{"id":41,"date":"2009-01-02T04:46:21","date_gmt":"2009-01-02T10:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asylumeclectica.com\/grim\/?p=41"},"modified":"2013-11-09T22:53:03","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T22:53:03","slug":"the-orphanage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=41","title":{"rendered":"The Orphanage"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There is nothing that I love better than a good ghost movie, but, sadly, a good ghost movie is the rarest of all crown jewels in the Horror film canon. Over the past decade there have been a few very good ghost films (What Lies Beneath<\/a>, The Sixth Sense<\/a>, Stir Of Echoes<\/a><\/em>) and some very poor, overproduced pieces of crap (The Haunting<\/a>, The House On Haunted Hill<\/a><\/em>). However, there has only been one film that I would consider a masterpiece of the genre: The Others<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Others <\/em>is not only my favorite ghost movie, it’s also one of my favorite films of any genre.\u00a0\u00a0In the grand\u00a0tradition of The Innocents<\/a>, The Others <\/em>contains all of the essentials of a good ghost film, and then some:\u00a0\u00a0a lonely, misty atmosphere; a huge, gothic estate;\u00a0hauntings that are subtle instead of blaring\u00a0(when will big budget horror movie directors learn that it’s what you DON’T see that is\u00a0most frightening?); arcane 19th century morbid touches such as the “Book of the Dead” scrapbook of post-mortem photographs; and\u00a0exceptional acting, especially by the creepy children.\u00a0\u00a0All this, and a devastating twist\u00a0at the end as well.\u00a0\u00a0Sheer gothic perfection!<\/span><\/p>\n

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The other night I saw another film that almost rises to the same lofty heights: the Italian film The Orphanage (Il Orfanato).\u00a0 <\/em>Like The Others<\/em>, The Orphanage <\/em>is set in a huge gothic estate – this time a former orphanage – and centers around a mother and child.\u00a0 There are lots of creepy urban exploration touches (hidden rooms and morbid secrets),\u00a0freaky costumes,\u00a0and another great plot twist at the end.\u00a0 Even better, it’s one of those films that can be interpreted as either a ghost story or a psychological study, depending on your perspective.\u00a0 A highly recommended masterpiece of the genre.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Orphanage (Il Orfanato) (2007)<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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More film recommendations can be seen at The Library Eclectica<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is nothing that I love better than a good ghost movie, but, sadly, a good ghost movie is the rarest of all crown jewels in the Horror film canon. Over the past decade there have been a few very good ghost films (What Lies Beneath, The Sixth Sense, Stir Of Echoes) and some very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-library"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4113,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/4113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}