Demob Happy

Newish spin on old horror standards

6/10

The Orphanage, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona in his debut feature, is a worthy genre movie that combines elements of numerous psychological horror films from The Others and The Sixth Sense to The Shining. Notably produced by Guillermo Del Toro, who is credited with invigorating Spanish horror with films such as Cronos and The Devil’s Backbone, the film also makes nods to Peter Pan in a similar way that Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth took cues from Alice in Wonderland and the novels of CS Lewis. Its storyline concerns a boy who goes missing from an archetypally creepy house, formerly an orphanage where his adopted mother grew up. As in The Others - tellingly directed by another Spaniard, Alejandro Amenabar - The Orphanage draws on Victorian spookiness and (thankfully) CGI-free shocks. In parts it is terrifying, occassionally brutal (one scene excessively so), but the film is mostly a retread of classic horror standards, albeit done pretty well.

If I was to grumbe I would suggest that the addition of an HIV ’subplot’ is extraneous and smacks of Almodovar’s sometimes desperate quest for contemporary relevance. You could argue that, since it adds little or nothing to The Orphanage as a whole, this factual addition is actually quite exploitative. No doubt some critic will try to construct a theory of the film’s meaning around this fact alone, but I wouldn’t buy into it. The film also shares aspects with Jacob’s Ladder and Birth, two underrated films which are both superior to this in that they credit their audiences with greater intelligence. The Orphanage lays the explanations for its mystery on too thickly, not allowing for the kind of thought-provoking ambiguity of those films. Ever since M Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense - especially those subsequently made by that director - films of this genre seem enslaved to the idea of The Big Surprise Twist, and The Orphanage appears strained under the burden of trying to create one. However, ambiguity can be a much more effective tool for guaranteeing a film’s mystery and longevity, a subtlety notably lost on the makers of this film.