Dark, brooding, fantastic!

Rating: 9/10 (24 March 2008)

I decided to watch this movie after the reviews I had read on IMDb and boy did it not disappoint! The film starts off slowly enough, average everyday story about a close-knit, presumably well-off family who are just in the process of converting an old orphanage into their new home. However after a visit from a ghastly-looking social worker, things start taking a turn for the worse.
The acting by the lead lady (Belén Rueda) is one of the best performances in a film of this sort I have witnessed for a long time. Her natural, everyday look is comforting and her reaction to the situations she finds herself completely understandable. The husband (Fernando Cayo), although only playing a comparatively minor role, draws sympathy as someone who is troubled by his subconscious attempts to normalise what is going on around him.
This is not just a horror/thriller movie but a film about the beauty of family dynamics and what happens when something comes along that tries to disrupt them. Several reviewers claim to have cried at the end and I am not surprised.
There are no flashy special effects, just a good old-fashioned ghost story in The Sixth Sense and The Others mould. There are a few jumps here and there (including one daylight scene which must go down as one of the biggest in cinema history!!) but that is not what the film is about. There are some genuinely nightmarish scenes which will etch long in the memory.
My only quip was a period in the middle of the film when things slow down a bit too much for my own liking. There is also some ambiguity in certain scenes although perhaps this assists in surrounding the film with a certain mysticism.
Overall I can't recommend this film highly enough. Much scarier than a lot of the horror 'classics' out there and very much a slap in the face to those who say horror is dead!
Rating 9/10