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A fine line divides the horror genre and the really freaky scary pee-in-your-pants materials. Shadows passing your window in the dead of the night, strange knockings on the door midnightly may be spooky yet nothing freaks the mind of one more than realism in the horror, the it-can-also-happen-to-you that keeps your vacant mind active way past bedtime as you edge closer and closer to your bed partner, cussing why you have to scare yourself silly watching THAT!

An overactive imaginative mind helps. So does a simple plot with unexpected twists, such as in THE RING (Japanese version takes the cake) when the realisation that the ordeal is not over dawns on on us, when the TV fickles on suddently. Didnt she hold Sadako in her arms at the bottom of the deep abandoned well? Didnt she manage to ‘undo’ the curse? Why the FUCK is she then crawling out of the TV *SCREAM*.

PLOT:

The Orphanage is the story of a little girl Laura growing up in an orphanage by the sea, and is later adopted. After growing up outside of the orphanage which she loves so much, she marries a hamesome doctor, adopts a sick child Simon and moves her whole family to the now abandoned orphanage, is determined to provide a home for children with disability, the way she was cared for.

Naturally things got spooky, move on their on, things disappeared and reapperaed, and Simon starts to collect more and more imaginery friends, the scariest one being Tomas. Like most normal mothers, she does not believe him and on the day of the opening of the facility, Simon screaming for attention wanted to show his mother Tomas’s secret room when the disabled children started to arrive, is shunned and slapped for his bad behaviour. He disappeared.

The movie then picked up pace as Laura went almost crazy with guilt searched for Simon, believed that he is either kidnapped by the strange lady who appeared mysteriously in her shed or his disappearance has something to do with the crying ghost children encountered by the medium visiting the house, all five of them! With her husband agreeing to let her stay in the house alone for two days, when her neves are on the verge of irreversible snapping, before moving away for good, spook factors went up the roof. These changelings, friends or foes….?

To say the least, the plot stays with me for quite a while. {None of those standard slashing B-grade effects  which are more ghastly than scary, or the sophmore sex scenes to keep the audience awake.}

Other horror movies much enjoyed: the ring (jap), shutter (thai) dead end
worst horror movies: house of wax, children of the corn! Jason vs Freddy (yiks)