The Orphanage (2007)
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Starring: Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Princep
Text: Matt Bochenski
Taking his cues from Victorian stories, Edgar Allen Poe and producer Guillermo del Toro, first-time director Juan Antonio Bayona has fashioned a brilliant horror film that reorients the genre’s compass from schlock to shocks.
When Laura and her young family re-open the orphanage in which she spent many happy years as a child, some serious Shining shit starts going down in the head of her adopted son Simón. As things start to go majorly bump in the night, Laura too begins to realise that everything might not be exactly as it seems.
What with a new George Romero and the excellent [Rec] also hitting cinemas, this is a great few months for horror. The Orphanage is the best of the lot.
