The Orphanage (El Orfanato) (2007)

I can vaguely remember the buzz this got at the time of its release but, even though it was very well received at the Cannes Film Festival (the screening received a ten-minute standing ovation) and was a major success in both Spain and Mexico, I think the main reason why I even heard about it at all was because Guillermo del Toro was involved. Because Pan's Labyrinth had just been released to big box-office and had won a number of awards, including three Oscars, he was now a big deal and so, his name was all over this movie when I saw it advertised, despite his simply being a producer. It was one of the first movies that was sold primarily on that distinction, paving the way for films like Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, Mama, Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark, and Antlers. However, not all of these films are great by any means, proving that, like with Wes Craven and those "Presents" films he was involved with in the 90's and 2000's, del Toro's attachment to a project he's not directing doesn't automatically equal quality. Fortunately, that's not the case with The Orphanage. I first saw it after I bought the DVD at Wal-Mart shortly after Halloween in 2010 and I thought it was a pretty good film. I didn't watch it again for a long time, and I actually thought about maybe getting rid of the DVD, as it had kind of left my memory at that point and I figured that must mean it wasn't really as good as I remembered. But, when I re-watched it, I decided, "Nah, this is a keeper." I don't think it's absolutely incredible, and while it's certainly atmospheric and creepy at points, it doesn't scare me, as I've seen too many other movies with some of the tropes it employs, but it is a simple, well-told story that certainly has more than a touch of darkness, despite childhood being a major theme, and its ending is rather emotional and heartfelt.

As a young child, Laura Garcia Rodriguez lived at the Good Shepherd Orphanage in Spain, where she was friends with five other children, until she was adopted at the age of seven. Thirty years later, Laura now lives at the long-closed orphanage with her husband, Carlos, and their adopted son, seven-year old Simon, planning to reopen it as a home for disabled children. Meanwhile, Simon, who doesn't know he's adopted or that he's HIV positive, has some imaginary friends and claims to make another one while exploring a nearby seaside cave. On their way back home, he leaves a trail of seashells behind, saying it's so his new friend can find his way to the orphanage. Laura then gets a visit from a social worker named Benigna Escobedo, who says she's come to inquire about Simon. She reveals she has a copy of Simon's file and suggests they try new treatments for his illness. Laura, however, doesn't care for this intrusion and makes Benigna leave, after which she locks the file in a drawer. That night, Laura is awakened by a faint clanking sound outside and follows it out to the property's coal shed. She finds Benigna lurking inside, and she quickly flees upon being spotted. When Laura wakes up the next morning, she finds seashells leading to the front door, after which a door slams inside the building. Simon now says he has six friends in all, and that, like them, he's never going to grow old. Laura finds a drawing he made of the kids, one of whom is wearing a sack over his head, and he tells her of a game they play where they hide another person's "treasure" and the player must follow clues to find it; if you win, you're granted a wish. While playing it with Laura, the clues lead to Simon's file, and when Laura gets angry at him for looking through her and Carlos' things, he says that she's the liar, that his friend, Tomas, told him that he's adopted and he'll die soon. During a party to commemorate the orphanage's opening, Laura and Simon have an argument that leads to her slapping him. Later, Simon disappears, and while searching for him, Laura encounters a kid wearing a mask who locks her in the bathroom. After the others let her out, they search everywhere but find no sign of Simon. Six months later, he's still missing, but while the police believe he may have been kidnapped, Laura grows to believe that an otherworldly force is at work, one tied to a horrific crime that was committed shortly after her adoption.

The Orphanage was the brainchild of Sergio G. Sanchez. He first wrote the screenplay in 1996 and planned to make it his directorial debut, but no Spanish production company was interested in getting behind the project if someone untested was the director. In the early 2000's, Sanchez was directing various short films, like 7337 and Temporada baja, when he met Juan Antonio Garcia Bayona, who directed a number of short films himself, as well as some music videos. He gave Bayona the script, asking if he wanted to direct it, and when he read it, Bayona said yes immediately. After tinkering with the script, Bayona, realizing he needed more of a budget than he had, called Guillermo del Toro, whom he'd been friends with since the early 90's, when he met him at a film festival where he was screening Cronos. Being a very loyal person, del Toro immediately agreed to help with the film, producing it and getting the budget up to a still small but more manageable $4 million. It paid off, as the film not only got rave reviews but made over $78 million worldwide, ensuring both Bayona and Sanchez's careers, especially Bayona's. The two of them collaborated again on the 2012 film, The Impossible, starring Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, and Tom Holland (his first film), and Bayona went on to direct 2016's A Monster Calls, scored a major hit with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and directed episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Laura Garcia Rodriguez (Belen Rueda) had such fond memories of her early childhood at the Good Shepherd Orphanage that she decided to turn it into a place for disabled children in order to live there again in her adulthood. At the beginning of the movie, in the days leading up to the opening, she's fairly happy with her life, which also includes her husband Carlos and adopted son Simon, even if Simon can be a bit of a handful, particularly with his imaginary friends. Though Laura is a little unsure about it, Carlos tells her it's only natural, since he's alone and bored all the time, and that he'll grow out of it once the kids arrive. But Laura's life slowly begins to unravel, first when Benigna Escobedo arrives at the orphanage with a copy of Simon's file, containing information that he's unaware of and which she would like to discuss with him personally, and is then caught prowling around the property that night. Then, she learns that Simon's imaginary friends have not only grown to include six but he claims that, like them, he will never grow up. She's especially disturbed when the two of them play a "treasure hunting" game he says his friends taught him and it leads him to unlock the drawer containing his file. Moreover, he claims that one of his friends, Tomas, told him that she's lied to him about being his mother, as well as that he has a fatal illness. Even worse, on the day of a party to commemorate the orphanage's opening, Laura and Simon get into a fight that leads to her slapping him, a move she would come to regret. While searching for Simon later on when he doesn't join the party, Laura sees a child wearing a sack over his head that she initially thinks is him. But when she tries to remove the sack, he pushes her into the bathroom, slams the door, breaking one of her fingers, and locks her in. Later, when the adults let her out, they search the property for Simon, with Laura then frantically rushing to the seaside. Thinking he could be in the cave where he said he first met Tomas, she runs for it, even though the tide is coming in, and is so frantic in that she breaks her right leg. She sees a small figure in the cave and is sure it's Simon, but Carlos doesn't see anyone, nor do the police when they later search it. She also learns there is no social worker named Benigna Escobedo, and it's believed she may have abducted Simon. That night, while confined to a wheelchair, Laura has to deal with both Simon's disappearance and the notion that others aren't likely to trust her with their kids now. She's awakened in the middle of the night after having a strange dream and hears unsettling rumbling, creaking, and crashing sounds in the walls but is unable to find their source.

Six months later, with still no sign of Simon, Laura is beginning to wonder if his imaginary friends were more than just make-believe. She's also sure that, wherever he is, he isn't dead and that she'll find him. An unexpected break comes when she and Carlos come across Benigna, only to inadvertently cause her to get hit by a vehicle in the middle of a street. In the ensuing police investigation, Laura learns that Benigna worked at the orphanage during the time she lived there and

that she had a deformed child named Tomas, who was kept separate from everyone else. Shortly after Laura's adoption, Tomas died when a trick the other orphans played on him backfired horribly. When she's shown a picture of Tomas, who wore a sack over his head, Laura knows he was the child she saw. She also begins to sense an otherworldly presence at work in her home, and once nine months have passed since Simon's disappearance, she talks with a parapsychologist, Prof. Leo

Balaban, who, in turn, contacts a medium named Aurora, who performs a seance at the orphanage. During the seance, Laura is horrified when Aurora claims to see the orphans' spirits yelling in pain and crying for help, saying that someone is trying to kill them. Moreover, she and the others can actually hear the sound of the children over the audio equipment set up in the house. Though Aurora doesn't find Simon, she tells Laura that those who are close to death themselves, i.e. someone with a disease like Simon's, is able to

see ghosts (though why Laura was able to see Tomas that one time, if that's the case, is never explained). Though Carlos believes the whole thing is a farce and tries to get Laura to leave the house, she refuses to give up searching for Simon. She tells Carlos he can go if he wants but, no matter what, she wants to find Simon. The ghostly children then leave her a trail of clues that results in her discovering their remains in the coal shed, explaining what Benigna was doing there: attempting to remove them, as she poisoned the children out of revenge for their prank leading to Tomas' death. Figuring that the children are playing with both her and Simon, Laura decides to remain at the orphanage by herself for several days in order to play their game, hoping it will lead to Simon. It does, but not in the way she imagined or wanted.

Simon (Roger Princep) is a rather precocious and imaginative child, and his parents, especially Laura, find the way he insists his imaginary friends are real to be a bit trying, but on the whole, they have a good relationship. Laura is especially close to him, as she often does things to satisfy his child-like wonder, such as reflect a light with a small mirror to make it seem as though the nearby lighthouse projects an invisible light from time to time, as well as make up stories on the spot using several elements he comes up with. But, things start to change when the two of them go to the seashore one day and Simon claims to have made a new friend inside a cave. When Laura says this new friend can come to the house and play with him, Simon leaves a trail of seashells behind so he can find his way there. Soon, he claims to have made six new friends and draws pictures of them, including one with a sack-like mask over his head. He also says they can't grow up, and he's going to end up like them. Things really fall apart when Simon shows Laura how to play a game where you follow clues in order to find a "treasure" of yours that's missing in order to get a wish. After following the clues to the drawer containing the file Benigna Escobedo brought there, they get into an argument where Simon tells her that his one friend, Tomas, has told him he's adopted and that he's going to die. He also calls Laura a liar, forcing both her and Carlos to sit him down and try to explain things as best as they can. He denies having set the whole thing up, and is also curious as to what would happen if he didn't take his pills. Though Carlos assures him that he wouldn't die for a long time without his medication, this doesn't assuage the feeling of betrayal Simon has, as he can be heard muttering that Laura lied to him in the next scene. Things reach a boiling point when Simon refuses to come down for the orphanage's opening party, insisting that Laura come see Tomas' "little house" first. They have an argument that leads to him flipping a tray out of her hands and she smacks him across the face in retaliation, before heading downstairs. After that, Simon disappears completely, and Laura spends the rest of the movie searching for him, convinced that his "imaginary friends" have him hidden somewhere.

Laura's husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), is a much more logical-thinking person than his wife. While she thinks it may not be a good idea for Simon to have imaginary friends, Carlos says it's only natural, since he has no other children to play with and it'll change once the orphanage reopens. Like Laura, he's hit hard by Simon's disappearance and creates a massive bulletin board in his office, full of possible leads as to where he might be, but he's not prepared to believe that the imaginary friends are real and took him, let alone that they're ghosts. Following the seance at the orphanage and what Aurora tells Laura about how Simon was able to see the children's spirits because he's close to death, Carlos decides he's had enough and makes them leave. Later, he confronts Laura about what happened, saying he believes the voices they heard over the audio equipment were something the team's sound technician set up and that, real or not, they're more concerned about contacting the dead than finding Simon. He suggests they leave the house, at least for a little while, and that they'll be able to move on from losing Simon, like so many other couples. Even after Laura finds a trail of clues that lead her to the children's remains in the coal shed, Carlos still refuses to believe in anything supernatural. He also says he's not going to stay there any longer and doesn't want to leave Laura alone, but she convinces him to do so for just two days so she can "say goodbye."

Another person who shares Carlos' logical viewpoint is Pilar (Mabel Rivera), a police psychologist who's brought in when Simon first disappears. Knowing that Simon is adopted, she believes he may have been abducted by a blood relative, and she also begins a search for Benigna Escobedo, having discovered that, whoever she is, she isn't a social worker. Following Benigna's sudden and accidental death, Pilar gives Laura what they found at her house: a number of photographs and Super 8 films confirming her connection to the orphanage. She also tells Laura what they learned about Benigna's deformed child, Tomas. But, again, she has no time for talk of ghosts. She doesn't believe that Laura saw anyone in the cave and, despite her insistence that she saw Tomas at the party, Pilar says no one else did. She does attend the seance but, when it's over, agrees with Carlos that the whole thing is a set-up, adding that the parapsychologists will eventually ask for money. In turn, Laura brings up how the police have not turned up anything about Simon in the nine months since he disappeared, adding, "How many similar cases have you had in this damned village?! Get another distraction. I didn't invite you here." Pilar is never seen again after that.

Though her screentime is very limited, Benigna Escobedo (Montserrat Carulla) proves to be a very significant character, as she's one of the catalysts of the story. When she first appears at the orphanage, claiming to be a social worker, she seems okay, if a bit mysterious. However, Laura doesn't appreciate her suddenly showing up and prying into the business of Simon's adoption and illness, prompting her to ask her to leave immediately. Then, that night, Laura catches her snooping

around the coal shed, after which she quickly flees the scene. When Simon first disappears, the revelation that Benigna isn't a social worker makes her a suspect, but the police never find her or Simon. In fact, it's Laura and Carlos who unintentionally come across her again six months later, when she crosses in front of their car in the middle of the street, pushing a stroller. Recognizing her, Laura calls out her name, distracting her and leading to her getting run over.as she stands in the street (by an ambulance, no less). After the crash, Laura finds that what was in the stroller was actually a doll made up to look like the boy with the sack over his head, and Benigna doesn't die right away, as she grabs Laura's hand as she lays on the ground before expiring. Later, the police discover evidence that she once worked at the orphanage, including Super 8 films showing her there as a younger woman (Carol Suarez), along with her deformed son, Tomas, revealed to be the boy Laura saw when Simon disappeared. Near the end of the movie, Laura figures that, because the orphans pulled a prank that led to Tomas' death, Benigna poisoned them out of revenge, then hid their bodies in the coal shed, where they're later found and why she showed up at the house to begin with, to get rid of the evidence.

Following a scene where Laura feels and senses someone in the bed next to her, only to realize that Carlos was in the bathroom the whole time, she decides to seek help from those who study paranormal phenomena. She goes to parapsychologist Leo Balaban (Edgar Vivar), telling him what's happened and showing him a piece of cloth she ripped off of Tomas when he pushed her into the bathroom. Balaban then contacts Aurora (Geraldine Chaplin), a medium he

trusts, and they, along with their sound technician, Enrique (Andres Gertrudix), investigate the orphanage. Using an old doll that's been in the building for a long time, along with hypnotic suggestion provided by Balaban, Aurora is able to begin the seance and wanders into the orphans' old bedroom. There, she sees their spirits crying for help, saying they were poisoned, although she's unable to see if Simon is among them. Afterward, she explains that tragic events can leave traces of themselves in the environment, describing it as, "A

wound that acts as a knot between two time lines. It's like an echo that's repeated over and over, waiting to be heard. Like a scar or a pinch that begs for a caress to relieve it." Aurora then pulls up her left sleeve to reveal that her arm is badly diseased, with a blackness to the skin and nasty growths, telling Laura how those who are close to death, "Are more receptive to these messages." Although Carlos declares it all a fraud and throws the team out, before they leave, Laura talks with Aurora once more. She tells her, "You are a good mother. Your pain gives you strength. It will guide you. But only you know how far you are willing to go to find your son... You hear, but don't listen. Seeing is not believing. It's the other way around. Believe, and you will see."

I know I've talked about this numerous times but, just look at these screencaps and tell me that The Orphanage isn't a prime example of that washed out, digital look many movies adopted in the mid-to-late 2000's. It especially reminds me of the bleach bypass process look of the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with just a little bit more color. Even the exterior daytime scenes that are set on sunny days, be they on the orphanage's grounds or at the seaside, look quite desaturated, and there are a number of scenes inside the building and

other interiors that come off as either sepia-toned or almost black-and-white. However, this is an instance where the description is a compliment rather than a complaint, as it fits with this story, especially in how stark the contrasts are, with the blacks and shadows being quite deep and murky. I especially like the use of night-vision for the images on the video monitors during the seance, which is how we see the whole thing unfold, as Aurora goes from room to room. The pale green-and-black look to it, as well as her glowing eyes,

make the whole thing come off as very ghostly. The same goes for the scratchy Super 8 films we see of both Benigna when she was younger and also of Tomas when he was alive; it has an eerie, otherworldly vibe to it, as if you are looking at ghosts since they're both dead by that point. The movie is also generally shot very well, as J.A. Bayona had his cinematographer, Oscar Faura, watch similar movies such as 1969's The House That Screamed, or La residencia, and especially The Innocents for inspiration, particularly for how

they were effectively shot in Scope. Indeed, the movie is shot in a very wide manner, as demonstrated in the opening scene where we see young Laura playing a game with her friends, who slowly move in from the left side of the screen. It gives the settings a sense of both width and depth, and allows for some notable moments where you get a distant glimpse of someone, like when you see Tomas at the end of the hallway when Laura is looking for Simon and when she later sees Simon

in the seaside cave. The camerawork itself is mostly simple and to the point, although there are nice flourishes of it here and there, such as overhead shots and a moment where it whirls around and around Laura. A particularly great use of it is at the beginning of the climax, where Laura tries to draw out the orphans' spirits with the game they played when they were kids. The camera focuses on her as she knocks on the wall, pans over when she looks behind her, then pans back when she turns around and knocks again. Each time, the orphans have moved closer to her, and when they're almost on top of her, it pans around to her face and we see one of them touch her shoulder from behind.

All of the film's location work was done in the municipality of Llanes, Asturias in Spain, as it had a number of different environments the filmmakers were eager to use. That's where the beach scenes were shot, which are really beautiful, as the beaches are wide and expansive, particularly at low-tide, there are seaside cliffs nearby, with a lighthouse sitting atop one, and caves along the shore. They did shoot in actual caves for the scene where Simon first meets Tomas and, as you can see, they look very cool, although they weren't as

wide as you would think from these shots. Because the story takes place over the course of many months, you get to see how this place looks and feels in many different seasons, going from the warm summer in the beach scenes to shots of the nearby forests and small village covered in snow after six months have passed. The most significant location they shot at was the Partarriu Manor, which stood in for the exteriors for the orphanage, as well as some of the interiors. Most of the latter, though, were shot at studios in Barcelona, but it

doesn't matter, as the sets for the orphanage's interiors are very well done, like the big sitting room with the fireplace, piano, and chairs around a coffee table; the large foyer with a chandelier and stained glass above and around the front door; the nice-looking dining room where Laura sets a traditional table in order to draw out the spirits; the wide second floor landing; the small and almost completely white bathroom; a little chapel; Simon's room, as well as Laura and Carlos' own; another

room where the orphans' beds are housed; and a closet underneath the stairway containing a secret door that hides some steps leading down into a basement area full of all sorts of children's drawings, photographs, and other significant items. Significantly, this is where Tomas was kept isolated from the others, as well as where Laura finds Simon near the end of the movie. Also important is the coal shed on the property, where Laura finds their powdered remains contained in bags hidden in locked compartments in the back of the building.

While the film is likely set in the year it was released, both the main story and the opening with young Laura are presented in such a timeless fashion that they both could easily be taking place in any period. We only see very brief glimpses of the orphanage when Laura was a young girl, which is meant to be set in the 1970's, but the clothes they wear suggest it may actually be taking place decades before, while the phone we see the manager pick up and the Super 8 films of Benigna's time there do indeed allude to it being

set some time after the mid-60's. As for the main narrative, if it weren't for the more modern-looking settings we get, like the hospital and the police station, the contemporary vehicles, and the sophisticated surveillance and audio technology the parapsychologists use in their investigation, you could easily think it was set some time in the past as well, as so much of it takes place at the orphanage, which is as old-fashioned as it's always been, with the only modern technology being the computers and television sets in Carlos' office.

Even though Guillermo del Toro was only involved with it in a rudimentary capacity, The Orphanage does feel like it could've been directed by him, as it has that mix of childlike fantasy and serious horror that he does so well. In fact, it feels like a relative of his film, The Devil's Backbone, which was also a child-centered ghost story set in a Spanish orphanage. While that movie is much darker and harder hitting than The Orphanage, a young child is still at the center of the story and it also features a ghostly child who, at first, seems like a threat but

is actually a tragic character and quite benevolent. Both movies also deal with the notion that childhood isn't as magical and innocent as it seems. In this case, you do have that wonder about it at the beginning, with Simon's imaginary friends, Laura reflecting light at a window to make it seem as though the abandoned lighthouse is giving off invisible beams, Simon dressing up as a superhero at one point, the stories and fairy tales he and Laura make up, and just the innocence of him exploring his world, like the orphanage, the beach,

and the seaside cave. But then, the serious issues of his adoption and his being HIV positive come up, with Simon learning about it through his "new friends" and feeling betrayed by his parents, culminating with the argument where Laura slaps him out of frustration and his subsequent disappearance. Later, you have the horrific matter of child death, first when you learn that a prank the other orphans played on Tomas accidentally led to his death and the revelation that Benigna poisoned

them out of revenge, then hid their remains in the coal shed. Of course, you also have the adult fear of a child going missing and being unable to find any trace of them, to the point where you have to deal with the likelihood that you're not going to find them alive. And yet, because the ghosts are children themselves, the movie is able to keep that childish feel for virtually the duration, as they manifest themselves through games, such as the

treasure hunt game that leads Simon to his adoption file and Laura to their remains in the coal shed, and when Laura makes them appear during the climax through the Red Light-like game they played when she was just a child. Finally, there's that fascination with the darker side of fairy tales that's often seen in del Toro's work, as the story of Peter Pan, which Simon is seen reading early on and is the center of a conversation the two of them have, proves to be thematically significant to the film, particularly its ending, when you hearken back to said conversation.

Another link between The Orphanage and The Devil's Backbone is how the former explores a question that is explicitly stated in the latter: "What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself, time and again?" (It's also interesting to note that the first question is explicitly asked here by Prof. Balaban.) In other words, it's that notion of, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it," and that does happen here in that Laura, like how Benigna before her tried to keep her deformed son hidden, tries to hide away Simon's adoption and

illness (I personally think this is one of the reasons why Tomas attacks Laura when she first encounters him). Shortly after he discovers the truth, he disappears, much like Tomas did, and as Benigna blamed the orphans for Tomas' death when they were alive, Laura comes to believe their spirits have taken Simon. Also, like how Tomas died in a dark, lonely seaside cave, refusing to come out because the mask he had been forced to where was taken by the other children, Simon's ultimate fate, revealed during the climax, is an indirect result of his mother's actions. And finally, Laura's plan to reopen the orphanage for disabled children, like the friends she had there as a child, is what stirs up the spirits and leads to the story's events to begin with.

I'll say right now that, while there are some creepy moments here, for sure, and I'll go into them presently, I've never thought The Orphanage was all that scary or even that unique of a movie. I do appreciate how J.A. Bayona never goes for cheap jump-scares and tries to keep it more about atmosphere and mood, but some of the moments he goes for, like when Laura hears strange noises in the night or when she thinks Carlos is in bed next to her, only to realize he was in the bathroom, employ tropes that I've seen used in numerous

other movies. The latter, in particular, makes me think of a scene in The Haunting, so I had a feeling where it was going. Speaking of which, while I do like the movie, I can't deny that, for the most part, it doesn't stand out that much from other haunted house movies. Not only does it bring to mind movies like The Haunting and The Innocents, as well as The Devil's Backbone and even The Others, with Nicole Kidman, but Sergio G. Sanchez has said that one of his inspirations was Poltergeist,

which you can see in the plot-point of a child apparently being abducted by ghosts, a team of paranormal researchers being called in to investigate afterward, and one of the parents ultimately having to go to "the other side" to retrieve them. And while his look, both when he's wearing his mask and when you see his actual face, is certainly eerie, I've seen scarier apparitions in movies than Tomas (like Santi in The Devil's Backbone, for instance). I also have some misgivings about his deformed face, which I'll go into later.

Speaking of Tomas (Oscar Casas), he initially seems like an evil spirit, given how he told Simon about his adoption and illness, as well as how freaky Laura's encounter with him is while she's looking for Simon. As he approaches her from down the hall while she's standing in the bathroom's doorway, he sways in an odd manner, and appears to be sniffing through his mask. She approaches him, thinking he's Simon, and he sniffs her hand, like how an animal would. But when she attempts to remove his mask, he screams, shoves

her backwards into the bathroom, and locks her in. Months later, as they're desperately trying to find Simon, they uncover Tomas' backstory, and as we're told it by Pilar, we see Benigna's Super 8 films of her son, who wore the mask due to a facial deformity and was kept isolated from the other children. In these films, Tomas goes from being a creepy figure to actually being sad and tragic, as it seems as though he was a rather friendly child but his mother acted as though he was a dirty little

secret she needed to keep hidden away from everybody, as you see him waving at the camera from a doorway, only to be forced back into the building. Then, worst of all, while the kids were at the beach one day, shortly after Laura's adoption, they tricked Tomas into going into one of the seaside caves, took his mask off, and ran outside with it, to see if he would show his face. He never came out, and drowned when the tide came in. We then see footage of him without his mask while 

he's sitting at a desk, down in the basement area, where he was kept isolated from the others. Not only are all these images creepy in and of themselves because of the aforementioned ghostly manner that Super 8 film has about it but, when you do see his actual face, you feel especially sorry for Tomas.

You don't learn much about the other orphans, who were Laura's friends when she was a child, aside from their names: Martin (Carla Gordillo), Rita (Georgina Avellaneda), Victor (Alejandro Camps), who seemed to be the oldest, Guillermo (Oscar Lara), whose name, I'm sure, was a tribute to del Toro, and Alicia (Carmen Lopez), who was blind and whose actor actually had a degenerative eye condition. But they do seem to have been perfectly innocent and well-meaning, and didn't mean for Tomas to suffer such a horrible fate when they

played their little trick on him. Their horrific death at Benigna's hands, which was never uncovered until Laura discovered their remains, is just as tragic, and as creepy as they can be be the few times you see them, they do ultimately help Laura find Simon. Just as the orphanage's principal predicted at the beginning, they did miss Laura after she was adopted, and her reunion with them at the end makes the whole thing especially bittersweet.

Another thing this movie has in common with del Toro's films is how, while not a gorefest, it certainly uses instances of gory violence and grisly makeup effects to make a point. Examples include the wince-inducing sight of Laura's smashed finger after Tomas slams the bathroom door on her hand and she pulls off her cracked fingernail (things like that really get to me, as I slammed my pinky finger in a car door when I was just eight), her badly fracturing her right leg when running through the surf, the hideous sight of Benigna's ripped open

mouth after she gets run over, the bits of bone Laura finds among the ashes in the coal shed, and a decayed body that plays into the story's climax. As for Tomas' deformed face, which you see in the Super 8 films and at the end, while it's certainly hideous, it looks a bit too over-the-top for me, like something you'd see out of the 2000's Hills Have Eyes movies, and doesn't feel like a child to me, even if the actor actually was. More effective is the bit of makeup used to make Aurora's one arm look

diseased. Finally, the few instance of visual effects work I noticed, aside from the opening credits sequence, are when Laura uses a reflection of light to make it look as though the nearby lighthouse still works and in wide shots of the landscape, where you see gathering storms in the distance: simple but effective.

Among the genuinely creepy moments here is the scene where Simon first meets Tomas in the seaside cave. After he walks in there, he appears to sense a presence and yells, "Hello?", a few times. Some time later, Laura, who's been out on the beach, collecting seashells, notices that Simon has been gone for a while and goes into the cave, looking for him. As she walks through it, she hears Simon whispering and finds him looking around a corner, apparently talking to someone. She tells him it's time to go and Simon waves "bye" around

the corner. He then asks his mother if the person he was talking to can come to the house and play with him. Laura, naturally, dismisses it as just another imaginary friend and says it's fine, although she does look around the corner and illuminate it with her flashlight; she sees nothing but Simon's footprints in the mud. Simon then leaves a trail of seashells leading to the orphanage so his new friend can find his way there. Just a few days later, Laura opens the front door to find the seashells

have been collected and left on the doorstep. As she looks out at them, you see a door in the house shut by itself, while a wind vane in the yard moves slightly, seemingly indicating that a new presence has made its way inside. Not long after that is when Simon starts talking about how he knows he's never going to grow up, just like his friends, and Laura finds a drawing he did of them, including Tomas in his mask. Tomas makes his first appearance at the party Laura and Carlos throw for the orphanage's opening, and, like I said, while I've

certainly seen scarier ghosts in movies, his look is unnerving, with that old-fashioned, blue uniform and the scarecrow-like sack mask. Following that is when Laura encounters him while searching for Simon and gets locked in the bathroom, only getting out when the others find her.

That night, when she's finally fallen asleep after the ordeal with Simon disappearing, Laura has a bizarre dream where she's swimming around in a black void, then swings her head around when she hears a shrill, high-pitched sound, akin to a whistle. She awakens with a start, makes her way out of her room in a wheelchair, and rolls across the second floor landing, when she hears a clatter above her and then some creaking sounds up in the walls. Calling for Carlos, she wheels herself over to the

wall to her left and puts her ear to it, only to hear a loud bang on the other side. Horrified by this, she screams for Carlos, who comes up the stairs. She opens the double-doors there and wheels herself inside the closet but finds nothing, save for a doll underneath a blanket on one of the orphans' old beds. The film then cuts to a shot the next day, where a door at the end of a hallway opens by itself, before shutting just as suddenly. And while, again, I did predict where the scene with Laura

lying in bed, thinking Carlos is lying next to her, was going, I do think it's set up and executed nicely. Laura's trying to sleep while looking at the door, waiting for Carlos to come to bed. She hears some creaking that sounds like him approaching and turns over, facing away from the door. We see it open from over her shoulder, followed by close-ups of the blanket rustling and something crawling underneath it. Following a long moment where she reminisces about whey they first adopted Simon and how they loved him, despite how slim his

chances for survival were, she notices that light is illuminating under the bathroom door across from the bed. She also sees a shadow moving on the other side and tells "Carlos" that someone is in there, only for Carlos himself to emerge. She throws back the blanket and finds that whoever was lying next to her is gone. Though Carlos insists he just got up, Laura is sure someone else was in bed with her.

For me, the most genuinely spooky scene is the seance Aurora holds inside the orphanage. It starts out with some already eerie, night-vision shots of the place's interior, seen through the control center's monitors, and truly begins when Prof. Balaban helps facilitate Aurora's trance as she sits in one of the rooms. Once she's under, she comments that it's freezing in there and slowly makes her way out onto the second floor landing, saying she hears someone. She's drawn to Laura

and Carlos' bedroom, only to lose the sound, but when she starts to head back out, she begins to hear something again. The others notice that the audio equipment is beginning to pick up something, while Aurora says she hears the sound of children calling. She heads to the orphans' old bedroom, as the sounds of children being recorded become more and more pronounced. She finds she can't open the door and asks that whoever is on the other side let her in. At that moment, it becomes clear

that the sounds are of children crying and wailing in pain, telling Aurora they're sick. When Aurora opens the door, she has a horrified expression on her face, while the sound becomes utterly nightmarish, like something out of the depths of hell. She asks them what's happened, while Enrique zooms out the camera in there so as to see the whole room. Though nothing appears on the monitors, when Balaban asks Aurora to describe what she sees, she says she sees five children who are sick and crying, saying they've been poisoned.

The sounds become all the more pained and frantic, with one saying that someone is going to kill them. But when Aurora asks if Simon is among them, the video monitors all break up into static, while the sound continues. Balaban decides to bring Aurora out of the trance and when he does, the monitors return to normal, revealing she's back in the room she began in.

Following the seance and the aftermath, Laura attempts to make contact with the orphans' spirits, asking them to show themselves. When she says this, a window behind her suddenly falls and smashes, startling her. Turning around, she notices a settee beneath it and feels compelled to remove the cushion and the lid. Beneath the lid, she finds a row of small, wooden boards with the orphans' names written on them, and when she removes them, she finds a doll designed after each of them. Remembering the doll she found the night of

Simon's disappearance, she takes it, places it among them, and realizes it was meant to represent her. She then notices something underneath one of the dolls and pulls it out to find it's a picture of her and Simon from her album. Realizing the orphans are playing with her just as they did with him, a feeling that's confirmed when she hears the creaking sound up above her, as well as by an exterior shot of that wind vane slowly moving again, she pulls out her album and flips to the page the picture was originally. She finds an old rose

there, leading her to the rose bush outside. Stuck in the bush is a piece of a quilt she was knitting, and when she goes back in and finds a wrapper for the first ice cream Simon had following his tonsillectomy, which he himself showed her during the first treasure hunt they did together. She goes to the box that contained it and she finds a door knob inside. She then roams the house, trying to find a door or drawer missing its knob, but when she doesn't find anything, she goes out to the coal  

shed. While she doesn't find anything the knob fits to out there either, she does find a brooch that Benigna Escobedo left behind when she was snooping around the shed. Finding it underneath some sacks stacked in front of some compartments in the back, Laura removes some of them to get at one of the doors. Realizing it has a padlock, she tries to break the lock with a shovel, then jams the spade into the door's upper edge to force it open. When that doesn't work either, she simply smashes  

the wood with her foot, removes some bricks inside, then lights up a lantern and illuminates the inside to find several bags in the back. She crawls in, pulls them all out, only for the last one to rip open as she does so. At first, it seems like the bag was full of just ash and dust, but she spots something amongst it and picks it up. Brushing it down and examining it, she realizes it's a human jawbone. Dropping it out of horror, she then opens up the other sacks and dumps out the contents to find more human remains, as well as items she realizes belonged to her friends, leading to the revelation that Benigna murdered them.

The climax begins when Laura has Carlos leave her alone at the orphanage for two days so she can finally learn what happened to Simon. Once she's by herself, she gets to work, restoring the place to make it look as it did back when she was an orphan there: she moves the orphans' beds back to the room they originally occupied, washes their sheets, puts up a scarecrow that was in the yard at the time, gets rid of anything modern, and dresses in one of the old principal uniforms. She also takes several pills in order to bring herself closer to death

and allow her to see the spirits, as well as keeps the door knob on her to finally learn its meaning. With everything in place, she rings the outside bell, which echoes throughout the house, and is then seen sitting at the end of the dining room table, which is full of sweets and clean silverware, with each of the dolls sitting at it. But when this doesn't provoke a response from the spirits, Laura becomes frustrated, wondering what else she has to do. Frantic, she makes a deal with them: she'll keep playing with them if they lead her to Simon. She

goes into the sitting room and begins playing the Red Light-like game where she counts to three, knocks on the wall, then turns around and looks behind her. The first three times, nothing happens, but as she starts the fourth time, she hears something behind her. This leads into where she knocks, says the lyric, then turns around, and each time she does, the orphans are approaching her from the dining room's doorway. Eventually, it gets to the point where she's tagged on the shoulder by

one of them and she then chases after them as they scatter. Running into the foyer, she follows one of the orphans through a door underneath the stairs and digs through the junk she finds in there. As she does, the door closes behind her. She opens it back up, looks around outside, then goes back to searching the closet, when the door slowly closes again and is then slammed shut by one of the orphans. Now trapped, she turns on the overhead light and searches for another way out, when she 

finds a hollow spot on the wall behind some construction equipment. Moving it, she feels around and finds a spot where a door knob is supposed to go. She pulls out the knob she found before and finds it's a perfect fit. She attaches it and uses it to open a secret door, behind which are some stairs leading down into the dark.

Laura slowly makes her way down the stairs to the bottom, as a figure runs by in the darkness. Finding a light switch at the bottom, she flicks it and the light flashes on and off a few times, revealing Tomas in the dark behind her, before finally coming on and staying on. When it does, she realizes she's in Tomas' isolated room, seen in the Super 8 film footage, and finds numerous drawings, pictures, and other trinkets, many with the orphans' names signed to them. Hearing something behind her, she turns and walks towards

a spot in the back with a curtain draped in front of a small space. Pulling it back, she sees a figure on the ground, wrapped in a blanket. She calls Simon's name and, sure enough, it does turn out to be him. Overjoyed, Laura embraces him, kisses his hands, noting how cold he is, and tells him that everything's going to be fine. Hearing loud noises upstairs, followed by the sounds of kids laughing, as well as running down the stairs, Simon tells Laura, "Stay and play with us." She picks him up and runs to the stairs, but instead of climbing

them, she tells Simon to imagine that it's just the two of them there, about his father, about next Christmas, about when he grows up, etc. The sounds grow louder and get closer, and she adds, "And believe, just for a moment, that Tomas and the other children aren't real. This is a fantasy, my darling. Like a nightmare. Do it for me, Simon. When you open your eyes, make them go away." She closes her eyes, saying, "Please," again and again, and then, just when she can't squint any

harder, the sound stops and it grows dark again. She opens her eyes and looks around, telling Simon to keep his eyes closed and to keep playing with her. She slowly lets go of the blanket wrapped around the bundle in her arms, only for it to slip out of her hands, revealing nothing. She looks around and glances behind her to see the stairs' handrail broken, with a figure lying on the floor below it, wearing Tomas' mask. As she walks toward it, she remembers when Simon asked her to

see Tomas' little house, as well as when, as she was looking for Simon when he first disappeared, she opened the door beneath the stairs, some construction equipment tumbled out, and she tossed it back in, up against the wall in the back. She also remembers when she heard that loud bang on the other side of the wall upstairs. Getting down on her knees, she removes the mask and lets out an anguished cry, as it's revealed the figure is Simon's decaying corpse; what she'd heard that night was him falling through the railing and breaking his neck while trying to escape after she'd unintentionally trapped him behind the hidden door.

Heartbroken, Laura walks up to the orphans' room with Simon's body and sits down on the windowsill at the end, cradling him. Saying it's not fair, she takes out the bottle of pills she has on her and starts downing them one at a time. She also fiddles with a medallion she has around her neck, a St. Anthony medallion that Carlos gave her when Simon first disappeared, telling her to wear it for luck. She slowly slips away from the overdose she just gave herself and the medallion is pulled off her neck and falls onto the floor. For a few seconds, things are

eerily quiet in the orphanage, then the creaking and knocking sounds from before are heard. Laura, who's slumped over while holding Simon, sits back up and says, "I want Simon back." Suddenly, the room lights up and Laura looks out the window behind her to to see that the lighthouse is functioning again. She also sees a figure of herself as a young girl run through the lawn down below. Simon's body become weighted, his feet planting on the floor, and Laura uncovers his head to see

him alive and no longer decayed. She covers him with kisses, while he says that he found the special coins he was searching for and gets to make a wish: "I wish you'll stay and look after all of us." They look and see that five of the beds are now occupied by the orphans. Tomas enters through the door, holding his mask in his hand, and takes the blind Alicia by the hand and leads her over to Laura and Simon. Alicia runs her hands across Laura's face and tells the others that it is her. The

orphans become happy and run to her, with one of them commenting, "She's grown old, like Wendy in the story." As they gather around, Simon comes up with three elements for her to make a story out of: "The house. The beach. The lost children." She starts telling a story, as the camera pulls back to reveal the children gathered around her, listening intently.

The final scene has Carlos returning to the orphanage, where a memorial has been erected for Laura, Simon, and the orphans, including Tomas. He places some roses at the headstone, then goes inside, up to the now empty room where the orphans' beds were. He looks out the window, and is about to leave, when he finds his grandmother's St. Anthony medallion in the crease of one of the floorboards beneath his foot. He picks it up and looks at it, then looks to the double doors at the

front of the room, as they slowly open by themselves. We don't see what he sees, but he looks right off to the side of the camera and smiles very happily. Given that he told Laura to give the medallion back to him when she found Simon, we can guess what he saw that made him smile so warmly.

Like the movie itself, the music score, composed by Fernando Velazquez, who often works with J.A. Bayona, is a mixture of childlike wonder, melancholy, and terror. For instance, the opening scene with young Laura playing with the other orphans is scored in a light, airy, whimsical manner, while the opening credits sequence, featuring children's hands ripping away wallpaper, still has hints of that but is mostly scored as a more urgent, tragic sound. Similarly, while the scene at the seaside cave, where Simon first meets Tomas, has an eerie sound to it, the following one of Simon leaving behind seashells for Tomas to follow goes back to that playful, childlike side, albeit with a building sense of apprehension at the end of it. The little treasure hunt Simon and Laura have together is scored with an increasingly fast, mischievous-sounding piece, very much like something out of a kid's movie. The moment where Tomas pushes Laura into the bathroom and locks her in is when you hear the first truly tense bit of music, and it becomes increasingly sweeping when the search for Simon begins and extends down to the beach. There's a soft, eerie bit of music when Laura and Carlos spot Benigna in the village, followed by a bizarre, ringing sound that plays when she grabs Laura's hand before dying. The revelation of Benigna's past and Laura watching her Super 8 films is scored in a soft, melancholic manner, but then builds and builds to a creepy crescendo when Tomas' deformed face is revealed. Similarly, when Laura is lying in bed, talking to "Carlos," the music is soft and poignant, but builds tensely when she sees someone is in the bathroom, only for it to end rather quietly when Carlos comes out. And the seance starts out as eerie but becomes totally nightmarish, complete with eerie vocalizing, just like the audio that's recorded when Aurora goes into the orphans' old room. The discovery of their remains in the coal shed is scored in an uncomfortable manner, with low, brassy horns and eerie, whistling-like notes. The montage of Laura making the orphanage resemble how it looked when she was there as a girl is fast-paced and a little urgent, but becomes low and uncertain as the time draws near. A similar piece plays when Laura chases the orphans through the house, with an escalating one when Laura is holding Simon in her arms down in the basement. Finally, her reunion with the orphans following her death is beautiful and uplifting, while the ending credits is scored with a very touching, poignant combination of flute, strings, piano, and vocalizing that alludes to how Laura, Simon, and her childhood friends have finally been reunited and that Carlos knows that.

While there are many movies centering around ghosts and haunted houses that I like much more, The Orphanage is still a very good movie. It's well directed and shot, the story is simple and effectively told, the acting is superb all around, the settings, especially the orphanage itself, are absolutely wonderful to look at, the music score is pretty good, and much like Guillermo del Toro's own work, it effectively blends the idea of childhood and fantasy with real-world horrors,

some grisly imagery, and instances of terror, while managing to keep a childlike innocence about it the whole time. If there are any qualms I have with it, it's just that there isn't much here that I haven't seen in other movies of this type, which it takes much inspiration from, and while it is certainly creepy and effective, I can't really call it a frightening movie. Still, more than enough to recommend it.