Cinefantastique Online

Reuters has an interesting article about Picturehouse Entertainment’s efforts to release the Spanish hit THE ORPHANAGE in the U.S. Picturehouse studio chief Bob Berney managed to market PAN’S LABYRINTH to big success last year, and he hopes that a similar strategy will lead to a second lightening strike in 2007.

The one unfortunate thing about the article is that it assumes there is some kind of unbridgable gulf between high art and horror:

The movie faces marketing challenges that “Labyrinth” never knew. Where “Labyrinth” could use its imaginative special effects to play to the Comic-Con set and families at the same time, the obvious campaign for “Orphanage” splits the audience. Play up the spooky and older viewers might stay away, but make it seem too character-driven and you could lose genre fans.

Fortunately, Guillermo Del Toro (who wrote and directed PAN’S LABYRINTH and served as producer on THE ORPHANAGE) is around to set things straight:

“I believe there’s not such a thing in any market as a foreign film or as an art house film,” del Toro says. “Emotionally a movie either tells the story it’s supposed to tell or it doesn’t. I’ve seen a lot of art house movies that should have been on 1,000 screens and blockbusters that should have been on 15.”