has a complicated ending.  One that's both a happy ending... and not so happy.  It's something you don't come across too often this side of Casablanca.

     I truly suggest that all of my friends seek this movie out.  Watch it in the dark.  Pay attention (it's subtitled, so you kind of have to anyway.).  Watch it with a surround sound system... with the volume turned up to get those loud creaks and groans and bumps.   It's not a very popular movie, probably due to it being a spanish film.  But it's well worth seeing.  It's got only one scene of gore... It's actually a pretty tame film in that regard.  As I said before, it's more like an old gothic horror film set and filmed in the modern day.  See it!