Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 164
Fresh: 139 | Rotten: 25
When it seems like every horror movie nowadays is a remake or a grisly exercise in sadism, The Orphanage is a breath of fresh air for critics and audiences alike, seamlessly blending in a poignant tale of loss with the scares and blood.
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Critic Reviews: 34
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 4
When it seems like every horror movie nowadays is a remake or a grisly exercise in sadism, The Orphanage is a breath of fresh air for critics and audiences alike, seamlessly blending in a poignant tale of loss with the scares and blood.
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Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro produces director Juan Antonio Bayona's gothic frightener about a long-abandoned orphanage with a particularly troubling past. As a child, young orphan Laura spent her formative years being cared for by the staff of a large orphanage located by the Spanish seaside. Those were some of the happiest years of Laura's life, and now, 30 years later, the former charge returns to the dilapidated institution with her husband, Carlos, and their seven-year-old
Dec 28, 2007 Wide
Apr 22, 2008
$6.9M
Picturehouse
All Critics (164) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (147) | Rotten (26) | DVD (20)
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.
The picture is a creepily effective exercise in gothic technique.
[Director Bayona] has a fine career ahead of him.
The year's best horror picture is also one of the simplest.
Aas, there's no Ahhhh! moment at the end to justify the mounting tension.
Bayona never spoonfeeds the audience, giving us lots of latitude to exercise our imaginations and believe what we choose as the film builds to its devastating climax.
Bayona is a skilled technician, but seek elsewhere if you're hoping for the transporting originality of last year's Pan's Labyrinth.
Decent old-school ghost story, Spanish-style.
Spanish horror films have a rich, still underappreciated tradition, but The Orphanage could have been made by any anonymous Hollywood hack
However, the creative trust hasn’t forgotten those who love their art served up rich in metaphor and message.
[A] pungent and scary film.
Superbly directed, genuinely creepy Spanish chiller with a strong script and a terrific central performance from Belen Rueda.
The Orphanage is simply content with getting through the entire story without tripping over its own flaws, and though it's definitely better than most supernatural thrillers, it doesn't belong in the same camp as del Toro or any of his films.
The Orphanage is the first horror movie I've seen in a while that's scary enough to send people out of the theater.
You wouldn't think that a Spanish horror flick as high art, but in the case of The Orphanage, you'd be wrong.
It captures pure terror. It's horrific. That's horror plus terrific. It's almost impossible for a film like this to be lumped into the same category as...
The Orphanage [is] durable and engrossing, traits that help overshadow its genre-bound features.
This Spanish psychological mystery is captivating, creepy and hopeful.
The Orphanage feels like many of the other films in the genres for the first half, with samey scenes, unoriginal story and predictable 'jumps'. Then about halfway through the film shows its heart and it gets really good. It's one of those films that I liked throughout but ended up loving purely because of the last
April 30, 2012Super Reviewer
Spain has turned out quite a few excellent horror films in the last few years, and in my opinion, some of the most terrifying and original films of the last decade. The Orphanage is a brilliant, near flawless and beautifully constructed ghost story. The film benefits from all the necessary ingredients to make a
November 11, 2011
Super Reviewer
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