365 Days. 365 Films.

Following Day 4 in quick succession is The Orphanage… I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to watch this film. It wasn’t the best film ever but it wasn’t half bad. Upon the opening credits I was extremely excited to hear of Guillermo del Toro’s involvement, which may have increased my expectations unfairly. I do remember seeing the trailer for this film when it was released and that, in addition to friends telling me that it was “the scariest film in the world!” did not help either. I’ve been wanting to see this film for years now and I was slightly disappointed to find that it was as much a horror film as The Others (it felt very similar to me). Having said that it was a great film – just not a great horror film.

Reasons for watching this film are that it’s not disgustingly predictable, it isn’t scary but it can be jumpy in places if that’s what you’re looking for, and finally it does have very well thought out dialogue that got me pretty emotional at the end. Normally if a film makes me cry it does make me enjoy it more because if a film makes me cry, it usually means there’s great dialogue and/or a well thought out plot. However, due to reasons stated above my expectations were too high and I therefore wasn’t blinded by the brilliance of the dialogue and couldn’t help but focus of the shameless rehash of countless other ghost stories.

I don’t know why I’m slating it so much because I did enjoy it, perhaps I’m bitter… or perhaps it’s just my hangover. Anyway, watch it, you’ll probably like it, or you may not…