The Orphanage (Blu-Ray)

[Moonraker]

Street Date is April 22 from New Line Cinema

No features or specs yet. Its good to see New Line doing a Day and Date on this title. Unlike what Fox is doing with titles like Darjeeling and The Savages.

[ganthc]

Originally Posted by Moonraker

Street Date is April 22 from New Line Cinema

No features or specs yet. Its good to see New Line doing a Day and Date on this title. Unlike what Fox is doing with titles like Darjeeling and The Savages.

This will be a blind buy for me. I do know the trailers creeped me out on this.

[Ruined]

Blind buy, though I must say I felt Pan's Labyrinth was hyped up just a bit too much IMO.

[ganthc]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Blind buy, though I must say I felt Pan's Labyrinth was hyped up just a bit too much IMO.

You're dead to PH.

[Pirate]

Originally Posted by ganthc

You're dead to PH.

Yes. In fact . . . let's make it official.

[Ruined]

haha... not saying its bad, just saying i dont think it really deserves quite the high regard it has gotten. For recent movies, I enjoyed The Fountain or Sweeney Todd more. Not because of the pacing of Pan's Labyrinth or the plot, but simply because I just found it to be a bit predictable in the end and perhaps should have focused on the "Labyrinth" world a bit more. Again, not because I don't like drama - I thought for instance Bridge to Terabithia was fantastic despite the actual "Terabithia" part being a small part of the movie - just the drama here had me feeling that it was a good movie, but also a bit "meh" feeling at the same time as I expected a bit more (and maybe something a bit deeper) for the high reviews it received.

[Moonraker]

Some Details

Video will be presented in 2.35:1 1080p accompanied by a 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio Spanish soundtrack. Extras include the two featurettes "When Laura Grew Up: Constructing The Orphanage" and "Horror in the Unknown: Make-Up", as well as rehearsal footage, video segments about the filmmakers, and a stills gallery

[Pirate]

[sub780lime]

Rental. Maybe purchase later. Pan's Labyrinth obviously makes this a must see.

[ganthc]

I'm excited about this movie. As a horror fan, I am interested if it is as creepy as the trailers made it out to be.

[Pirate]

Some good directors have "produced" or "presented" some real shit (*ahem* Luc Besson *ahem*), so I don't see why any comparison or excitement should be placed upon this outside of its own merits.

[ganthc]

Originally Posted by Pirate

Some good directors have "produced" or "presented" some real shit (*ahem* Luc Besson *ahem*), so I don't see why any comparison or excitement should be placed upon this outside of its own merits.

Well, Guillermo Del Toro really hasn't made too many mistakes so far. IMDB has it at 7.9/10. That should be decent enough for me to own, considering the genre. The Devil's Backbone had 7.6/10, and I enjoyed that movie. I think that it should be great.

[Pirate]

Originally Posted by ganthc

Well, Guillermo Del Toro really hasn't made too many mistakes so far. IMDB has it at 7.9/10. That should be decent enough for me to own, considering the genre. The Devil's Backbone had 7.6/10, and I enjoyed that movie. I think that it should be great.

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to seeing it, I just don't get the whole Pan's Labyrinth was good so this should be as well angle.

[ganthc]

Originally Posted by Pirate

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to seeing it, I just don't get the whole Pan's Labyrinth was good so this should be as well angle.

I still haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth yet.

[sub780lime]

Originally Posted by Pirate

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to seeing it, I just don't get the whole Pan's Labyrinth was good so this should be as well angle.

Wrong angle, at least as I have been putting it. I will give it chance, because of of Del Toro's involvement and its style (which fits him). I wont automatically assume it will be good, but I will give it a watch when I might have just placed it in my "if I see it I see it" queue.

[Sehnzeleid]

I just watched this, it feels like most of the other "new wave" Spanish chillers I've seen. Full of promise only to unravel due to too much slightly unfocused plot piling up as the runtime wears on. In the end you feel a bit cheated and underwhelmed, despite the elements the film gets right. Especially after the triple climatic twists that feels like the film is way over compensating. The first twist is great, and could have made the film at least a minor classic with small story adjustments. The two that follow the first are so lurching and "left field" it makes you to slap the director in the face. Perhaps I missed the meanings behind the last two, but I shouldn't need a damn field guide. One felt like was pandering to the idiots in the audience who wanted what the film seemed to pointing towards and the other was a giant mindfuck that pandered to the "experts" that can write endlessly about their concept of its significance. It felt like three alternate endings chopped into one.

The three twists I'm referring to:

1)

Spoiler (Highlight or Triple Click to Read):

Simon actually playing a game and dying in the process unbeknown to his parents, being the source of the mysterious noises.

(shut the movie off after this, would have made a great, albeit one-note ending)
2)

Spoiler (Highlight or Triple Click to Read):

The lighthouse bullshit, the children becoming "alive", Simon coming back from the dead, and Laura becoming their caregiver.

(Blah, this is absolute shit, should have had the director walk into the shot with a sign in all caps "YOU CAN CRY NOW, THIS IS THE BITTERSWEET EMOTIONAL MEANING")
3)

Spoiler (Highlight or Triple Click to Read):

Laura, Simon, and the children suddenly all being dead in the next scene then the film ends.

(WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Really after all this I expected Mel Brooks to be seen springing up from a dream and breaking out into song about deformed children and door knobs as the credits roll. This would have made the same amount of sense.

The whole thing is sorta like a mish-mash of Balagueró's The Nameless (missing/phantom children, grieving mother as the central character), Darkness (mysterious, foreboding wood mansion of a home), and Frágiles (more mystery involving ailing children w/ a woman at the center). Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone seems to be all that was necessary, as it stands far above any of these.

It makes me wonder if Horror "fans" are so hard up for substance in the genre they'll take something "resembling" quality, but be blind to the whole thing being a mere facade of a hollow center stuffed with dry horseshit...

[ganthc]

I guess I didn't react as negatively as you did to the ending. I did think it was disappointing (#2 especially), but I don't think that the entire movie was undone by it. It just seemed like there was a move to soften the idea of dead children. I think that the basement scene could have been much much more scarier. Instead, we just have the plot neatly tied up in the end.

But like Pan's Labyrinth, I think there was a dual side to things. Those being these:

Spoiler (Highlight or Triple Click to Read):

Like the little girl in PL, we have to wonder whether the ghosts were real or not. It could be all the imaginings of the mother desperate to find her son and turning to the supernatural to explain things. All the games with finding things could have just as easily been explained as Simon trying to have his mom play with him. But the game went horribly wrong when he got trapped and fell down the stairs killing himself. With the little girl in PL, you wonder if the faun and fairies and such were real or just her imagination. Regardless, in the end of both, you see a bittersweet ending where the main character dies, but in their minds they are happy.

I think that this seems to be the style of things for Spanish thrillers. I don't know if this movie even counts as horror at all.