A disturbing twist with a sorrowful performance from Belén Rueda can't make up for the mediocre story and lack of scares

Rating: 5/10 (13 October 2013)

I was somewhat looking forward to this film as it had great reviews from critics and audience members alike even though the trailers weren't anything special I went in watching this movie with an open mind.
The plot is a grown up orphan Laura buys her old orphanage with her husband and adopted son so she can foster orphaned disabled children but her son who after making an new imaginary friend and leading him back to the orphanage goes missing.
What really got me interested in the film is its apparent lack of cheep scares like jump scares (I'm guessing)... This is not true their are plenty of jump scares but most of them are done badly for example (this is hardly a spoiler as it happens in the first 10 minutes) Our main character Laura goes into the shed because she can her something and in the shot he see someone clearly in the background, that person then drops something and creep revealing plays as if to try and scare you and make you jump because the sound effect for the item dropping is stupidly loud and that's pretty much it but i don't understand how this is meant to be scary we know theirs someone behind her, we know she's not alone so why act like its a huge surprise when she knocks something over.
And that's the biggest problem with the film it's not scary unless you find loud noises, unrealistic gore and a child with a sack over his head (who is in every trailer and every poster for the film) scary then by all means snatch this one up on Blu-ray and turn up the surround sound so you eardrums explode every time a door, window or wall slams and enjoy.
I don't mind jump scares sometimes like they can be really inventive like the lawn mower scene from Sinister and anybody who has seen that film they know what I'm talking about but here it's just so badly done or pointless.
The film at first is a bit slow at building suspense but as it progresses it keeps you involved wanting to know what happens even if you are waiting a long time for something to happen and their are a few inventive scenes while not really scary are clever and have build up to them but the bad thing is it usually builds up to something not scary or hardly anything at all.
After an hour and 26 minutes I was just kind of hoping for it to end as nothing was really scaring me or surprising me and I thought was a bit silly then this amazing twist that I didn't expect just comes out of no where and I was still pretty annoyed that it took this long for the film to make me scared, disturbed, sad more for that matter any emotion then anger and disappointment it totally took me by surprise and made me fully invested in those 5 minuets but then is ruined by trying to make a happy ending out of it when I could not see that working because we know nothing of the orphans other then they did something really unlikeable and the adopted son is just annoying and unlikeable as he does things or finds out things about himself that he knows are clearly a big deal and covers them up as a game only for his mother to find out then blame her for not telling him these things which I know hardly makes sense because I'm trying not to put any spoilers in this review but just think about it.
The only good things I can say is the cinematography is good at establishing mood and unsettlement while looking beautiful and the acting and direction of the actors is good the best performance being of the Belén Rueda who gives it her all and is so emotional distraught by her sons disappearance and its only really because of her strong performance that the movie doesn't stop head in its tracks.
The films musical score is also good and can be creepy at times but because nothing really scary is going on in the film it's pretty much wasted and feels out of place.
This really is the most disappointing horror I've seen this year nothing at all scared me, the movie for the most part does rely on jump scares until the end, and the story has confusing characters that are hard to feel for and I'm sure their are plenty of horror film with out jump scares that are terrifying the only one I can think of at the top of my head being The Shining which created a surreal, scary world that squeezed the audience the refused to let go until the final credit. This film didn't and is hardly a horror and if you expecting to be scared out of you mind or at least creeped out a bit don't watch this, if you want to see a supernatural family drama with a good twist I guess in those standards it might be worth a watch.