Had I paid closer attention to the movie description on Amazon, I wouldn’t have bought this movie. The Orphanage was filmed in Spain, and the actors speak Spanish. I didn’t realize this until I started watching the movie, but decided that if I could sit through Ju-on and its subtitles, I could sit through this.

The Orphanage begins with young Laura (Belén Rueda) playing a game with her friends. The scene ends when the orphanage headmaster goes outside to tell Laura that she has been adopted. Years later, she and her husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), return to the old orphanage to live. They plan to reopen it as a home for special needs children.

Their seven year-old son, Simón (Roger Príncep), has a lot of imaginary playmates. He is also HIV-positive and doesn’t know that he is adopted until an old woman visits the house, using the guise of a social worker. In the meantime, Laura has been hearing strange noises and dealing with her son’s growing insistence that his imaginary playmates are real.

Tension builds between mother and son until it explodes on the day of their open house. Simon vanishes without a trace. Six months later, he is still missing. The police have not been able to help the distraught couple. Finally, Laura decides to contact a medium to help her find her son.

This is where the movie gets really good. A classic battle of skeptic versus believer unfolds between Carlos (who refuses to believe) and Laura (who is looking for any answer at this point). In the end, she stays on in the house to unravel the mystery of her past because she feels that the past is the key to finding her son.

I won’t say any more about the plot. But I will say that this is the most original ghost story I’ve yet to watch. Director, Guillermo Del Toro did an excellent job putting this movie together. While The Orphanage had plenty of dark atmosphere and special effects, he put his focus more on the story that makes you think and feel. Highly recommended.

It’s official. Chris Carter has announced that X-Files: I Want to Believe will open in theaters on July 25th.

“I’d say we’re trying to scare the pants off of you, like a really good episode of X-Files,” Carter says during a break in filming. “It’s not a mythology episode, but it [deals with] the characters’ lives, what they’ve been through, their relationship and the arc of the show.”

Other than the alien abduction and her subsequent pregnancy, I don’t remember too much about Dana Scully’s backstory. However, I recall Fox Mulder dealing with the disappearance of his sister, Samantha, and his belief that aliens had abducted her. Carter gave us a hint at what the show is going to be about, but I don’t know if he’s going to divulge any more details. If you’ve been following this story, you know that he’s been very secretive about this film since its conception.

Source: SciFi.com

The Invisible begins with golden boy, Nick Powell, who dreams about killing himself during an agonizing graduation party. I sat there for the next half hour, watching his interactions with his mother, friends, and the school bullies who preyed upon his best friend. He defied his controlling mother by enrolling himself in a writing course in London, only to toss his airline ticket at a girlfriend who voiced her pleasure at rebelling against his mother. At that point, he gives up on the writing course and leaves the party to go home.

In the meantime, bad girl Annie Newton is out for revenge against Nick because she was told that he ratted her out to the cops about a jewelry heist. Annie and her cohorts, along with his spineless best friend chase him into the woods. She and the cohorts beat him into unconsciousness, and then hides him in a sewer drain because they think he’s dead.

Nick finds himself in a limbo state, stuck between life and death. He learns that not everybody thinks as highly of him as he was led to believe. This doesn’t stop him from screaming with self-righteous anger at everyone who disappointed him. Of course, nobody can see or hear him.

His spirit latches onto Annie, who is under suspicion with the police in connection with Nick’s disappearance. He follows her everywhere, both shouting and pleading with her to tell the authorities where his body is located before it dies. This was the best part of the movie. I was disappointed with the ending because it was unrealistic and contrived. To me, it went against human nature.

Up until that point, I enjoyed watching The Invisible. I loved the soundtrack and plan on hunting for it later. Also, I felt that the Seattle-like town added to the dark and somber mood.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, then you’ll know that I love a good ghost story. I found this movie while wandering through Best Buy on Saturday and was intrigued enough with the synopsis to buy it. The first half of The Abandoned crawled to the point that I stopped playing the movie about halfway through.

One of the problems was my mild dislike for the character, Marie Jones (played by Anastasia Hille), who flies to Russia to search for her birth parents. I didn’t understand her bitterness and mistrust toward people until I watched the rest of the movie tonight. Then, I only got a glimmer of her backstory.

She discovers that both of her parents are deceased and that she has inherited their house in a remote part of the wilderness. For the first half of the movie, expect to watch her stumbling around one of the creepiest houses ever shown on film. Director Nacho Cerda did a great job with this, as well as the Russian wilderness backdrop.

The action got somewhat better when her alleged twin brother, Nicolae, appeared on the scene and helps her fight off the dopplegangers that keep following them around. What their purpose was, I didn’t find out until the very end. Why the murders took place wasn’t revealed, only that it did take place and the ghost of their father wanted them back.

This movie was heavy on creepy effects and weak on plot. While it was refreshing to see a 40-something protagonist, I didn’t like the character, although I felt sorry for her when she learned the truth about her family. Because of this, I wouldn’t recommend buying the movie. Rent it instead, if only to see the house.