Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on December 20, 2007, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
In a horror scene filled to overflowing with in-your-face survival-horror gore and CGI monsters run amok, there’s something refreshing about a back-to-basics return to “quiet horror” like the Spanish production The Orphanage. Particularly when the film proves so successful at getting under your skin via subtly generated chills and tension, while also paying them off with a couple of the best leap-from-your-seat jolts in recent memory. Even these, however, were not part of scriptwriter Sergio G. Sánchez’s initial plans for The Orphanage.
“One of the things people complained about when they first read the script was that it was not scary enough,” he admits. “I usually don’t like that in a film—those cheap frights—because they’re very easy. I believe the two big moments like that in The Orphanage work because they’re ‘hidden.’ Your attention is directed toward something else, and then in the middle of that comes the jump. Actually, when Juan Antonio [director J.A. Bayona] kind of forced me to write those scenes, I was like, ‘OK, I’m gonna do it, but I don’t think they’re gonna work.’ Then when I finally saw the film at a screening for the first time, and saw the whole audience jump at once, I was like, ‘OK, I was wrong and you were right.’ ”
Part of Sánchez’s reticence to include such blatant scare moments was tied in to his realistic approach to The Orphanage as a whole. The story is set at the titular establishment, where heroine Laura grew up as a child and where she returns as an adult (played by Belén Rueda) with her husband and son to reopen the place as a home for children with disabilities. Soon, Laura is being haunted by what seem to be ghosts from her past—though there’s always the suggestion that the spirits tormenting her are solely in her mind.
“The thing is,” Sánchez further explains of The Orphanage’s fear content, “the movie had to be honest; everything needed to have a real explanation. We couldn’t have things flying through the air, we couldn’t have ghosts appearing or anything like that. We set out to make a film that had two possible readings: You can take it as a ghost story, but you can also read it as the psychological decaying process of Laura, who is gradually losing her mind. Because there’s nothing in the film that definitively proves the existence of anything otherworldly.”
Although Sánchez directed a few short movies in the early 2000s, The Orphanage is his first produced feature script, and its accomplishment is even more remarkable when you consider that he originally wrote it a decade ago. Like many first-time film scribes, he harked back to his own childhood for inspiration—albeit not the happy golden memories often celebrated by filmmakers. “I tried to recall what scared me when I was growing up,” he reveals. “My parents are very old, and I was a very sickly kid. I spent most of my childhood in hospitals, so that’s what frightened me; because my parents were so old, I would think, ‘What if they die? I’m gonna be alone,’ and there was also the fear of illnesses. Also, I had two invisible friends named Watson and Pepe—and they’re in the movie [as the imaginary playmates of Laura’s son Simón]! So I just started out trying to write a story about my own childhood concerns and obsessions. That was the seed, and it sprouted from there.”
Many viewers and reviewers of The Orphanage have also cited perceived cinematic influences, ranging from classic spook stories like The Innocents to the more recent output of Guillermo del Toro, one of the movie’s producers and prime movers. “Well, whatever film you pick, you’re always going to find one or two similar movies,” Sánchez notes. “For example, when we were developing The Orphanage, before anybody knew Guillermo was involved, people thought, ‘This is gonna be just like The Others.’ Now that the film has opened [in Spain] and Guillermo is representing it, people are saying, ‘Well, it’s just like Pan’s Labyrinth.’ But one has nothing to do with the other.”
When it’s suggested that The Orphanage is actually closer in spirit and subject matter to del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone, Sánchez replies, “See, that’s funny, because we never had that in mind at all. I could tell you a thousand films that were influential, but Devil’s Backbone is not on the list. Actually, when we set out to make The Orphanage, what I wanted to do was a version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but replacing the aliens with ghosts. It’s very much the same thing—it’s also a tale about the destructive power of obsession, ultimately. So we were thinking of movies like Close Encounters, and also A.I.—we had that in there.”
Another key suggestion made by Bayona during the film’s development process was to narrow the focus down to the point of view of its heroine, Laura. “He wanted the audience to see just through her eyes the whole time,” Sánchez says. “Originally, it was more of a classic horror movie, and there was a lot more importance given to what had happened in the orphanage—the crimes, all the horror elements and the investigation—and Juan Antonio just said, ‘I don’t care about this. What I care about is the mother.’ So we sort of forgot all about that other stuff, just gave it minimal importance in the story and reworked the script to delve more into the breakdown of this woman and what it does to the family, because it breaks them up. It’s just a gradual progression of seeing this poor woman helplessly… You know where she’s going, and you can’t do anything to stop her.”
That breakdown is both terrible and terribly moving as enacted by Rueda, previously best known in Spain for TV roles and a supporting turn in Alejandro Amenábar’s The Sea Inside, who comes into her own as a feature-film lead with The Orphanage. “It’s funny,” Sánchez recalls, “because at first I was thinking that the character should be played by an older actress, so when they first told me about Belén, I was like, ‘Are you sure?’ And then the first day Belén came to rehearsals, she just blew me away, and I thought, ‘OK, again—I was wrong, you were right.’ She’s fantastic, and I cannot think of another actress who could have done a better job. She’s wonderful, she’s tough and she’s fragile; she’s like a real woman, but there’s still this bit of childhood glimmer in her eyes.”
Inevitably, The Orphanage’s wave of critical raves and massive box-office success at home (where it has grossed over $35 million, making it one of Spain’s biggest hits ever) has led to talk of an English-language remake. Picturehouse parent company New Line has already announced development of a U.S. redux, with del Toro on board in a producing capacity—but Bayona has already stated he won’t return, and Sánchez seems equally unlikely to take part. “I’d like to give it a shot, but I spent the last three years of my life working very closely on this movie, so maybe the healthier option would be just to give it to somebody else. I also believe the [new] film would benefit if someone with an entirely fresh point of view grabbed hold of the material. Remakes only make sense if they’re something different; if you’re going to do the same thing, then why do it at all?”
Not to mention the fact that at least one plot element involving Simón, and the movie’s uncompromising ending, would likely give more conservative American filmmakers—and filmgoers—pause. “I’m terrified about the test screenings,” Sánchez jokes. “That’s the good thing about doing movies in Spain—you don’t have those previews, and you don’t have to shoot three different endings just in case. If that stuff goes [from the remake], then it goes, and we’ll live with it.”
Besides, Sánchez is currently busy collaborating with del Toro on 3993, which will mark the director’s return to Spanish-language fare after he wraps up Hellboy II: The Golden Army. “It should close out a trilogy of sorts with The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth,” the writer reveals. “It’s also about the Spanish Civil War, with a fantasy element, but Guillermo isn’t allowing me to say anything about the project—it’s like a big surprise. But it’s going to be a big film, definitely. I’m dying to see it done.
“Guillermo has so much energy,” Sánchez continues. “He really drains you out! I mean, it’s exhausting at times, but it’s also a pleasure, because he pushes the story to the limit all the time, and that’s great. Then when you see the work done, it’s like, ‘OK, that was worth it.’ He’s a really nice guy, very smart and has an amazing knowledge of film. It’s been like going back to school, working with him.”
3993 is based on an original idea of Sánchez’s, one that—like The Orphanage—he had initially intended to direct himself. “Then when I met Guillermo, I told him what 3993 was about, and he was like, ‘I love that!’ so he’s going to do it now. But my third script, I’m keeping—there’s no way anybody’s gonna take that away from me!”
That project is The Homecoming (no relation to the recently announced Mischa Barton-starring American thriller), which is scheduled to begin preproduction early next year and roll in the summer. “It starts out with a husband and wife taking their two children to this island, because they’re going to get a divorce,” Sánchez explains. “They take them to this special place in order to nurture them and tell them that they don’t have to worry, nothing’s going to change even though they’re going to be separating. And when they come back to the mainland, everyone’s gone—the planet is empty, except for the parents and the two kids. You don’t know what’s happened, and of course I can’t tell you what has happened. Basically, it’s an end-of-the-world movie mixed with a family drama. It’s a strange concept, but I believe it will work.”
The Homecoming continues what seems to be a running theme in Sánchez’s work—fractured relationships between parents and children—but the writer claims that this “is not intentional at all.” He adds, however, “Recently I made a list of my favorite horror movies—The Shining, Don’t Look Now, The Omen, The Exorcist—and all of them have to do in a way with interrupted motherhood. I’m not obsessed, and I’ve never even thought of parenting, but it is something that’s there. And while the short films I’ve made and the stories I’ve written have been in different genres, the only link is that they’re all about separation, in one way or another. I don’t know, I guess I should go see a shrink and see what’s wrong with me. Why do I keep coming back to the same stories all the time?”
