"Un cuento de amor. Una historia de terror" (A tale of love. A story of horror)
Guillermo Del Toro presents us another horror film from Spain. A film that speaks about love between a mother and the child yet in a horror form. The Orphange is about a former orphan named Laura, who has purchased her old orphange and recreated and built it as her own home as well as opening doors to childreen with special needs. Her family is consist with her husband and a child whom she has adopted and was found out with HIV positive.
The story is aimed on the dissapearance of her son Simon, who was lost without a trace nor clue and throughout the film, Laura has to play games to find out where her son has been hidden or lost for the whole 9 months. However, the film shows that Laura believes that the spirit of a deformed orphan accidentally killed years ago is extracting revenge for his death and the revenge was to happen upon her son, Simon.
The film is involved around with lots of love and caring between the mother and the son and what she would go through just to find her son and hoping he is safe. We could see the relationship between Simon and his mother and that she gives unconditional love towards him. However, during the film, you have to pay a lot of attention to understand the story as it gives twist and a sort of puzzle game where the audience/viewers has to solve it and reveal the story plot themselves.
The film itself took a long length of time to cut straight into the main point of the story. The film dragged on with unnecessary parts and scenw, the tension and excitement of the film slowly faded away as nothing "jumpy" was happening. It caused dissapointment to the film as throughout the film it was all in slow pace and for a horror film, there wasn't a lot going on apart from one or two small jump scenes.
However, the film itself wasn't bad as it had twist in between the lines and you would have to sit and watch it carefully to understand what was going on and why flashbacks were occuring throughout the film. The flashback played an huge/important part of the film as it tells the story of what is going on and why weird things are happening to Laura and her family in the old orphanage home. Without the flashback, the storyline would be a blur and hard to follow.
