THE ORPHANAGE

"Simón?"

When Laura (Rueda) buys the orphanage where she grew up she thinks that she is going to give something back and give some new children the same loving environment that she had. As she and her husband Carlos (Cayo) prepare the house for the new kids and make it a real home, their young son Simón (Príncep) starts to talk to his imaginary friends again. While Laura and Carlos know that this is just a part of growing up and his way of compensating for not having many friends, they begin to get worried when Simón starts talking about a new friend called Tomás (Casas) who says he used to live in the house.

The horror genre has been on a downward spiral in Hollywood since the turn of the decade with fans having to turn to the rest of the world but can the latest offering from Spain show Tinsel Town how to really scare people?

With Hollywood horror relying remakes, reimaginations and torture movies to find new ways to kill teenagers and young people, the whole genre is starting to stagnate. Even when Far East reinvigorates it, Hollywood responds by remaking them for a Western audience but not really recreating the same impact as the original had. Now established Foreign Hollywood directors are finding and producing horror stories from around the world to show how fear and scares should really be. Mexican fantasy and horror master Guillermo del Toro brings us a new horror vision from Spain and it is one that will terrify and stay with you for a very long time.

Director Juan Antonio Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez bring us a new horror that not only reinvigorates the genre but shows how creative it can be. The supernatural and the presence of ghosts where great trauma has taken place has been the stalwart storyline of many a horror movie but this take on the plot device is one that will terrify and enthral. Instead of the usual, teenage or young persons as victims as Hollywood so loves to do, 'The Orphanage' tells the story from the point of view an average family, one that is trying to put something back into the community but there is something in the past that doesn't want to be forgotten.

This is the story of Laura, an orphan who buys the orphanage where she grew up and planned to refurnish and reopen it. When her, her husband and her young, adopted son arrive they start to settle in but when Simón starts talking to an imaginary friend he calls Tomás, his mother starts to worry. Things get worst when on the grand opening of orphanage when Simón becomes upset and runs away. Frantic, Laura looks everywhere but it is her suspicions of his imaginary friend Tomás that leads her to thinking that he might be real something to do with what happened at the orphanage after she left. This storyline quickly become extremely creepy when Tomás actually appears and you realise that the emphasis of the story is the children, then the movie suddenly becomes all the more frightening.

The performances are superb and add to the terror of the film. Belén Rueda as Laura conveys the role of mother with great aplomb. She is the driving force of the movie, never giving up on finding her son Simón and having a complete belief that the supernatural had something to do with his disappearance. It is through her eyes we see the story play out and Rueda's performance draws you into the plot completely. Fernando Cayo is also good as Carlos, Laura's husband who has difficulty accepting the possibility that something else has happened to Simón other than him drowning in the nearby sea. There are also fine performances from Roger Príncep as Simón and Geraldine Chaplin as medium Aurora.

'The Orphanage' gives horror fans new faith in their genre they love. Extremely creepy throughout, with genuine scares, it is the story that will stay with you for a very long time. Intelligent, dramatic and downright terrifying in parts, 'The Orphanage' is a first class horror movie and one that sets a very high standard for Hollywood to emulate.