Monday 14th March 2008
The Orphanage (Spain)
Director - Juan Antonio Bayona
Cast - Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Princep...

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A month ago this blog suggested that the horror genre might be dead. George A Romero’s The Diary of the Dead recently questioned this. The Orphanage however, has now blown this theory right out of the water.

The Orphanage is the scariest movie in over ten years. Directed skilfully by first timer Juan Antonio Bayona with great restraint, and with a knowledge of what truly gets underneath an audiences skin as apposed to the usual cheap and inconsequential shocks present in contemporary horror movies. The Orphanage taps in to feelings of loneliness, isolation and guilt and refuses to offer any easy answers, instead preferring to stalk us around every locked door and dark cave.

On the surface, The Orphanage is simply a genre piece, full of many of the tropes we have come to expect with a good horror yarn. Yet, the film manages to retain a freshness. This has a lot to do with the script by Sergio G. Sanchez. It has real depth. It picks at the scars of the Spanish Civil War and reveals that the wound is still bloody, and runs very deep. On a more individual level, it explores our own conscience and how we treat those needier than us. All in all, it is a very uncomfortable watch.

The Orphanage, like many of the great horrors from the past such as The Shinning and The Exorcist will stay with you for years to come; its images of terror will be burned on to your retina.