Practically sitting next to each other on the new releases shelf of the video store, these two horror movies were almost begging to be reviewed together. Fortunately, for comparing and contrasting purposes, both movies are really quite different both in terms of story and in terms of delivery. One is a dark, foreboding film with emotional resonance and a story told with creative wit, while the other one is none of those things. The Orphanage is a beautifully told tale of love and loss that’s eerily spooky in the telling. P2, meanwhile, is a typical slasher/psycho movie that will probably be more memorable for the stars “abundant cleavage.”

P2 is the archetypal story about a hardworking corporate drone named Angela (Rachel Nichols) who gets stuck in her office on Christmas Eve only to end up trapped in the parking garage on a pseudo-date with Thomas, the deranged security guard (Wes Bentley). The movie recalls the simple pleasure of the plot-hole; that miraculous series of coincidences that allows a villain to get away with his master plan. But what’s her problem anyway: he’s just never talked to her before, while always watching her in the parking garage security cameras. Plus, he went to all the trouble of stripping her, putting her in a white satin dress that’s just her size, chain her up and feed her Christmas dinner.

By comparison, The Orphanage is remarkably down to earth considering that it deals with something more supernatural than stalkers with crazy eyes. It deals with a topic of emotional resonance that we can all deal with: loss. Laura (Belén Rueda) moves her family to the now vacated house that served as the orphanage she was raised in. When her son, Simón (Roger Príncep), disappears during the reception for the houses reopening as a home for handicapped children, Laura has to trudge through the mysteries left behind by the house’s previous occupants. Key to the mystery is a young boy named Tomás (Óscar Casas), the one child living at the orphanage that Laura never knew about, and whose spirit seems to have befriended Simón.

In looking at the two films side-by-side, simply on a thematic/story basis, it’s easy to see why one stands above the other in terms of quality. Loss and grief is familiar and the desire to touch those lost and that tremendous vacuous feeling that comes from not knowing are just as easy to understand. Does that mean that P2 can’t compare on an emotional level? Not necessarily, while most have us have had little to no experience running from knife-wielding psychotics, we all get that visceral jolt of thrill and fear at the thought.

Typical to slasher pictures, P2 features a killer that’s omnipresent to the point of being psychic, while the hapless victim is completely clueless until the climax requires her to get smart. Now, if the actors were engaging, I could almost forgive the fatigued and worn out storytelling so long as the acting is good enough, but then again I forgot that I was watching P2, which makes some of the acting in the Friday the 13th movies look like the Royal Shakespeare Company. Bentley’s psycho is not nearly menacing enough and seems more like the logical progression of his American Beauty character. Nichols is so stolid it makes you wonder if she’s especially aware of her character’s circumstances. Clearly filmmakers thought that Nichols bustline would compensate for any acting shortcomings.

The Orphanage, meanwhile, features a much stronger acting centre in Rueda who makes you feel every exasperated sigh and every teardrop. The film itself is so atmospheric, which is odd given the fact that a lot of the action happens during the day. It flies in the face of a lot of scary movies that seem to automatically put the action at night, almost by default. The sunny atmosphere can almost be taken as an affront to internal darkness felt by Laura, but it also heightens the menace of the unknown lurking in the shadows of the house. And like any clever fantasy, nothing is as it appears. The creepy scarecrow mask that Tomás wears is effective, but it’s a diversion from the real mystery, one that is more enthralling than any psycho-stalker tale.

Perhaps the key difference is pedigree; The Orphanage was produced by Guillermo del Toro, the Oscar-nominated director of Pan’s Labyrinth, while P2 was written by Alexandre Aja, the screenwriter behind The Hills Have Eyes remake. I think really, this vast difference in quality between these two movies, comes down to craftsmanship, both are familiar tales but only one manages to create something new and effective out of the material.