Guillermo Del Toro’s El Orfanato
I will say it. Guillermo Del Toro is the master of Horror. Not just cheap thrill shock therapy horror, but really freaky, disturbing, ‘haunts you in your sleep’ kind of Horror.
At first I knew about him as the director of Hellboy, which was cool and all, but the movie’s not really into the freaky business. Then came Pan’s Labyrinth, which deserves an award for being freaky. Del Toro’s twisted take on fairy tales has made Pan’s Labyrinth a movie I will never forget.
And now, I have just watched The Orphanage. Another spanish film produced by Del Toro, and with honourable mentions to the director Juan Antonio Bayona. You can read a good review of the film here from IMDB.
El Orfanato is seriously one of the best Horror movies I have ever seen, regardless of language. I get multiple goosebump sessions throughout the movie with its excellent camera play, teasing you with possible ’sightings’, and not to forget its freakishly superb sound arrangements, edging you all through the movie.
The story’s fantastic. And there are really no plot holes left uncovered. Everything pieced together perfectly, and it has a good reason to. Unlike most other horror films which try miserably to put a weak story to an otherwise scary situation, where they try to explain stuff but end up spoiling the entire mystery/horror effect.
Unlike Labyrinth, where there’s quite a number of freaky monsters/creatures and quite a bit of gore, The Orphanage has a minimal amount of such things, but they are used to maximum effect. And I really like that in a horror movie. You can take something so trivial… so simple… and if you add the right amount of twist to it, you could create something of unimaginable… freakiness.
All, and I mean ALL horror buffs should watch the movie. And I wish I had a brain like Del Toro’s. And Neil Gaiman. And Jhonen Vasquez, just for the kicks. 
Let’s end the post with a hint of the one freaky thing from the Orphanage.
Say hi to Tomas. He’s your friend. You can see him, right? Heh heh.
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Tags: horror, movie review
April 14th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
To be fair, I think you’re giving too much credit to Del Toro here, since he is only a producer. I don’t know the history of the film’s making, but I suspect he was not very hands-on. I may, of course, be wrong, but the only thing I felt might be directly attributable to Del Toro was the tacked-on ending, so that American viewers could be certain of the outcome, having learned from his time working in the US.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Well, maybe… I only based the judgement on two of his movies. I loved Pan’s Labyrinth and this film exceeded my expectations.
I credited the director Juan Antonio Bayona too, though.