The Orphanage

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The Orphanage ★★★ El Orfanato 2007 (R)

Laura (Rueda) returns to the orphanage of her youth with husband Carlos (Cayo) and adopted son Simon (Princep) three decades after leaving with her adoptive parents. Laura and Carlos have purchased the abandoned building with plans to establish a home for sick and disabled children. Their plans are preempted by the arrival of an imaginary playmate for Simon, which forces long-repressed frightening memories to the surface for Laura and leads to Simon's disappearance. What follows is Laura's nightmarish attempt to sort reality from haunting fantasy as she desperately tries to simultaneously find her son and cling to sanity. Well acted and well crafted, this terrifying ghost story is gripping, anxious, and truly scary, and an antidote to the torture porn that passes for horror of late. 100m/C DVD . SP Belen Rueda, Geraldine Chaplin, Mabel Rivera, Fernando Cayo, Roger Princep, Montserrat Carulla; D: Juan Antonio Bayona; W: Sergio G. Sanchez; C: Oscar Fauna; M: Fernando Velazquez.

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