The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

Did I ever mention how much I love Guillermo del Toro? I know he didn't direct the movie, but anything he is involved with is bound to be absolutely brilliant.

Anyways, this movie is in Spanish, but it makes it a lot more awesome. It is definitely your normal scary movie. It leans more towards the supernatural suspense side than straight-in-your-face horror, but those are the better types of movies.


Quick movie description:

There is a girl who lived in an orphanage for special children. She gets adopted. Years later, as an adult, she moves back into the now empty orphanage with her husband and son who doesn't know he's adopted. He is also HIV positive. Her son, Simon, is very cute yet lonely. He has imaginary friends, one name Tomas who has a sack on his head.

Is he not a doll?

One day, Simon throws a tantrum during a party, so the lady leaves him upstairs. When she comes back to get him, he has disappeared. She runs everywhere looking for him to no avail. She even opens a small room under the staircase, dropping some poles in the process, having to shove them back in, drawing stares from the guests.
Basically, a lot of scary stuff happens with ghost children and such until the end. The end is the best part.

[SPOILERS]

Tomas with his sack

In the end, (6 months later from Simon's disappearance) the ghost children lead her to the small room under the staircase. She pushes aside the poles she had shoved on a smaller door inside the room leading to a basement. Slowly, she decends into the basement only to find out that the basement room was the room of Tomas, Simon's imaginary friend. The reason Tomas wore a sack on his head was because his face was deformed. He died by drowning in a cave, came back as a ghost and befriended Simon. The woman looks for Simon and finds him wrapped in a blanket. She holds him close to her in a blanket, telling him to stop imagining about his "friends". Then, she opens her eyes to discover that the blanket is empty. She turns around and sees Simon's dead body lying behind her, his head covered by the sack that once belonged to Tomas. She realizes that she had accidentally trapped Simon in this basement while looking for him by shoving the poles onto the door. Simon had tried to escape and had fallen off the railing of the basement's staircase, breaking his neck and dying immediately. She cries and screams and begs the ghost children to reunite her with Simon. They do and Simon wakes up in her arms. The other ghost children begin to appear and they live happily together, telling stories. Finally, one day, her husband goes to her and Simon's memorial. He returns home and the movie ends as he looks up at a creaking noise and smiles gently.
END

To me, this movie was absolutely phenomenal. I was definitely scared, more because of the suspense as compared to the supernatural stuff. It is a movie I would definitely recommend watching, and not gross like The Human Centipede. The little boy who plays Simon is an absolute doll- I love his curly hair.

Don't let the fact that it is in Spanish discourage you! It's a great movie and watching it with subtitles does not take away from it at all. The Spanish makes it all the more spookier. Great movie to watch for Halloween!