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Subtle Scares Lurk In Unsettling 'Orphanage'

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By CHRISTY LEMIRE The Associated Press

Published: January 10, 2008

Floors creak and doors slam. Hidden passages lead to secret compartments. Ratty old dolls show up out of nowhere.

Are these playful signs from the children who lived in "The Orphanage" long ago, or a harbinger of something more sinister? That's the mystery in this well-crafted if familiar haunted house story, the first feature from young Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona.

Bayona sucks us in with subtle scares, surprising understatement and naturally dramatic light. And except for one jolting scene, there's practically zero bloodshed - just good, old-fashioned suspense.

Belen Rueda is wiry and intense as Laura, a former ward of the orphanage who returns to the house 30 years later with her husband (Fernando Cayo) and their adopted son, Simon (Roger Princep). They have plans to turn the rambling home on the Spanish coast into a place for kids with special needs.

Then on the day they've planned a garden party for the children who are going to move in - a party where everyone wears slightly off-kilter masks, adding to the unsettling vibe - Simon goes missing. Six months pass. Everyone assumes the boy must be dead, and that Laura must be crazy for sensing he's still alive.

But a paranormal (Geraldine Chaplin) comes close to determining what happened to Simon, and how it may be connected to the harrowing fate of the other orphans who lived there decades ago.

"The Orphanage" may take too many twists toward the end, but where it goes is effectively frightening.

MOVIE REVIEW

The Orphanage **½

MOVIE BOARD RATING: R (disturbing content)

STARS: Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Princep, Geraldine Chaplin, Mabel Rivera

DIRECTOR: Juan Antonio Bayona

LOCATION: See movie times, Page 9, for local showtimes.

PLOT SUMMARY: A boy goes missing in an orphanage that appears to be haunted. (In Spanish with English subtitles.)

RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes

ON THE WEB: theorphanage

movie.com

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