The Big Picture

The Orphanage is a forgotten horror masterpiece that deserves a second watch for its delicate, atmospheric, and chilling storytelling. The film’s unique blend of supernatural horror and childhood trauma sets it apart from other horror movies of its time. The cast, including Belén Rueda and Geraldine Chaplin, delivers standout performances in this instant classic that should experience a comeback.

With survival thriller Society of the Snow hitting select theaters in the U.S. back in December 2023 and now making its way to Netflix, it is only natural for viewers to get ready for the dramatization of the real tragedy that befell a Uruguayan rugby team back in 1972 by taking a look at director J.A. Bayona’s other disaster movie, 2012’s The Impossible. And, indeed, the film based on the true story of a family of tourists trapped in the aftermath of an earthquake followed by a tsunami in Thailand made its way to Netflix’s top ten last November, just as audiences were gearing up for Society of the Snow. Chosen by Spain to be the country’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards, which will take place in March 2024, Society of the Snow also marks the director’s return to his home country, at least as far as feature-length projects are concerned. Before his venture into American cinema and television, the director made his debut with a small horror movie that is nonetheless one of the greatest of its time​​​​​​: The Orphanage.

Released in 2007, The Orphanage is the very first feature film directed by Bayona after a series of shorts and music videos that date back to 1999. With flashy letters that spelled the phrase “Guillermo del Toro presents” — the renowned director also acts as the movie’s executive producer — The Orphanage hit theaters accompanied by a certain fanfare. Critically well-received, it also garnered some award recognition at horror-specialized ceremonies, as well as at the most important cinema awards ceremony in Spain, the Goya Awards. Bayona even took home the prize for Best New Director, while screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez won for Best Original Screenplay.

J.A. Bayona’s ‘The Orphanage’ Is a Horror Masterpiece That Shouldn’t Be Forgotten
Image Via Warner Bros. 

But, 17 years later, The Orphanage isn’t as well-remembered as other hits of its time. Sure, it still makes lists of the best of the 2000s, proving that journalists and horror fans don’t have a short memory, but it’s not like we see it referenced constantly, like The Ring or even Orphan. Perhaps there were just too many good horror releases back in the day for every title to be remembered, or perhaps it’s the absence of a sequel that buried The Orphanage in our minds. Whatever the case, the fact is that forgetting about Bayona’s first film is a terrible mistake. Delicate, atmospheric, beautiful, and chilling, all at the same time, The Orphanage is an amazing movie that definitely deserves a second watch — or a first one, in case you missed it back when it originally made the rounds. Despite being far from perfect, Sánchez’s screenplay tells a heart-wrenching story about a family struck by tragedy, a theme that Bayona went back to in The Impossible. However, not all tragedies look alike. Some are more supernatural than others…

What Is ‘The Orphanage’ About?
Image via Warner Bros.

At the heart of The Orphanage are a mother and a father deeply affected by the disappearance of their only child. Having been adopted as a young girl, Laura (Belén Rueda) decides to return to the now closed-down orphanage in which she once lived accompanied by her husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), and their adoptive son, Simón (Roger Príncep). Her goal is to turn the old building into a home for children who require special care. Things take a turn, though, when Simón makes a small group of imaginary friends that enjoy playing games such as hiding things cherished by others. Particularly creepy among them is Tomás (Óscar Casas), a small boy always seen wearing a burlap sack with a clownish face drawn on over his head.

On the day the titular orphanage is supposed to open its doors, the allegedly imaginary children get a little too excited with their game and take Simón away. From then on, Laura and Carlos’ life becomes a living hell as they go from police officers to paranormal investigators to figure out what might have happened to their little boy, who has HIV and runs the risk of dying if he spends too much time without his medication.

With such a basic premise, it doesn’t seem like there will be much to The Orphanage. Abandoned institutions that are sure to be haunted, ghostly children, parents at a loss about what unknown force might have taken over their kids… These are things that we’ve seen before in films as varied as House on Haunted Hill, The Ring, and Poltergeist. At first glance, The Orphanage looks like a mishmash of elements that one might pick up in a Horror 101 class. However, Sergio G. Sánchez mixes those elements beautifully, ending up with a twisted Peter Pan reimagining that is sure to make you weep just as much as it will creep you out.

The Orphanage is not a movie that relies on easy scares, at least not for the most part. Some scenes, such as the hit-and-run that victimizes Benigna (Montserrat Carulla), the fake social worker that pops up at Laura’s would-be orphanage, do reveal the more obvious failings of a first-time director, as well as of a newbie writer: like Bayona, Sánchez didn’t have any other feature films on his resume before The Orphanage. It’s the kind of scene that is just there to either fill up time or because the filmmakers felt like they needed some gore in their horror story. Still, it’s not enough to detract from an entertaining plot that lives up to the standards of a proud tradition.

‘The Orphanage’ Came Out at a Prime Time for Spanish Horror

Okay, maybe tradition is a strong word. After all, we’re referring mostly to films that premiered at about the same time as The Orphanage. Still, there’s no denying that Bayona’s debut film came out at a time in which Spanish horror was at the center of everyone’s attention. Just a year earlier, Mexican director Guillermo del Toro had released his second Mexican-Spanish horror film, Pan’s Labyrinth, to great acclaim. The story of a young girl who enters a world of fantasy during the Spanish Civil War drew attention to his prior European project, 2001’s The Devil’s Backbone, another horror tale about a child facing otherworldly forces amid the bloody 1936-1939 conflict. Also in 2001, Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others, a co-production between Spain, France, and the United States, raised a lot of hairs with its family of ghosts that are believed to be alive.

All of these movies have a few things in common, chief among them is the significance given to a child’s point of view. Even The Others relies a lot on its two children’s perspectives to create the atmosphere of horror that surrounds its Edwardian mansion. Likewise, though Belén Rueda’s Laura is the star of the movie, The Orphanage wouldn’t work without its sense of childlike wonder.

The children in Bayona’s film are never evil, not even the ghostly ones that take Simón away from his parents. However, it would be a mistake to say that they are good. Much like in Peter Pan, a story that Sanchez takes a lot from and that gets cited by name more than once in the film, the children are simply amoral: they haven’t yet learned the ways of the world, and if their actions are deemed acts of cruelty, it is only because that’s how adults choose to read them. At one point in the movie, it is revealed that the children who shared the orphanage with Laura eventually killed one of their peers — Tomás, the boy with the bag on his head — during what they perceived as a game. They were never charged with any crimes for they did not fully understand what they were doing. They were eventually punished, though, and taken from the realm of the living.

Tomás acts as a sort of backward Peter Pan, indirectly taking children away to his world, where they will never grow up. In the end, in a moving scene that once again reminds us that horror is subjective, Laura becomes their own Wendy, the Lost Boys’ mother who has aged, but this time shall remain by their side. It is the perfect conclusion for a story that isn’t as much about the scares as it is about childhood traumas and the persistence of memory.

Of course, any article about The Orphanage would be incomplete without a nod to its amazing and sometimes unexpected cast. Belén Rueda, a household name in Spanish cinema that shone under Amenábar’s direction in the Oscar-winning The Sea Inside, carries the whole thing on her back, appearing in almost every scene. Geraldine Chaplin plays an unforgettable role as Aurora, the medium who helps Laura understand what has happened to her son, and Latin American viewers will recognize the parapsychologist Dr. Bálaban as Edgar Vivar from the ’70s Mexican comedy series El Chavo del Ocho. Even the kids, frequently an Achilles heel for horror flicks, are irreproachable, equal parts adorable and scary. With a hypnotizing story that takes all the simplest horror tropes and breathes new life into them, they help create an instant classic that should experience a comeback now that its director’s name is once more making the rounds.

The Orphanage is available to rent on Amazon

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