"The Orphanage"

So last Saturday night, October 2^nd, as I was finalizing my plans for the evening and enjoying a delicious adult beverage I found a movie in my collection that I had not seen before. Wrapped in plastic, unopened “The Orphanage” was looking me square in the eye. I couldn’t even think of what this movie was about so I pulled it from my stack and read the description. As a fan of horror movies I was not surprised to find it was a psychological thriller. At this point I could barely contain myself I was so excited. It had been quite some time since I watched a new movie. To my astonishment the movie was in completely in Spanish, which might explain why it was unopened. At 8:00pm I had just enough time to pop this bad boy in before I was off to get crunk. I killed the lights and prepared to be freaked! The movie focuses on a small family consisting of Laura, Carlos, and their son Simon. Simon suffers from some illness I believe might be Aids. We learn that Laura was an orphan, at this point Laura, Carlos, and Simon return to her former orphanage with plans of reopening it. Laura wants the oprhanage to cater to sick children like Simon. Almost immediately upon arriving Simon develops and immaginary friend; Tomas. Some of the things Simon says about Tomas are strange and a little disturbing yet his parents believe it’s just his imagination and let it go. Laura seems to not believe this theory and gives the impression that there’s something else going on. At a party celebrating the opening of the orphanage Simon goes missing. Everyone searches the property but to no avail. Carlos and Laura separate because Carlos disagrees with Laura’s theory that something “supernatural”is happening. Long story short Laura discovers a sercret room inside the house where she finds Simon’s body at the foot of some stairs. At this point Laura decides it’s time to die and takes a bunch of pills and kills herself. Carlos returns and finds Laura and Simon dead. Before Laura died she took a necklace off that Carlos gave her for luck until she found Simon. Carlos turns around and sees Laura and Simon together which symbolizes him making peace with the death of his wife and son because he knows that are safe together in the afterlife. All-in-all I think the movie was really good. I enjoyed the story, it was kind of scary and interesting but was easy to follow and explained everything in the end. I thought I was in a bit of a pickle considering the movie was entirely in Spanish but I was able to keep up pretty well and understand what was going on.

-Mike Boerner