Movie Reviews!

SO I just saw two amazing movies.

The first, was the one I talked about HERE. El Orfanato. I don't think I ever talked about how awesome it was...
It was awesome.

I also just saw this last night:

El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil's Backbone)

Guillermo del Toro who did Pan's Labrynith (which is amazing if you haven't seen it) produced El Orfanato and directed El Espinazo del Diablo.
Both films are incredible and I highly recommend them if you get a chance to watch them. Both have elements of...well, I hesitate to call them horror because they're not at all what American horror films are like. These movies are less about blood and guts and violence and usually about something much deeper. Really, in the end, these films almost transcend genre and boil down to fantastic story-telling. Both films deal with ghosts and the supernatural-but they're just elements of the story instead of the full blown concept of the movie in general, right? Like...ok...watch The Ring (no, don't watch The Ring it's a dumb, stupid, crappy movie) and you get a movie about some video tape with a dead girl in it that comes out of the TV and...drowns you? Watch these movies and...I don't know...you get something way cooler I think. Ghosts, the supernatural are not the antagonist in either of these films. They're scary at times, yes. There are freaky parts in both that I jumped at BUT you discover as the characters in the film discover that the ghosts are not there to kill you seven days after you watched a video tape with fingers in a box and an upside spinning chair. I feel like both these movies treat ghosts/the supernatural with a great amount of respect and understanding-and I don't mean that from a freaky-deaky like "I believe in ghosts and think they're our friends" sort of point of view I mean it from a plain and simple story-telling point of view. It's kinda boring to watch a movie that's simply evil evil ghost vs. innocent, good people. It's much more interesting when you have enough respect for the story and characters to take a good hard look and blur those lines because nothing is that black and white.
And I'm going to shutup now.
Here's the point: I highly recommend these movies. del Toro is a genius. These movies are amazing.