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{es} El orfanato / The Orphanage [1] (Spain, 2007), directed by J.A. Bayona.

A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage for handicapped children. Before long, her son starts to communicate with an invisible new friend.

2007 was a great year for Spanish horror. There was [REC], a found-footage film in the style of The Blair Witch Project (1999), set in a zombie-infested apartment block. And then there was this elegant, classic supernatural chiller starring Belen Rueda as a mother who moves with her son into a decrepit old mansion, where the boy appears to see ghosts. But all is not what it seems in JA Bayona’s Guillermo del Toro-produced haunter. It’s a marvel of atmosphere and, like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense (1999), proves that even the most familiar genres are still capable of a shocker of a twist.

<Best Spanish Films>