El Orfanato (The Orphanage)

Venue: At home (DVD)
Food: Bite-size Twix and Ribena

If you're sick with crappy horror movies and lousy asian horror remakes but still want to watch a decent horror movie with good storyline, well this one might be for you. The Orphanage is a spanish movie, yes, so expect to read subtitles - unless of course you can understand Spanish like DKD hehe. This movie is executively produced by Guillermo Del Toro, if you don't know him he is the dude that did the marvellous Pan's Labyrinth late last year.

So basically, this show is about a haunted orphanage right? Yes! Are there any long haired female ghosts in the movie? Fortunately, no.

This show tells the story of Laura, who was in the orphanage when she was a child. Later on in her life, she returns to the orphanage to change it into a home for disabled children with his husband Carlos and their son, Simon. (pronounced as See-mon like timun ahaha) During her stay there in the orphanage, her son starts to play with "new friends" and Laura suspects something is not right.

To tell you more about this show would actually spoil it. Although the plot might sound cliched, it actually is very intriguing. When the story unfolds, secrets about the orphanage begin to unravel and more mysteries appear. An "incident" happens in the movie and the horror starts from there...

However, this movie is not frighteningly scary. There are some shock jolt moments, and some disturbing scenes.. but its not very "boo!" horror unlike the typical Hollywood movies. It works best as an engaging thriller. That being said, the story and drama in this show is its strongest point - and towards the end, everything fits in like a well made puzzle.

I'd definitely recommend this movie for horror junkies who's in need of a change from all the typecast horror movies out there. This is something different, it's a good movie with horror elements in it.

Stars : 3.5/5

Watch this if you liked : The Others, Dark Water, Pan's Labyrinth