El Orfanato

Last night we headed to downtown Royal Oak to check out "The Orphanage" at the Main Art Theater. All I knew about this film is that it was produced by Guillermo Del Toro who was responsible for last year's fantastic Pan's Labyrinth. Some consider this film to be a companion piece to Pan's, but I felt that it was far superior and much more emotionally engaging. I have always been a fan of horror movies, especially psychological thrillers like The Thing, Alien, and more recently Sunshine. But never before have I experienced in a theater the sensations of breathlessness, panic, and literally, chills running up and down my spine. Laura said she almost vomited at least eight times from the suspense and alternately had one hand either covering her eyes or blocking her ears. I know many are turned off by foreign films because they often burden the viewer with having to read the translated dialog, but for me it only worked to enhance the mystery of "The Orphanage". I saw this with nine other people last night and later over our Mojitos and Belgian Ales we all agreed that it was hands down one of the scariest movies ever. They are supposedly making an American version of the film which I'm sure will strip it off all of it's tension and suspense and replace those elements with ones of horror and violence and guts ala Hostel and Saw. So go see it now!!!