PicturehouseReview in a Hurry: Atmosphere and solid acting overcome the subtitles in this moody Spanish horror import about a mother who loses her son to an orphanage full of ghosts.
The Bigger Picture: Laura (Belén Rueda) returns to the orphanage where she was raised, along with her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and their own adopted son, Simón (Roger Príncep, a kid who looks like he was crafted in an adorable-child factory somewhere). She wants to turn the abandoned mansion into a home for special-needs kids, but any student of Horror Movie 101 will tell you how that's going to work out.
Pretty soon, Simón is playing with a new group of imaginary friends, and they don't seem to like Laura very much. Then Simón disappears. Now, really, is it ever a good idea to buy the creepy old house that's filled with strange noises and dark secrets?
Despite the excellent performances—Rueda and the rest of the cast make the actors in many American horror movies look like the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog rejects they are—there's not too much original or surprising in the film.
Laura is steadfast and anguished, Carlos is disbelieving and stoic, and there are generic séances with the usual revelations. While it's nice to see all the clichés done well for a change, it's not enough to make them compelling. Maybe to compensate, the soundtrack cranks up to 11 for the few tense moments in the movie, loud enough to startle you out of your chair even when you see them coming a mile away.
The 180—a Second Opinion: This movie feels like a throwback to '70s flicks like Rosemary's Baby, so maybe it could be used as a refresher course for the torture-porn crowd in how to scare people without fake blood and cow intestines.