El Orfanato (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007)

Bayona's directorial debut treads well-worn terrain with the story of a child's mysterious disappearance from the house that was his mother's childhood orphanage. The mother becomes progressively more obsessed with recovering her son, and open to supernatural suggestion. What follows is a refined execution of a staple horror formula, the key emotional trigger the refusal to accept the loss of a child, and the narrative impetus a chain of discoveries that all is not as it seemed.
It's beautifully shot and sharply edited, without excessive recourse to histrionics, and Belén Rueda (who also stood out in Alejandro Amenábar's Mar Adentro) as the mother makes a captivatingly driven focal point. Unfortunately, it lacks the defter surprises of Amenábar's The Others, with which it strongly shares its setting, and therefore rarely unsettles as the best in psychological horror can.

6/10