by Allisonnnnn Wednesday 20th June 2012

This Geek in Netflix: House of Voices

In 2010, I watched a Spanish horror film called The Orphanage. That movie scared the shit out of me in a way that hadn’t happened since I was little and was pressured into watching one of the Chuckie movies with my father who proceeded to spend the next several months trying to create exciting new ways to terrify me with antique dolls.

Clearly the love-child of Geena Davis and Natalie Portman.

The Orphanage was released in 2007, three years after the French-Romanian horror film House of Voices (original title: Saint Ange) debuted. I bring the former up as House of Voices is, essentially, its mellow French counterpart.

No, not in its plot or atmosphere, but in the motifs that cycle through the two films.

House of Voices revolves around the happenings at Saint Ange, an orphanage in the French Alps in 1958, and the newly hired cleaning woman, Anna (Virginie Ledoyne – Francoise from The Beach). Anna arrives to Saint Ange during a mass exodus—the orphanage is shutting down as the children are being shuffled away having all been miraculously placed with foster families. It is Anna’s job to help put the building back in order.

No, don’t worry, this isn’t some sort of oddly arousing BDSM flick of the sexy scullery maid working herself to the bone while some disturbing landlord looks on and strokes his… chin. Anna has help in the forms of the haunted Judith (Lou Doillon) and the stout cook, Ilinca (Dorina Lazar). The trio are left quite alone as they scour the kitchen, dry the laundry, and play dress up.

This solitude is good for Anna, as we quickly discover that she is pregnant and very much against this whole state of child-bearing and wants to desperately pretend that her rapidly expanding stomach is just a case of extreme gas.

[Insert the lyrics to every Madonna song ever here.]

During her moody explorations, Anna begins hearing noises and seeing children scurrying about the deserted hallways of Saint Ange. Convinced that something is up, especially after being warned by a departing orphan to avoid the ugly children (really, don’t we do that naturally?), Anna starts digging into the history of orphanage, with the trusty Judith by her side.

This film was an interesting contrast of elements. Visually, it was full and beautiful without being overly lush, save for those brief transitions into “ghost areas” while being heavily contrasted against a very small amount of dialogue, almost enough so that the story could become easily lost if a single sentence was missed or misheard. This minimalist take on the dialogue removed a lot of the traditional verbal exposition and explanation, leaving the movie wide open to interpretation.

The character of Anna swung between being sympathetic and loathsome, causing me to alternate between cheering for her and wanting to punch her whining face, which is a fairly conflicted stance to take on a serious horror movie and an odd choice of presentation indeed.

In the end, this was more of a ghost story with heavy psychological elements than it was a horror movie, causing the tale to be of a more mellow form than that of The Orphanage, but even with its gradually accelerating pace it certainly never strayed—at least for me— into the territory of the boring.

If you’re looking for a movie to slowly unfold before you with a haunting echo, queue up House of Voices on Netflix Instant. If you’re looking to be scared shitless and possibly never sleep again, watch The Orphanage and be prepared to cry yourself to sleep that night.