I just finished watching this and after reading some of the brutal reviews and message board comments, I felt that I really should write a 'brief' review.

First off, when all was said and done I didn't really find the film ultimately that satisfying; but, I think I am objective enough to say that mainly it is due to my personal taste and NOT because it is a bad film. I really wish people would be a little more fair when writing about these movies and separate the fact that THEY did not like it with whether or not it indeed was a bad film.

Overall I truly felt that the director worked his @$$ off in this film and put his heart and soul into it. Also, THIS WAS HIS VERY FIRST MOVIE! So, c'mon, compared to the mountain of drivel that passes for Horror these days, graded fairly and comparatively, it was very well made. Very nice cinematography and direction as far as planning out every move meticulously and blending the lighting, sound, stormy atmosphere, etc. He also elicited competent performances from his actors too. BUT... for me personally anyway, here is the clincher... The pacing was WAAAAAAAAY off and the buildup WAY to long and the truly effective bits and visuals WAY too spare and subtle. If he had tightened up the pacing just a little and (I KNOW this next bit is gonna sound REAL Hollywood) livened up the visual scares a little, and would have given us much more visceral Gothic imagery and / or more startling clues (I mean COME ON, just one vague file folder and just about NOTHING else!???) Basically I feel that to make the film FAR more effective he needed to add some SUBSTANTIAL elements to drive it a bit more. I DON'T mean shallow jump scares, etc. (although a few more would have helped a little) Just look at THE master of this kind of film, Guillermo Del Torro. Now, that guy is very subtle too, BUT, and it is a VERY BIG BUT like Mariah Carrey's, he knows how to pace a film and ratchet up TRUE suspense and eerie atmosphere. I honestly think this director here has some excellent insight and quality to his film making, BUT I think he dwelt WAY too much on the drama between the ladies instead of building a better story. It was so melodramatic at so many points I was really thinking that a woman had directed it (NOT meaning at all to be unkind to women directors, etc., but merely that women directors USUALLY tell stories from a much more emotional and dramatic perspective then men do) So, the bottom line is, IF you have the time to kill and you are very, Very, VERY patient, you will see some very good technical film making; but, don't expect TOO much of a punch from the story itself. BTW, I really liked the ending; now THAT is exactly the kind of thing he needed much more of! He just needed a bit more in the way of disturbing imagery, subtle but more evocative of the atmosphere a film like this should have.

I just watched the movie two days ago. It is a disturbing movie with so much potential to go towards either a psychological or a supernatural direction. However, the direction and scripting were too mediocre to be able to achieve a satisfactory level.

STORY The story is set in the late 1950's at an orphanage in the French Alps. The plot revolves around Anna who is pregnant because she was gang-raped by her employees, or so it seemed. There is a scene where she had a nightmare, whereby for a couple of seconds, we see her being rendered unconscious in the company of 6-8 naked men.

This incident traumatised her and she can't accept her condition. In fact throughout the movie Anna shows her disgust towards her baby and even attempts to abort it in one scene. Ironically, she seems to be intrigued by the orphanage history of some dead children. The story progresses as we see Anna trying to decipher the mystery of these 'scary children', apparitions of child-ghosts that roam the old orphanage.

Through her ordeal, Anna befriends a mentally unstable girl by the name of Judith, who we later find out was one of the surviving 300 World War II orphans that were brought to St. Ange in 1946. Apparently these children were brought to the orphanage under dire conditions, and since there were only two 'lousy' doctors available, many of them didn't survive.

Again through Anna's mischievous curiosity, she and Judith manage to find a secret passage through the communal children bathroom into an abandoned children wing of the orphanage. Within this wing there is an elevator that goes several stories underground. Anna takes the elevator and comes out in an alternate dimension, whereby she arrives in a clean pseudo-experimental hospital. What she finds there is surreal, scary and disturbing.

It is likely that the orphanage is sitting on top of a Nazi experimental laboratory, where they performed experiments on Jewish children. Anna later gives birth to her stillborn baby with the help of the scary children. They both die in the process and become ghosts themselves.

WHAT I THINK There were a few goose-bumps throughout the middle section of the movie, but they failed to lift up my interest as it seemed the director didn't know which way to take the movie. And it certainly didn't help when the bulk of the running time was spent filming trivial scenes of Anna, where it was tempting to say that the director was more enamored with Virginie Ledoyen the actress, than progressing the story along a definite narration.

I think there was so much potential to the movie. Potentials for genuinely scary moments that could've been shot in the children communal bathroom, the hidden wing and specifically the underground lab/hospital. But frankly speaking, the movie probably satisfies Ledoyen's fans more than horror or drama moviegoers.

In 1958, in the French Alp, the young servant Anna Jurin (Virginie Ledoyen) arrives in Saint Ange Orphanage to work with Helena (Dorina Lazar) while the orphans moved to new families with the administrator Francard (Catriona MacColl). Anna, who is secretly pregnant, meets the last orphan , Judith (Lou Doillon), left behind because of her mental problems, and they become closer when Anna find that Judith also hear voices and footsteps of children. Anna investigates the place trying to disclose the secret about the invisible children.

"Saint Ange" has a promising beginning that recalls Asian horror movies, and a very beautiful cinematography, but unfortunately it does not work since the story is terrible, boring and confused. I confess that I have not understood what this mess is about and the motives of Anna. One of the worse ghost stories I have ever seen. How can the producers of "Le Pact de Loups" waste money, their names and efforts in such crap? My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "A Profecia dos Anjos" ("The Prophecy of the Angels")