Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

The Orphanage Blu-ray Movie Review

El Orfanato. Un, dos, tres, toca la pared.

Reviewed by J.C. Ribera April 21, 2008

This Spanish horror/ghost story/suspense film directed by first time director Juan Antonio Bayona and produced by Telecinco, Rodar y Rodar, and Warner Brothers, and having Guillermo del Toro, director of such films as Hellboy and El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) serving as executive producer and the film's presenter, is the latest offering by New Line.

Shot on location in Asturias and Catalunya, Spain, the story properly starts when Laura (Belén Rueda) returns with her family to the abandoned orphanage she lived in when she was a little girl thirty years earlier. She and her husband have just purchased the place with the intention of turning it into a home for incapacitated children, a lofty goal. But as anyone should know, you should never go live in an abandoned orphanage (or closed, isolated in the middle of Winter hotels ;)) with your family, as things might start getting strange as time goes by. And they do. Laura's six year old son Simón (Roger Príncep), whom she adopted herself, begins to say he has new friends, strange social workers knock on the door, and things just get worse, real worse, from there.

As a ghost story, the film is similar in plot to such recent films as Silent Hill and Dark Water (with a nod or two to The Shining) or even The Messengers. The main difference is the execution, in which The Orphanage proves its worth by being full of suspense and creating in the viewer a sense of asphyxiating apprehension that the other two or three similar films didn't manage to create in me. I don't scare easily (I think the last time I was truly scared by a film was when I watched The Return Of Count Yorga in a totally black theater) but The Orphanage managed to make me feel tense and uncomfortable, to the point I think it was the real reason I took a small break in the middle of it by hitting the pause button for some trivial excuse of an interruption ;) (ahh home theater).

Whereas a film like El Laberinto is a horror story through the eyes of a child, The Orphanage is the horror story through the eyes of a parent. Some might get a little perturbed by this film, and, rare among horror/ghost/suspense movies, it might prove to be more difficult in the second time viewing..

The film doesn't have dazzling SFX pyrotechnics, on the contrary, whatever SFX there are, all are soberly integrated to the film, which through its length has a very serious, realistic dark tone. As a byproduct of emphasizing the realism, as opposed to showing flashy supernatural events, it's believable and perturbing (specially as I think, to parents).

I was really pleased to see an appearance by Geraldine Chaplin, (which coincidentally, it was watching another Spanish movie, Cría Cuervos by Carlos Saura, where I became aware of who she was, many many years ago) in an emphatic role in one of the creepiest moments in the picture. The actors perform their roles seriously and we bitingly feel the anguish of Laura, participating in their sadness. Even a small role like that of Benigna (Montserrat Carulla i Ventura), the Social Worker paying an unexpected visit, will leave an impression.

The film won several festival nominations and awards, and it has had notoriety that precedes it. I don't think it's as superlative as this might suggest, but it's a solid excellent movie, made in the classical sense, and as a serious ghost/suspense story made to horrify, it achieves its goal in a penetrating way in a style that's totally the opposite of the common slasher/blood filled horror movies prevalent in recent years. This is no Freddy or Jason but more like a The Haunting or Hitchcock film. If you have seen recently the other horror/ghost movies I mentioned at the beginning of this review before seeing this one ( like I did) the effectiveness might be slightly diluted, but in any case it's a strong movie and very well made, and I think, specially for a parent, a genuine horror film.

The Orphanage Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

So how does this true suspenseful horror film look? Well in a few words, very good to excellent. Presented in a handsome VC-1 transfer in a 2.36 aspect ratio, where its high bit-rates (often reaching the high 30's) should not be of concern, the film looks very clean with fine grain, solid stable colors and sufficient sharpness to satisfy my constant height Scope viewing. The Orphanage played locally on a theater literally next door to me of which I know its characteristics very well, and in the last few years the projection of Scope movies there hasn't been, let's say, a wholly satisfying affair, so on disc is much much better.

While The Orphanage's look doesn't go for the super sharpness of Déjà Vu, another high bit VC-1 disc, nor the hyper-crispy look of New Line's previous high bitrate disc, Shoot 'Em Up, its sharpness is very natural without calling attention to itself, which serves the story well as we focus more on what's unfolding onscreen.

Having said that, I found myself fascinated by a phenomenon that I feel tends to happen on high definition cinematographic images. The magic of film or cinematography brings a glow to beautiful faces, and at the same time, seeing such beautiful faces sharply delineated by the increased definition, even fine facial features that convention would seem to want to hide, turn fascinating, and watching them in enhanced clarity or sharpness is always a pleasure.



Shot in Kodak film, the movie's color palette also serves the film well, being somber but attractive with browns, beiges, greys and blues and when a detail with strong color is needed, a toy or beautiful colorful flowers in the garden, it doesn't disappoint neither. Some of the beautiful Spanish countryside looks gorgeous. As the movie itself, not an spectacular transfer calling for attention for you to gawk on, but a real appropriate and solid image. While involved in the story, I saw no particular deficiencies or defects to mar the presentation.

Even difficult images like the faint darkness in the "cave" entrance between the rocks in middle of the raging sea, where any lesser presentation might have lost the important detail in that scene, look properly rendered by digital color timer Enrique Cañadas and cinematographer Oscar Faura. With the right mix of visibility and murkiness that particular shot made me feel as if I was watching the scene as a participant, as if I was there looking at it, taking me out of my room and putting me in the picture. Excellent.

The Orphanage Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Well for a creepy realistic film we need a creepy realistic soundtrack and we get it. Presented in the accustomed New Line 7.1 DTS-HD MA, for the time being I savored it in the normal 5.1 DTS core, as at the time of this writing my PS3receiving incarnation is only outputting 5.1 channels in MA, and I'll prefer to sample the full monty when it's done (paraphrasing Judge Reinhold in FT@RH, "We'll serve no MAs before their time").

Though the sound mix is made for realism and not to call attention to itself, except when it counts: there's one or two jolts that hit you like a speeding truck, and plenty of natural but eerie sounds and atmosphere to spook you, I thought at the beginning the voices sounded a little bit trebly probably due to the Spanish accent "sssssess" but as the movie progressed I got used to it. The lush film music by Fernado Velázquez is in the classical film style fully supporting the harrowing emotional content.

Just in case you don't know, the soundtrack is only presented in the original Spanish language and there is no other language (English or otherwise) dub. I'm a believer of watching films in their original language when possible, even for ones I wouldn't understand a word of it, as that way you hear the original performances and emotion and exactly the same quality the filmmakers created. In this kind of movie a dub might take you out of the tearing emotions conveyed by the actors, or become a small factor that because of its intrinsic artificiality might take away from the realism. For English speakers in this region A disc, both English subtitles and English SDH ones are available, plus subtitles in español also. No other language option is included.

The Orphanage Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Compared to other New Line offerings on Blu-ray Discs we've reviewed previously, The Orphanage's supplements are less abundant. I really didn't miss the Picture in Picture feature that others discs might have included, and if that contributed to the clean high bitrate picture, I'm glad.

So what comes with the disc?

The 18 minute When Laura Grew Up: Constructing the Orphanage is the Making Of. Presented in 16:9 coded Standard Definition Mpeg-2 and DTS stereo, it has the filmmakers talking about the film in general and the creation process of this, their Opera Prima, including comments by Guillermo del Toro.

In fact all of these supplements, except a couple noted below, are in 16:9 coded standard definition, with their soundtrack in Spanish, and you can watch them with English subtitles, subtitles in español, or none.

Tomás' Secret Room: The Filmmakers consists of 5 parts (The Director And His Team, An Echo Waiting To Be Heard: Scoring, Believe And You Will See: Art Direction, 200: VFX, and Ready, Set, Rip: Title Deconstruction) lasting a total of 10 minutes, each section detailing a little more the different processes using on making the film, for example how the title sequence was done, etc.

Horror In The Unknown: Make-Up Effects is a 9 minute featurette on the make up, prosthetics and even a little piece of "wardrobe", used to make this film believable at the same time as it's creepy.

Rehearsal Studio: Cast Auditions And Table Read, more than 3 minutes of how the debuting director worked with the actors, both child and adult.



Then we have the Still Gallery which is in full 1080p:

The Cast has 14 sketches or photos of the actors in character.
Make Up Effects has 29 stills about a mask, prosthetics, and even of the aging of photographs used in the movie.
Set Design And Locations has 92 pictures and I enjoyed it as it's almost like a tour of the orphanage and you can see the several rooms and parts of it at leisure that went by as you were absorbed in the movie.
Black and White Photography has 28 images in kind of an almost olive sepia which range from scenes of the movie to back stage and doing SFX, all looking artful as they're in b/w :).
Production has 18 behind the scenes ones. I found one of them of Tomás, even though it's taken behind the scenes with production staff, particularly creepy.
Conceptual Art has 17 sketches, plans, and models of the orphanage and the lighthouse.

All of these stills are presented as pictures in a frame hung on a 1080 "background wall" from the orphanage (which also appears in the menu transitions sometimes), a nice touch. You can manually still step through them, or watch as a slowish slide show.

Finally, Marketing Campaign includes in SD: The Spanish teaser, and the trailer (this one coded for 4:3); and the US teaser and trailer. The US ones look much better, but I thought the narrator of the Spanish teaser made that the creepiest.

Also included are 12 differing Posters in the same high definition "framed pictures hanging on a 1080p wall of the orphanage" style used for the Still Gallery. There are some great posters here.

The Orphanage Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Well if you want a superbly made suspense modern horror movie done in the classical vein of movies of yesterday, but with current sensibilities and execution, more of a thinker's film than a friday night crowd blood fest, a film made to appeal to an adult mindset with horrors an adult actually might appreciate (or suffer), The Orphanage is an excellent example with the only thing probably going against it is similar basic general plot on ghost story films that you might've seen recently. But for The Orphanage, like in sampling any variation of a theme, the glory is in the details or the style and approach it has, and the story it tells, and that makes it a totally different movie, one that truly makes you cringe, not because it dazzles you, but because it makes you fear about horrible possibilities. Presented in great quality, though the package might be a little skimpy on extra features, I think it would be a worthy addition to a film library, to return to it again when you need to be reminded that horror exists and sometimes can be very real.