The Orphanage 灵异孤儿院 英语影评

“The Orphanage,” a diverting, overwrought ghost story from Spain, relies on basic and durable horror movie techniques. Give a competent director a gliding camera, creepy music and a dim hallway lined with doors, and a decent scare is likely to follow. No matter how many times you have seen similar tricks, the sudden apparition of a child at the end of that hall — especially a child in a weird, anachronistic costume — is likely to make you jump a little in your seat. So when a distraught Laura (Belén Rueda) stumbles down the corridor and comes face to face with a boy whose shorts and knee socks are accessorized by a burlap sack covering his face, you are likely to be nearly as terrified as she is.

Even though “The Orphanage” is Juan Antonio Bayona’s first feature film, there is no doubting his skill. But like his patron Guillermo del Toro (who is both producer and “presenter” of this movie), Mr. Bayona is interested in using the horror genre to explore emotions beyond mere fright. Though there are plenty of sudden jolts and eerie atmospherics, “The Orphanage” is ultimately concerned with grief, remorse and maternal longing.

As a rule, if these emotions are credible, the lapses of logic and plausibility that haunt nearly every exercise in supernatural cinema will melt away. Metaphysical leaps can be forgiven if the underlying melodramatic architecture is sound; this is why no one pushes too hard against the premises of “The Sixth Sense” or “The Others,” two movies whose blending of the creepy with the weepy “The Orphanage” recalls.

Most of the ingredients are present: a sensitive mother (Ms. Rueda); an angelic, endangered child (Roger Príncep); and a spooky house in the middle of nowhere. The child, Simón, has been adopted by Laura and her husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), who have the perfectly sensible idea of moving to the orphanage where Laura grew up and turning it into a home for sick children. What could possibly go wrong?

But then Simón starts talking about imaginary friends, in particular one named Tomás, and a sinister old lady shows up claiming to be a social worker. And before you know it, Geraldine Chaplin, the honorary fairy godmother of Spanish cinema, stops by to lead a séance.

I won’t say what she sees, since I don’t want to spoil any surprises. The twists in Sergio G. Sánchez’s script, though fairly conventional in themselves, are deftly executed by Mr. Bayona.

But in spite of his agility, and the sincerity of Ms. Rueda’s performance, “The Orphanage” never quite achieves the intensity it is clearly aiming for. You experience an occasional shudder, but not the deep, resonant unease that makes for a truly memorable nightmare.