The Orphanage - 2007

The dark cannot hide them.


Guillermo Del Toro is a fantastic director. He is pure genius in fact. And so it is of course a great comfort to know that he helped produce Juan Antonia Bayona's film which had promised to be one of the best films of the year and didn't disappoint. One of the reasons its a good film is the suspense, which I find is generally a lot better in foreign horror than in American. There is nothing wrong with a slasher movie, but I personally prefer my movies to have a slow build-up of tension, something which I have not really seen in any modern horror over the past years except with Alfred Hitchcock's work. This film is very unsettling and does just that, gradually making you feel more nervous as you watch more and more of the movie. The film centres around a woman who, after spending much of her childhood in an Orphanage decides to return many years later with her husband and young son. However her son soon starts complaining that he can see other children at the orphanage and soon after, at a family party, he disappears...
A chilling and emotion-racked ghost story that will make you think for many hours afterwards, proof that there are still directors living and breathing that can deliver a really spine-tingling movie.

Rating 5/5