The Orphanage is more of an atmospheric film than a scary one. The only blood spilt in the entire film is the result of an accident.
The theme of lost young children actually lends itself more to a children’s bedtime story than a horror flick, which is even more apt because there were a few times in this film when I was dangerously close to nodding off…
The Good Shepherd Orphanage was where Laura grew up. Now some 30 years on she has returned with husband Carlos and young son Simon to reopen the facility. They arrive to find the orphanage largely unchanged since Laura’s stay, only with coats of dust and the effects of the ravages of time plainly evident.
The first couple of days of cleaning and preparation spark long since forgotten memories for Laura, strangely though it seems young Simon has behind the scenes knowledge of his own. Knowledge of things, people and events that make the neck on Laura’s neck tingle. This mental quasi reunion becomes even more vivid when strangers appear in the shadows and nooks of the building, elderly people who Laura discovers were once staff of the facility when it was still active.
And of course doors open and things pop up randomly where no things should be.
Then at the grand reopening two things happen; a small child shows up with a sack on its head to lurk among the many visitors, and more worryingly Simon vanishes.
When an exhaustive search proves fruitless, Laura starts finding items that she feels are clues of some sort. Some are seemingly innocent, like buttons and keys, others are more overt, in a series of rag dolls that seem quite specific in their appearance. When the trail goes nowhere Laura refuses to give up, despite the urging of her husband (seriously, words to the effect of “forget the kid, we can have others”? How is that productive?).
A paranormal expert is called in, she tells Laura that the orphanage of the past had dirty little secrets of its own. And those secrets are not only still around… They want to play.
Again this may sound like the setup to a horror film that could be anything, unfortunately while The Orphanage is a reasonable film, it is not something that could accurately be called horror. More a companion piece to The Devil’s Backbone (directed by Guillermo Del Toro, who produced here) in tone, though this is a couple notches below in both story and quality.
Final Rating 6.5 / 10. A brooding and efficient chiller with a code of moments, but a bit light on for horror fans.
