Not a single scare wasted

marlon and i have just seen the orphanage.

i think it may just be the best ghost story i've ever watched in my life.

i'm still reeling.

i wanted to watch it simply because it was billed as having been produced by guillermo del toro, not to mention the really cool movie poster. marlon, who hates scary movies and only ever watches them because of me, had to be prodded with a reference to pan's labyrinth to even consider it.

i don't really expect much when i go to see a scary movie. maybe just three to four scares, which can range from the cheap and predictable ("turn around, it's behind you!" or peek-under-the-bed type thrills) to the deeply disturbing (shutter's backbreaking shock, for example, or sadako's big moment in ringu).

so i really did not expect layers upon delicate, poignant layers lying under every well-thought, well-played scare. i did not expect to walk out of the cinema and think about love and loss, growing up and coming home, childhood and innocence, responsibility and blame, guilt and forgiveness, seeing and believing, and what truly has the power to disturb and terrify us to our very cores.

what is the greater horror for a mother: a creaky house full of the spirits of dead children, or the inexplicable loss of her own child? are ghosts really scary only because we meet them in our world and not, in a manner of speaking, in theirs?

none of hollywood's pointless scares or ghosts jumping out of closets here.

from a writing standpoint, the movie was extremely neat. not a single scene or reference wasted. if you played connect-the-dots with the script, you could most definitely connect one event in the first half of the film with another that would unfold in the second half. brilliant.

marlon and i raved about the movie all the way from the cinema to the mrt. on the train, he fell into a long-ish, thoughtful silence. then he gave me a sudden, tight hug.

if you want to know why, go and see the orphanage. go. just go!

i hope it comes out in manila. if not, get the dvd.