resented” by producer Guillermo del Toro, The Orphanage is a richly layered Spanish gothic horror movie directed by First-time feature director Juan Antonio Bayona and written by Sergio G. Sanchez. Thirty years after leaving an orphanage to live with foster parents, Laura (Belén Rueda) returns to the now-abandoned institution in hopes of reopening it as a home for children with special needs. She drags along husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and her own HIV positive foster son Simon (Roger Príncep’s Simón).

Filmed in the Spanish city of Llanes in the province of Asturias, The Orphanage follows Laura as she slowly but surely comes to the realization that her home just might be haunted. As soon as they arrive, strange things start happening. There are odd noises at night. Simón starts talking to a half dozen new “imaginary friends,” who may not be imaginary at all.

When Simón suddenly goes missing, Laura, distraught over the disappearance, starts hearing strange sounds within the house, and begins to consider that Simón's friends were perhaps not a figment of his imagination after all. Are the ghosts of the woman’s past exacting some form of revenge? Has her son been kidnapped? Or is she losing her mind?

Set almost entirely within the confines of the creaky house, Laura uncovers answers to a deeper mystery about the fate of other children at the orphanage. Meanwhile, a fake social worker in has shown up late one night, inexplicably to reappear much later in a mountain village, sign of Simon’s disappearance during an inauguration-day party.