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The Orphanage
A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage for handicapped children. But after his adopted son goes missing, she believes she hears spirits, who may or may not be trying to help her find the boy.
31 July 1944, Santa Monica, California, USA
19 September 1930, Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
16 March 1965, Madrid, Madrid, Spain
21 September 1998, Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
October 14, 2014
By the time we reach the third act, this is less a horror film but a psychological study of a protagonist on the brink of emotional collapse.
October 18, 2008
The year's best horror picture is also one of the simplest.
October 07, 2013
A frightening movie that earns its scares the hard way, generating unbearable tension through artful technique instead of computer.
October 14, 2014
The less you know of this film, the more you'll be surprised, shocked and, in the end, satisfied.
October 18, 2008
At a time when American horror seems transfixed by graphic sadism, the acclaimed Spanish chiller El Orfanato harks back to an older tradition of psychological scares and things that go bump in the night.
October 14, 2014
There are no monsters, or slashers, and yet the movie got under my skin so much so that it left me shaky as I walked out of the theater.
October 18, 2008
Alas, there's no Ahhhh! moment at the end to justify the mounting tension.
October 14, 2014
Though The Orphanage sticks fairly closely to a genre fomat, and the plot twists become a little predictable, the film packs surprises all the way to the end.
October 18, 2008
[Director Bayona] has a fine career ahead of him.
October 14, 2014
Let the anticipation of Bayona's next move begin.
February 29, 2016
Bayona never resorts to gore and prefers an approach based on the carefully built up suspense found in classic Hitchcock films; and much like Hitchcock, the story is based on a very viable Freudian premise.
October 18, 2008
The picture is a creepily effective exercise in gothic technique.
