One, Two, Three, Knock on the Door
It's a shame that so few films on haunted houses get made these days. Although they don't offer the torture and gore that your typical film exec craves (and believes to be box office gold), they have a charm of their own which, if played right, can make for a very fun trip to the cinema. Up-and-coming directors and writers from Spanish-speaking countries seem to prefer this type of storytelling, and are slowly becoming the champions of rattling chains and creepy cellar noises. The Others, by Alejandro Amenábar, and Pan's Labyrinth, by Guillermo Del Toro, are good examples of films that deal with a type of story the public enjoys, but rarely sees: horror fantasies moved by mystery rather than body counts. El Orfanato is the latest example to join this list (thanks again to Del Toro, who produces it). There won't be a better ghost story released this year.
Taking inspiration from The Haunting and Poltergeist, the film tells the story of a couple whose child disappears in an old orphanage, which they have just purchased and wish to convert into a school for children with special needs. Although the mother is urged by her husband and the police to move on after months of fruitless investigation, she insists that her child is still in the house. She even goes as far as hiring a medium to contact whatever spirit inhabits the place. Like Eleanor in The Haunting, the mother has a connection with the house: she lived in it before being adopted as a child. The audience discovers, alongside the main characters, each nook and crany of the old orphanage - its grounds, the cliffs nearby (and their caves), the beach, and the disused lighthouse that once shone a light on that particular desolate part of the world. This slow revelation of the house and its surroundings, together with its effect on the main characters, is one of the film's great tricks for building suspense - a form of drawing in the viewer until they feel like they know the place as well as the characters, and are as determined as the mother in solving the mystery of the disappearance.
Like all classic ghost stories, you won't see the final twist until it hits you. By then, you'll have pushed your heart down your throat a few times and discounted a thousand theories as to what the hell is going on. You may leave the cinema thinking that some of those pranks played on you weren't new, but you'll have to admit that the ones that caught you by surprise, and made you supress a scream, were well worth the ticket.