Friday Frights: The Orphanage

Playing in the background: It's pretty quiet, actually. I should be in bed.

This was a pretty tame week for horror movies. Nothing at the dollar theater, Orphan doesn't come out until July 24, nothing on pay per view that I haven't already seen and Netflix said they sent me Away From Her, which is a weepie about Alzheimer's disease. I thought I was gonna be reduced to watching one of the Masters of Horror installments on Netflix Direct (seen about six, haven't liked any of them. Except Fair Haired Child. That one was okay.)

Luckily, Netflix made a mistake and sent Guillermo Del Toro's The Orphanage instead. The Orphanage gets a WOW (5 stars). Like Pan's Labyrinth, it's scary, suspenseful and as is often the case in his work, heartbreakingly sad. In fact I'm not sure it qualifies as a horror film. It's more of a tragedy/drama with some creepy stuff going on. But, there was enough creepy stuff going on to make me happy.

For the record, it's never a good idea to invite your kid's imaginary friend back to the house to play. You never know when the imaginary friend might turn out to be--okay, I'm not sayin' another word. This one is definitely worth a view. And I know I'm a hopeless geek here, but it was just awesome to hear people speaking Castilian even if I had to use the subtitles. Donde estais, ninos? Estais bien? Oo, I have chills. The kids are definitely not all right.

Okay, I'm off to bed now. One more swim day this week and I get a fishy sticker. And, uh, yes, that would be 6:30 am tomorrow. Good thing I don't think about this stuff very much.