NO SECRET STAYS LOCKED AWAY FOREVER.
Laura and Carlos (Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayou) are raising their adopted son (Roger Príncep) in an old orphanage; he makes new invisible friends there who have special plans for him. A ghost movie that won worldwide acclaim. It’s easy to see why. There are no new tricks here (viewers will recognize the atmosphere and several ingredients from films like The Haunting (1963) and The Others (2001)), but Juan Antonio Bayona has a really good story to tell and he makes it very scary and even quite moving. It starts intriguingly but the last half hour is an emotional roller coaster. Geraldine Chaplin is terrific as a very earnest medium.
2007-Spain-Mexico. 106 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Guillermo del Toro, Álvaro Augsutín, Joaquín Padro, Mar Targarona. Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona. Screenplay: Sergio G. Sánchez. Cinematography: Óscar Faura. Cast: Belén Rueda (Laura), Fernando Cayo (Carlos), Roger Príncep (Simón), Montserrat Carulla, Andrés Gertrúdix, Edgar Vivar… Geraldine Chaplin.
Trivia: Original title: El orfanato.
Last word: “The first thing was I loved the script; I thought it was quite a unique mix of different genres like horror and drama or even melodrama. It reminds me of horror movies I really liked from the past; movies from the sixties or the seventies. Especially I remember Jack Clayton’s ‘The Innocents’ and ‘Our Mother’s House’ which are two ghost stories that don’t need to be horror movies. Right now if you talk about a ghost story everyone will think about a horror movie; but ghost stories don’t have to be big on effects. I remember ‘Our Mother’s House’ was also about growing up, about childhood, you can find a rhyme between horror and poetry. It’s something very specific from these movies from the sixties and the seventies and I wanted to go back to these stories.” (Bayona, LoveFilm)
