The scary-kid movie meets some grown-up complexity in “The Orphanage,” an atmospheric new Spanish film. This one leaves aside the slice-‘n’-dice in favor of a high creep factor.
The set-up is classic horror stuff: A woman, Laura (Belen Rueda), returns to the stately old orphanage where she spent part of her childhood. Now married and with a child of her own, she plans to open a new school for disabled kids on the spot.
Needless to say, weird things begin happening. Laura’s 7-year-old boy sure seems to spend a lot of time with his imaginary friends, whose presence is downright ghostly.
This situation gets a slow turn of the screw from screenwriter Sergio Sanchez and director Juan Antonio Bayona, both making their feature debuts. They go directly to the psychological aspects of horror, especially within Laura’s troubled mind.
Belen Rueda made a strong impression opposite Javier Bardem in “The Sea Inside.” Apparently Rueda began her career as a lightweight presence on Spanish television (including a stint hosting Spain’s equivalent of “Wheel of Fortune”), but she has a natural gravity that serves the character perfectly here.
The film is officially “presented” by Guillermo del Toro, the Mexican director who made “Pan’s Labyrinth.” This movie doesn’t come up to that level, but it does have a stylish approach.
I found it stronger in its isolated moments than in its overall effect. A sequence of a masked child wandering around a party at the orphanage, for instance, is a true skin-crawler.
On the other hand, when explanations are eventually revealed and motivations totaled up, I found it fairly easy to find the logical holes in the scenario. There are a couple of simple solutions that would have circumvented a few plot problems — I don’t mind overlooking some of that sort of thing, but you have to stretch at times here.
But mood-making goes a long way in a good spook show, and there’s plenty of mood in “The Orphanage.” If you like a sad and reflective ghost story, you’ll probably catch the mood too.
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