Concept: A woman, her husband and their small child move into the mansion that had served as the orphanage where she grew up, and they now encounter serious trouble that may or may not be supernatural in origin.

• A great movie that delivers everything we want from a modern creepfest–an authentically eerie atmosphere, a great story, well-developed scares.
• I’ve seen this movie three times, and it was great in all three. Good horror movies don’t suffer much from multiple viewings because they play on your expectation of what’s going to happen. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve never seen the movie before or you’ve seen it five times; you know that once the protagonist starts going down the rickety stairs of that dark, dank basement, things are going to go very baaaaaaad.
• “The Orphanage” qualifies as a horror movie because of its creepy atmosphere, its dealings with the possibly supernatural, and its many dark corners and crevices.
• But it also qualifies completely as a drama: the story of a couple and their sick, adopted child struggling to cope with the difficult elements of their lives.
• The movie succeeds as both horror and drama, delivering some very creepy moments plus a story that immerses us from the very beginning with all kinds of emotions.
• This isn’t a shockfest or a terrifying roller-coaster ride, but it presents its own emotional roller-coaster that’s rare to find in movies, especially horror movies.
• And although it didn’t pack the same kind of impact the third time around that I saw it, it’s still packed quite a punch.
• Geraldine Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin’s daughter, plays the medium Aurora in the film. She looks, and to an extent acts, amazingly like her iconic father, and it’s great to see her in the film.

Not for Kids
Spanish with English subtitles