This is another movie that Guillermo Del Toro (this time as a producer - Juan Antonio Bayona is the director) knocks out of the park. A truly creepy movie, this is one of those that will keep you thinking well after the movie ends. While Del Toro/Bayona certainly tie up all of the loose ends by the end of the movie, you still have to question what you saw and why it happened -- a great film for after-viewing discussion with your fellow movie patrons. While often bandied around as a 'horror' movie, I don't think The Orphanage quite gets to that level. It's certainly got some 'thriller' elements, and the subject matter is kind of a cross between Peter Pan and just a dash of The Others, but it certainly isn't a traditional 'horror' film. Ghosts? Yes. Horror? Not so much. Perhaps it is best described as a thinking-man's horror film or a psychological supernatural thriller. Either way, this film is certainly worth your time. Unfortunately, like Del Toro's masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth, this film is in Spanish, and the version I saw made the unfortunate choice of using yellow subtitles, which were sometimes difficult to read over the occasional white background. Other than that, I have nothing negative to say about this movie. This is definitely worth your time.
Movie to Skip: Hurt
This is one of those odd little movies that you run into once in a while when there is nothing else on you want to watch. I threw it into the cue quite some time ago, but had not gotten around to watching it because it only sounded interesting in passing. Now that I've watched it, I can definitively say that it was an interesting film...but only in passing. Unfortunately, this film will not do any favors for the foster children program; overall the movie was fairly careless in that regard, but I suppose anytime mental illness is thrown into the mix in a "thriller," there are some serious liberties taken with reality that you have to overlook in order to get through the film, right? That aside, this wasn't an overly suspensful film; there are no genuine surprises, and ultimately the big plot twist was fairly predictable. I'm always a little disappointed when a movie that relies upon plot twists for the dramatic tension isn't very... twisty. Unfortunately, because there is no complex plotline to this movie, and the story is formulaic in an armchair psycho-thriller sense, you see how this one is going to end from about a mile away, and it's kind of hard to care to watch it to the conclusion. I don't believe every movie needs to have complex plot twists to be worth watching, but you still need to keep the movie well-paced enough to keep things interesting. Admittedly, I was watching this one while doing other things, so I didn't fall asleep. But had I been giving the movie my full attention, I think I would have been bored and probably would have turned it off.
All that having been said, I still found some of the characters interesting, albeit not always believable. The acting wasn't that bad (although the villain needed some work), but there were certainly no break-out performances. The cast is essentially made up of a bunch of broken people; everybody has lost something, and most are experiencing constant frustration as they try to fill the void. Frankly, this could have been the core of an interesting drama... but the writer and director wanted to make a thriller instead. Too bad they weren't quite sure how to make the movie thrilling. For the raw material of this movie, I gave it two and a half stars, but that may be a little high, to be honest. It could have been much better if the there had been actual palpable tension, or the dramatic themes had been explored with a little more care. Instead it became a bubble-gum late-night-movie faux-slasher/psycho-thriller. I was disappointed, but admittedly I have seen much worse. Truthfully, this should be a two star movie, but I'm feeling merciful today. I don't have any recommendations to see this movie one way or the other. It's forgettable, but there are worse ways to spend your time, I guess.
