Let me set the pace. I was going through your average break up, wallowing while watching Six Feet Under (because let's face it, nothing says 'Break Up' then people dying every 50 minutes), listening to my 'FUCK YOU AND DIE' playlist including the 'brutal' tones of Sheryl Crow, Sophie B. Hawkins and Madasun and determined to join a gym (I lose breath when I walk up a flight of stairs). Until my best friend/break up saviour had had enough, she implored I leave the house, get some fresh air, starting...living again.
Not wanting my break up to replicate a bad Jennifer Aniston movie, my best friend knew she had to act quickly and fast before I turned Single White Female on everybody's ass. She appropriately decided to take me to the movies, the perfect place to ease me back into life 'outside'. So what film did she choose to take 1 mentally unhinged and highly emotional singleton, that's right The Orphanage (2007). Having heard nothing about this film, after post break up hibernation, because when you've got no honey, lying in bed in with dirty kleenex and stalking Facebook seems like only the right thing to do, I was excited about reentering the human race.
I thought this was going to be your feel good comedy featuring Emma Thompson saving a bunch of mismatched orphans, who falls in love after tracking down one of the children's allegedly dead fathers. But God had other plans. Plans which shook the very fibre of my existence.
Just before my best friend bought my ticket, she warned 'Lisa it's a horror movie'. Naturally I objected, she knew I can't watch horror movies for various reasons, the most prevalent being I didn't want to turn out like that girl who watched Scream and was sent to an insane asylum (No, this is the very core of my fear). I questioned my best friend's motives, she LOVES horror movies, was she being SELFISH during MY BREAKUP. Was this another person who was about to TURN on me? Bleary eyed and throat beginning to swell after listening to Doll Parts (nobody knows pain like Courtney Love) on repeat during the car ride, I knew if I questioned her the flood gates would open once again. Judging by my appearance she must of known, and made it very clear she chose this film out of all the others because and I quote 'to make you feel again'.
What ensued was the most horrific 2 hours of my life. If there is one thing I cannot handle more than anything, it is children going bat shit insane who in the process torment their elders. The film is essentially about a mother, who returns with her husband and young son to live in her childhood orphanage with the hopes to turn into a centre which rehabilitates children back to health. Why is it always the GOOD people who suffer? Things get freaky when her little son makes an 'invisble' friend, ie. a motherlicking ghost and he disappears. The mother descends into utter madness as she refuses to move on with her life until she finds her son. Doesn't sound scary? Well, did I forget to mention the entire film is in SPANISH. This is the clip where she meets her sons 'friend' for the first time, precisely the time where I questioned whether I would make it out of the cinema alive.
As the film proceeded, I verbally abused my best friend. Various threats included "we are over", "how could you do this to me, I can't breathe I think I am going to have a brain aneurysm", "I'm leaving", "No really, I can't handle this I am leaving". When those threats lost their luster, in the overly packed cinema, I do not know what came over me but I SQUEALED at the sheer horror of what I was witnessing. But it was okay, because other 'screamers' come out of the closest during the more 'fearing-for-my-life' moments, creating a domino affect of screams that sounded like The Australian Girls Choir on LSD. Needless to say after seeing The Orphanage I did 'feel' again, and no it wasn't the dampness of my soiled underwear.