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June 8th, 2008

Thoughts on del Toro's The Orphanage

In general right order, and in such a way that they probably won't make sense without your having seen the movie:

    I want that house. Hell, I'll even be generous. Ghosties can have half the house, I'll take the other, and the world will be good. Only condition is that I get the beach, too.

    What, you mean the thing doesn't know how to follow the road? WAIT WHY ARE YOU LEADING IT HOME?

    (That's a whole lot of shells.)


    The hell kind of parent would put that kind of mask on their own kid?

    So how does one give mouth-to-mouth to someone who's lost half their lower jaw, anyway?


    Hey now, those are the bodies of all your childhood friends. Show at least some--oh, for fuck's sake. But then again, you somehow forgot living with the creepy masked kid . . . maybe I shouldn't expect much from you.


    Woman, learn to argue. "It's been nine months but I know my son is alive!" isn't how you get your husband to help you go ghost-hunting. It'd make more sense for you to drop something like "Do you really think I set all these clues up for myself to out a crime I hadn't even been here to know about? That doesn't make the least bit of sense. Now help me find where this damned doorknob goes."

    Husband, for a doctor you fail at logic. Now don't be a douchebag--aww, damn it.


    Is it fair to play tag with a blind girl? Srsly now.


    Zen: Doorknob!
    Me: Yes she is--Oh, wait, you were saying that she should use the doorknob!

    That's not a cellar, that's a fucking dungeon!


    No, no, don't-- DEAR GOD DON'T NUZZLE IT!

    That's a surprisingly good-looking corpse . . .


    No, stop-- Are you-- Oh, for fuck's sake. Glad to see how much you care for your husband there, woman.


Overall impressions: Yes, it was really damn creepy, and focused more on emotional horror than on cheap screamer moments. But if this were a book, I might've put a hole in the wall from throwing it--at least, until I started making parallels to The Turn of the Screw. If you watch the entire thing as the woman just being bugfuck insane, the wallbanger moments lessen a whole lot and the inconsistencies and hideous sweeps of forgetfulness/illogical prattlings become almost logical.